Analysis of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills Website:
Colorful sites with lovely visuals and difficult concepts simplified into graphics are always going to attract my attention. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills certainly got my attention in that manner with their rainbow framework of student outcomes and support systems for the 21st century. (See the framework here, http://www.p21.org/) This organization, which began in 2002 as a joint effort between the U.S. Department of Education and corporations such as Microsoft and AOL Time Warner, seeks to promote 21st century readiness in education. The partnership between those charged with educating children and those who will soon be employing them is one that makes this organization stand out from others. In the book, Stopping at Every Lemonade Stand, James Vollbracht contends that in order to raise healthy children the larger community must be a part of their lives (2001). This means that businesses have just as much responsibility in helping to raise the next generation as parents and teachers. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills embraces this ideal as evidenced by the partnership between businesses and educational stakeholders. I must admit that I was surprised my state, Washington, was not one of the states working with the organization, especially with Microsoft as one of the founding corporate sponsors. Microsoft does so much locally for education that it seems they would be advocating for a commitment to the initiative from our government.
As I dug deeper into the framework graphic I began to appreciate the completeness of their picture of how to boost 21st century skills in American schools. The organization realizes the importance of standards and acknowledges the accountability portion of NCLB, while pushing for a “broader vision […] to meet our nation’s challenges” (Partnership for 21st Century Skills). They seem to be arguing for a more balanced system where standards promote learning improvements and provide for a more educated workforce. (This is clearly opposed to the current training of a workforce with the ability to sit quietly and take a test for 2 or more hours!) They also discuss the importance of professional development as a support system for student success. This is very similar to the new draft of the National Educational Technology Plan which was just published (Department of Education, 2010).
To determine where my school is in implementing the facets of the 21st century framework and the Department of Education goals, I took the self-assessment survey provided on the site. My school is in the “early” category of implementation in all areas. (To see these results click here). The recommendations provided help me see where my school needs to go in order to meet the needs of the 21st century.
Ultimately, though, the site disappointed me because it did not provide anything immediately relevant for the classroom. (I do plan to look at the Video 21 section during spring break. Perhaps I will find something applicable to my instruction there.) While I appreciate the need for system-wide change, as a teacher it is hard to find the energy to promote such a massive undertaking when the demands of the classroom claim so much attention. For teachers it is important to be aware of and include 21st century skills in instruction where possible, but until educational systems and governments wholeheartedly embrace the initiative, I fear not much will change. Thomas Friedman shares that this lack of change could spell problems for America as other nations catch up and exceed us in training for the 21st century work place (2005). This holds dire implications for the children of our education system who need to compete in the global marketplace. These children need the rainbow framework to be a real working movement throughout education, not just an impressive graphic on a webpage.
References
Department of Education. (2010, March). National Educational Technology Plan-Draft. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/netp.pdf
Friedman, T. (2005, April 3). "It's a flat world, after all." The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved March 22, 2010, from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/downloads/P21_Report.pdf
Vollbracht, J. (2001). Stopping at Every Lemonade Stand. New York: Penguin Group.
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9 years ago
This website does make a strong case for the need to improve our use of technology in schools in order to give our students the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st Century. I particularly agree with the point you discussed about the need for businesses to take a more active role in education. You pointed out how Microsoft plays such a strong role in schools in Washington, and think this should serve as a model for school/business partnerships for the entire nation. We all need to develop a greater sense of community and understand the importance of education (especially given today's economy and fractured political climate).
ReplyDeleteThe website also makes a very good point about how we need to focus on standards still, but use technology to assist us in meeting these standards. The current climate of testing, testing, testing is doing nothing but alienate students to the process of education, while forcing to many schools to spend way too much time, energy and money to teaching students how to take a test that does not reflect the skills they will need to succeed in college or the business world.
I too was disappointed by the lack of resources to use in the classroom. Maybe I missed it, but there should at least be an easy place to find links to educational sites.
Sincerely,
Tim Mount
The business and community responsibility in educating our students caught my eye, too. I feel, at least around these parts, that toomuch of the community "responsibility" is criticism. I think that a stronger link to business and communities could help motivate students.
ReplyDeleteI need to go back to the webite and take the assessment. I didn't run across in my exploration of it. I would really love to see where my district falls. Our superintendent came around to every school at the beginning of the year to talk about 21st Century Learning and learners. I'm frightened by the lack of followthrough that I am seeing. Although a perceived lack of followthrough could be lack of communication between the district office and the schools, or a lack of implementation at my school level.
This site was definitely one with diamonds, I need to go back and mine for them a bit more!
Debb
I am embarrassed to say that I believe you were able to grasp so much more from the site than I was able to. I think you did an excellent job at discovering all the possible uses of the site as well as all of the services that will be useful for you. I am curious as to what this means for me as an educator. Was I too quick to judge the site by its appearance or was it the fault of the creators and designers for not making it appealing to a new teacher. I always believed I had an appropriate amount of knowledge of technology; however, this site makes me curious as to my abilities. As you mentioned, I was disappointed because I did not find anything that would be relevant for the classroom right here and now. I was relieved to discover that someone else had a similar opinion on the matter; however, I am still worried. Are my skills with technology still not what they should be? As an educator, I should be able to properly assess sites if I expect my students to be able to as well, and yet, I had such a difficult time with this one. I have found many resources on the internet providing tools to teach specific lessons. Some of these sites are created by educators just like us! I found those to be more beneficial than this site. Reflecting on myself as an educator, I am not sure what to make of that. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteFrancesca,
ReplyDeleteI think the simple fact that you are asking such questions of yourself is proof that you are an excellent educator who will prompt students to ask questions of themselves. Teaching metacognition, such as what you showed above, is so important and often gets overlooked.
As for answering your questions, I think that the reason I was able to find a bit more useful information on the site was that I spent a lot of time looking through all of the pages and writing notes to myself. I then went through the site and my notes again before I wrote my initial post. This amount of time for just one website is not feasible for teachers to do all of the time. I think that websites created by teachers understand this a little better which is why they have information displayed in a way that makes it easy to skim and discern important information. The P21 site is not one that you can skim which means that it will be one that is never utilized to its full potential. I would recommend to the creators that they think about how they can redesign it so that some of these resources are displayed in an easy to skim format. This would then make your job easier!
Thanks Francesca for serving as a model of how to question myself about my learning!