I recently took the time to research the website created by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/. I am somewhat familiar with the purpose of this group and its initiative to better prepare students to not only succeed in classrooms of the future, but to prepare students to enter the 21st century workforce.
The web site provides lots of great resources – pages, videos clips, pictures, etc. But you have to look. It can be time consuming to look through all of the papers and files for the information you need, but the site does a good job of presenting ideas of how to teach “outside the box.”
Looking further, I was surprised that Colorado is not listed as a 21st century initiative state. After looking at the list of partner organizations, most of those companies have workforces based in Colorado. Our state prides itself on its high tech workforce and its military presence. I would have thought that Colorado would have been one of the first state of the list. I assumed that Colorado was on the list because teachers attended an inservice last year by this group. I did not realize that governor and the state department of Education are the driving force behind qualifying a state for initiative status.
Looking further, I was surprised that Colorado is not listed as a 21st century initiative state. After looking at the list of partner organizations, most of those companies have workforces based in Colorado. Our state prides itself on its high tech workforce and its military presence. I would have thought that Colorado would have been one of the first state of the list. I assumed that Colorado was on the list because teachers attended an inservice last year by this group. I did not realize that governor and the state department of Education are the driving force behind qualifying a state for initiative status.
While it is easy to think that students only learn while in the classroom, it is safe to say that just as much learning these days takes place outside the classroom as well. Students will rarely go home to hours of chores, they go home and “plug in” to the rest of the world. They are bombarded each and every day by hundreds of images, sights, and sounds of the world. Gone are the days of researching a paper or project in the bowels of the local library – using outdated encyclopedias. Students have access to the latest news, maps, and blogs of every corner of the globe. Remember when we were encouraged to write to pen pals in another country – and wait weeks for replies. Today it is possible to communicate in real time with another classroom thousands of miles away. Add a video camera and joint labs or music concerts can take place in front of a world-wide audience.
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