21st Century Learning and Teaching

A Critical 21st Century Skill

Now here we are in the year 2014, and things seem to be changing for many schools.

It would seem that the smartphone is finally getting its due as a computer with telephonic capabilities. Our phones are used as computers even as our computers are now used as phones.

An interesting Nielsen study showed that in March 2012, a majority (50.4 percent) of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones. Mobile devices have also replaced desktop computers as the primary access device to the Internet.

 

===> Professional development is a necessary component of the teaching profession. It must be part of every teacher’s workweek. It needs to be prioritized, funded and supported with time. <===

===> Too many educators have no idea how much they do not know about their own profession. This will require a good amount of directed professional development, which is never popular with educators. <===

Technology has changed things and continues to do so at an incredible rate of speed. If educators are to be effective they must be relevant. If harnessed, technology can be used to our advantage with proper training. If ignored, or not taken seriously by the entire profession, it could very well make educators irrelevant.

Our education system is not too big to fail.

Tom Whitby

For years I served on the board of directors of The New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education, a group known to most as NYSCATE. 

As professionals we need to stop separating out technology from learning. It has become part of everything we do. It will not go away or even take a single step back.

The actual use of technology in a course does not always need to fall on the teacher.

===> In many cases the student can be the teacher and the teacher can be the student. <===

That takes an open mind and a flexible, adaptive approach to learning and teaching. These are not bad traits for any teacher to have; be it any teacher in general, or a computer teacher specifically. Technology has become a tool of our profession, whether we use it, teach it, or study it, we need to deal with it. It is now a required part of what we do in our profession. For technology to become ubiquitous we need to stop compartmentalizing it from what we do.

Gust MEES: looking for a win-win situation between teacher (learner) and student (learner), even giving a challenge to students to do better than the teacher and trying so to make everybody learning better ;) Keeps teacher and students fit on new knowledge!