The 21st century skills we face are basically technical literacy’s. The does and don’ts. of handling this fast growing community of information. Well, it’s not exactly defined in the manner of does and don’ts. They are skills we should know to guide us through the informational highway. Rules to surf by, to coin a phrase. It’s basically, knowing what to ask and how to validate the source. Many other skills are involved as well, such as, being aware of the network, cooperation with others on sharing information, Participating where you share information that is of value to yourself and others or being a part of a collective action. Critical consumption, is basically weeding out the good from the bad information (identifying reliable sources).
My last post I shared a video from a web site where the teenager displays the usage of these skills and found that they were important enough to share with the elementary age kids. If you were unable to view it before, I highly recommend viewing it with the 21st century skills in mind. http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-virginia-video
Her life evolves around many facets of media and the lessons, self- discovery as well as the skills of inventive thinking, effective communications, with a high level of productivity. Virginia will be able to carry these skills on throughout her life.
Lifelong Learning, a concept that I have known since I was a child in the sixties. Growing up Internationally provided me with many unique experiences. By the time I had reached elementary school, I had already seen things that majority of my peers would never see for themselves. I didn’t realize that at my age my peers couldn’t even imagine what I was describing, let alone for it to be true. Teachers criticized me rather than validating my accounting with my parents. By the time I was in High school I struggled to share what it was like to be in East Germany right after the wall was completed, or visit Auschwitz Camp and recalling the awful smell (which later I learned was of burnt flesh).
My parents were excellent writers and they always told me that I would be able to utilize all my life experiences when I got older. So the personal quest began, to learn as much as possible so that I would have boxes of information to write about.
Still feeling young in my early twenties, I was having tea with Helen Hayes MacArthur when she impressed upon me to never stop learning, no matter how old you are. My mother proved to me that what Helen said was the truth. At 75 years old, my mom graduated from Valencia Community College in Orlando then moved on to Florida Central University. Now at 80 she’s an avid reader, internet user, and a hula dancer at the Polynesian Center at Disney. She encouraged me to return to school and her I am at Full Sail University.
Almost twice my age my mother can run circles around me surfing the Net. I registered for Twitter and as soon as my registration was complete and arrow icon popped up and stated the I already had a follower on my Twitter doorstep. I clicked the arrow and it was my mother. Then every week she would give me a book review, the latest book was “Hear Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky. The book before this one was Sir Ken Robinson’s newest book called the “Eement”.
While reviewing Buy Gitomer’s video Life Long Learning (April 2008) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh6yd6wfCgU his 12.5 steps were real familiar words. My overall struggle with all this networking and learning, I still don’t feel I’m hear or even sharing meaningful information.
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