Thank you, Will Richardson, for finally putting this out there!
URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First
Which leads to the second question which is how in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? The more I listened, the less I heard in terms of how we make the teaching profession as a whole even capable of teaching these “skills” to kids. Sure, there were mentions of upgrading teacher preparation programs and giving teachers additional time in the school day to collaborate, etc. But the URGENCY was all around the kids. Shouldn’t the URGENCY be all about the teachers right now?
THIS is exactly the reason I did my View of 21st Century Learner’s video.
We cannot expect teachers, administrators, school boards to support a practice that is not in their ken. Until we get people in THOSE positions that speak lolcat, we are just going to continue to be locked in Cuban’s world.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:25 AM
I read the blog and think that he is right on. We do need to do something witht the education of educators. I don’t think my education had anything to do with teaching. It was all about how to get Kera paperwork done. Professional Developments on how to create a learning atmosphere and the technology that is available to help us. He also commented that he thought he would get a lot of negative feedback on what he said, but I don’t think so. What he says makes sense and it is time we stopped sugar coating the problem and say it like it is: Educators need technololgy and learning training. We need to learn how to teach to different learners.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:34 PM
There is absolutely no way we can expect students to exhibit 21st century skills in the activities we create unless we model those skills and know how to implement them in our instruction. It is imperative to learn these skills to create better learning environments for our students and reach a different breed of learners in today’s world.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:25 PM
I read Will’s post along with all the comments and I do agree with most everything that was stated. I did have to wonder why he went off on a tagent about the environment. I know that is definitely a 21st century concern. I guess that’s the point.
I think about the video Nate made and I see even more of the significance of looking at ourselves to see a 21st century learner. Teahers, no matter what the age must continue learn
March 14th, 2008 at 8:56 AM
I think that this is right on. We have teachers in our building who fight to even use email. They don’t want anyone to tell them to change. They see change as a bad thing. They don’t want to take the time to see how our world is changing. Our kids already have the best technology and are technology savvy, we need teachers to be ahead of the students, which is virtually impossible, but it must be the goal. Teachers need to have the opinion that I need to work to stay ahead of the game.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:16 PM
The majority of the teachers in our small elementary school are fairly fluent with the use of smart boards and definitely email. We still have an urgent need for professional development in the area of computer technology. There is so much more that can be done by using this technology in the classroom. Take me for example, I am a special education teacher and there is tons of assistive technology devices and software out there that my kids could benefit from, but I can’t even get help figuring out how to use an Intellikeys keyboard, let alone anything that might be more sophisticated. I wish assistive technology had been taught as a class while I was in college and in my teacher training. My students could surely benefit from it.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:50 PM
I am a high school English as a Second Language Science teacher. I have a Smartboard I use every day. I have Elmo. I use it daily. I have CPS aka the “clickers” with which my students take their tests, clicking in their answers electronically. I take attendance every period on eschool data. Yet the district I work for is so paranoid with its interenet technology, I cannot perform a simple download. I cannot easily get a picturefile for my science classroom. I cannot download Google Earth to SHOW students a steppe or an abyss. As long as the powers that be remain in the dark ages, we will not be able to get teachers “up to speed”. To my mind, this is sad. Why can’t we do in the classroom what students can do at home?
March 16th, 2008 at 9:53 PM
I agree completely. As an educator I do not know enough to teach or show my students enough to make it in the 21st century. Our district doesn’t feel like it is necessary to train teachers. I learn things by taking classes. I have not had any training for using technology in years. We have teachers with white boards who do not know how to use it. So YES YES YES! please train us first.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:16 PM
I am reminded of the old addage to “Practice what you preach.” I have been in numerous meetings and professional development “opportunities” in which I do not believe anything they are telling me because right then and there when given an opportunity to demonstrate what they’re talking about, they opt out. How many times I’ve been told to do something by someone in authority who in turn is not willing to do it themselves. I believe this is a reflection of the administrators in many school districts. You know, do as I say, not as I do. I believe the most effective leadership involves the demonstration of learning, role modeling, and lifelong learning.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:54 PM
[...] http://durandus.com/phaedrus/2008/03/10/21st-century-skills-for-educators-first/ [...]
March 18th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
I am a teacher who is willing to learn and use any technology I can get my hands on in the classroom, but I lack one major thing. SUPPORT! I have learned more taking this class about what is needed for the 21st Century learners than I would have in a year’s worth of PD in my school system. I consider each of you my SUPPORT system and I thank you all.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:47 PM
We’re still missing one key lesson.
It’ll come before the end of the semester, I think, because THIS last comment is a key element.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:35 AM
I feel very comfortable in my ability to learn basically anything that new technology provides for me in my classroom. I have learned to use search engines very efficiently and I have also learned to use the many resources that are out there to help us grasp new technology. I agree with a lot of you that there needs to be some type of support system or does it already exist? Are some of these things already out there, but most teachers don’t know how to find them? Last year I had a promethean board installed in my classroom and I had to learn how to use the software, I immediately pulled up the promethean website and began watching tutorials and videos and over the weekend I had learned how to use the software. Its like the assignment that we had covering Gimp, I had never heard of or used gimp in my life. I now have my wife using GIMP to edit her photos and both of us love it because the software was free. As teachers we could be taught some new technology or new tool every single year and then it change. I think it is more important that we provide our teachers with a possible PD session that shows them how to use the help tab, and shows them how to access these useful resources that provide them the assistance needed to use the new tools. The sad thing is that most teachers don’t even know how to use a search engine efficiently. The support system is out there in my opinion and it can be as basic or difficult as you like.