Time for some 21st century honesty
I am mostly writing this just to have a record of where I stand on so-called 21st century skills. Now, I am not an ed tech or tech expert at all, and though it's a topic I try to read a lot about, I haven't written a lot about it.
For the most part, I don't really believe there is such a thing as "21st century skills." Nor do I believe there are really 20th century skills or 16th century skills or 1st century skills. I don't think how humans learn fundamentally changes; what changes are the tools we use. Searching for information is the same skill now that it was pre-internet; we just use different tools to find it.
What was said in this WaPo article about ed tech pretty much sums up my stance:
Now to play devils advocate to myself: there are skills that that one might use more in one century than another and there are tools that might require a slightly different skill set. Take, for example, driving a motor vehicle. People didn't know how to drive motor vehicles before they existed. However, people did drive horses and chariots and carriages andAll Things Education: Time for some 21st century honesty:
For the most part, I don't really believe there is such a thing as "21st century skills." Nor do I believe there are really 20th century skills or 16th century skills or 1st century skills. I don't think how humans learn fundamentally changes; what changes are the tools we use. Searching for information is the same skill now that it was pre-internet; we just use different tools to find it.
What was said in this WaPo article about ed tech pretty much sums up my stance:
"There is hardly any research that will show clearly that any of these machines will improve academic achievement," said Larry Cuban, education professor emeritus at Stanford University. "But the value of novelty, that's highly prized in American society, period. And one way schools can say they are 'innovative' is to pick up the latest device."And:
After using an interactive whiteboard for a year, William Ferriter, a sixth-grade teacher in North Carolina, came to a similar conclusion, deciding the whiteboard was little more than "a badge saying 'We're a 21st-century school.' " He spent weeks trying to devise collaborative lessons that he knows engage students. The best one, he said, brought kids to the whiteboard, where they used their fingers to sort words describing metamorphic rocks, as a video played to the side.
"It just allows you to create digitized versions of old lessons," he said. "My kids were bored with it after about three weeks."
Now to play devils advocate to myself: there are skills that that one might use more in one century than another and there are tools that might require a slightly different skill set. Take, for example, driving a motor vehicle. People didn't know how to drive motor vehicles before they existed. However, people did drive horses and chariots and carriages andAll Things Education: Time for some 21st century honesty:
