Focusing on 21st Century Skills

Today I was fortunate enough to attend the 3rd Annual 21st Century Learners Symposium which was held at California State University, Los Angeles. The keynote speakers was Don Knezek, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education. In his speech he referred to compelling global trends in education, and described how the transformative effects of new technologies are affecting education. Most importantly, he challenged the audience, to reflect how students are acquiring and learning 21st Century Skills.

As educators, the burden is on us to prepare a generation of learners for an unknown future that is ahead of all of us. These students will be working in job with descriptions that are yet to be written. They will be solving problems that we do not know are problems yet. It is certainly a future that is global, multicultural and competitive. For most of us, the previous sentence describes our reality today. To my surprise, he described the impact of Filipino teachers on the American educational landscape as an indicator of the flattening of the teaching profession. In this case, the "flattening" metaphor is used to described the leveling of the playing field in the teaching profession where Overseas-Trained Teachers (OTTs), have an equal opportunity to compete for teaching jobs in the United States and other parts of the globe. Just like instructional technology, we are learning that it is not solely about the tools, but more about the skills that would allows us to use those tools effectively.

As we continue to professional develop in this profession, it is of utmost importance that we recognize that Globalization is not a dirty word, but a reality in which we find ourselves operating in everyday. Yet are we acquiring for ourselves and modeling these 21st Century Skills that we expect of our students? We cannot teach what we do not know. Perhaps it is awareness of this, and other shifts in paradigms that will drive us to constantly "retool" and develop adapting skills that allows us to use our experiences to effectively share with our students a glimpse of a time that is yet to come today. The future certainly does not come at the same time for everyone.

Daniel