Blog #4- 21st Century Skills & Life Long Learning

21st century skills include the ability to acquire information and critically analyze it. The term "critical thinking" has been around in schools for years. But unlike the term as it has been used in the past, critical thinking today must be immediate, a skill that is constantly being used as a student acquires and organizes the information that they are learning. This information comes from a variety of sources- some less than reliable. We must teach the student of today how to sift through the chaff and find the kernels of wheat that they are seeking.

If we can teach our students to seek out and verify credible information, they will be well on their way to being life-long learners. The first step in the process is simply to show the students where to go to verify the information they have collected. Howard Rheingold offers a plethora of resources for verifying information in his recent article Crap Detection 101. Rheingold states that we must teach students to "think like detectives" as they sift through the sources available to them online. This is the beginning of the critical thinking process.

As our students learn to think critically, what is our final goal of the learning process that is taking place in our classrooms? According to the champions of the 21st century learner such as Rheingold, our goal should be to create life-long learners- people who are continuously seeking information and learning about topics that are of interest or consequence to them.

How do we do this? By teaching our students to create their own Personal Learning Networks-networks of people and institutions with similar learning interests- the task of creating a life-long learner becomes easier. When the information is organized and the student has access to others with which they can collaborate, the student is in control of their own learning. This control is empowering and fuels the desire to learn more through the use of the PLN.

The 21st century student is like no other student our educational system has encountered. Our methods to reach them must change. As you consider the task of creating a life-long , 21st century learner, view the following videos to cement the ideas in your mind. Hopefully, they will give you the inspiration to meet the task head-on with a resolve to succeed.