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ยป 21st Century Skills | Main
October 17, 2007
Global Initiatives and Digital Education for Students and Teachers
Posted by Diane Ross, Blog Team, at 1:55 PM |
21st Century Skills
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I attended a very interesting, informative and enlightening session at the T&L Conference this morning. The session was directed by three people from the Broward County, Florida School System. Included in the discussion was the Director of Technology Integration (who pointed out is in the curriculum department), the Technology Director and a Board Member.
Broward County, Florida decided to move its entire 258,000 student population into a learning environment more conducive to meeting their learning needs. 21st Century literacy skills are the new 'buzz' words for this year, as more schools and districts are being asked to ready students for a more digital workforce of the future. But, for many school districts, they don't provide the right infrastructure to schools to make efforts successful for students.
To me, the key points in this presentation were:
1- Prepare teachers through modeled delivery of instructional strategies demonstrating the appropriate use of technology for learning needs. Broward designed their own DIGITAL EDUCATION TEACHER ACADEMY in three proficiency levels that gives teachers master's level college credit and pays for the class that is delivered through a college campus.
2-Engage students in their learning by using comfortable means of taking in and demonstrating their learning (pod casts, video streaming, etc).
3-Allocate the money to buy the technology and oversee that technology from a district's perspective. This district created grants (really budgets) for schools to purchase the equipment and to receive professional development.
4-Align the needs of schools with teacher prep. programs so that colleges are producing 'digital ready' teachers upon graduation. This alignment occurs through the partnership between the school district and the college that delivers the professional development (and teacher prep).
IF there is a secret ingredient to the success of this type reform, it is moving the entire district toward project-based learning. IT was evidenced through the presentation that students were subjected to critical thinking skills and higher order learning. They learned more and more deeply.
The presentation is posted on the T&L site.
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