CETconnect.org

Recently, I wrote about 21st Century Skills and how the business community is looking to the education community as a partner in educating children today to be the workforce of tomorrow. The traditional educational philosophy of the individual learner in the classroom no longer fits our world. Business and industry is increasingly in need of workers who can locate, evaluate and synthesize information in conjunction with others. Here’s where the participatory culture comes in.

Time magazine annually selects a Person of the Year, someone who has impacted our world in a significant way in the previous 12 months. In 2006, many of us were caught off guard when we discovered that the Person of the Year was you and me.

“You and me” and millions of other people are creating and sharing and re-creating content in online communities just like this one. And none of it occurs in a vacuum. We all create our content with the express goal of sharing it digitally and the expectation of a response from the others participating in our virtual community.

If our homes and workplaces have changed to operate with this level of integration and cooperation, then why haven’t our schools? Do we expect that our children will be solitary learners in the classroom, yet be well prepared for a career that will demand that they interact with others through technological means? Could that mean that media literacy has taken on still another meaning?

In my next blog, I’ll take a look at a the connection between digital media and learning. –Diane