Vision Statement
My vision for technology use in schools includes equipping students with the knowledge, skills and behavior to be successful in a competitive world. Teachers should aim to engage each student in a higher level of learning, resulting in measured improvement against local, national and world-class standards. In order to compete with 21st century expectations, our graduates need exposure to technologies which inspire them to create, to collaborate, to think critically, and to communicate in ways commensurate with participation in a world that will need their expertise. To these ends, technology should serve our students in engaged learning and sustained motivation to achieve at a high level.
Technology should be used in education to expand the possibilities of what might be created by our next generation of thinkers. Tomorrow’s problems demand critical thinking to analyze and solve problems, creativity to seek and propose novel ideas, collaboration to work together to achieve a common goal, and communication to let students convey their ideas in ways that honor their best thinking (AES, 2019). The 4 C’s of 21st Century skills remind us that this generation of students might be taught differently, that they might be inspired to use the technologies we have available to us to authenticate their learning experiences. Engaged, real-world learning ending in an authentic product grows skills faster and with greater transfer to novel situations. Therefore, to address the problems of tomorrow that we don’t even know we have yet with technologies that do not even exist yet, education needs to use technology as a tool which capitalizes on the thinking potential of our students.
My vision for technology includes prepared graduates, not simply graduates who master standards and who can take tests. ISTE’s Student Achievement Brief (2008) echoes this concern, and reminds schools that even though students can take standardized tests to demonstrate proficiency of skills, “student portfolios; papers and reports; presentations; and formative assessments that gauge critical thinking and problem-solving skills alongside math, reading, and science” are actually the mediums by which students can demonstrate mastery of skills. While skills-based learning does make schools competitive with each other, it does not provide evidence of the 21st century skills our graduates will need to work after 2020. Creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking must result from some other type of learning than skills-based tests. As referenced in Boser’s brief from The Center for American Progress (2013), economist Richard Murnane insists that “schools need to do a better job of providing students with ‘expert thinking’—the ability to solve new problems that cannot be solved by rules.” To this end, technology should be used to authenticate learning and challenge the limits of what we think is possible for students to create or solve with it.
References
Applied Educational Systems.(2019). The 4 C’s of 21st century skills. Retrieved from https://www.aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-the-4-cs-of-21st-century-skills
Center for American Progress. (2013, June). Are schools getting a big enough bang for their education technology buck? Washington, D.C.:Ulrich Boser.
ISTE (2008). Student achievement brief.[pdf]. Retrieved from https://computerexplorers.com/Student-Achievement-Brief.pdf
Technology should be used in education to expand the possibilities of what might be created by our next generation of thinkers. Tomorrow’s problems demand critical thinking to analyze and solve problems, creativity to seek and propose novel ideas, collaboration to work together to achieve a common goal, and communication to let students convey their ideas in ways that honor their best thinking (AES, 2019). The 4 C’s of 21st Century skills remind us that this generation of students might be taught differently, that they might be inspired to use the technologies we have available to us to authenticate their learning experiences. Engaged, real-world learning ending in an authentic product grows skills faster and with greater transfer to novel situations. Therefore, to address the problems of tomorrow that we don’t even know we have yet with technologies that do not even exist yet, education needs to use technology as a tool which capitalizes on the thinking potential of our students.
My vision for technology includes prepared graduates, not simply graduates who master standards and who can take tests. ISTE’s Student Achievement Brief (2008) echoes this concern, and reminds schools that even though students can take standardized tests to demonstrate proficiency of skills, “student portfolios; papers and reports; presentations; and formative assessments that gauge critical thinking and problem-solving skills alongside math, reading, and science” are actually the mediums by which students can demonstrate mastery of skills. While skills-based learning does make schools competitive with each other, it does not provide evidence of the 21st century skills our graduates will need to work after 2020. Creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking must result from some other type of learning than skills-based tests. As referenced in Boser’s brief from The Center for American Progress (2013), economist Richard Murnane insists that “schools need to do a better job of providing students with ‘expert thinking’—the ability to solve new problems that cannot be solved by rules.” To this end, technology should be used to authenticate learning and challenge the limits of what we think is possible for students to create or solve with it.
References
Applied Educational Systems.(2019). The 4 C’s of 21st century skills. Retrieved from https://www.aeseducation.com/career-readiness/what-are-the-4-cs-of-21st-century-skills
Center for American Progress. (2013, June). Are schools getting a big enough bang for their education technology buck? Washington, D.C.:Ulrich Boser.
ISTE (2008). Student achievement brief.[pdf]. Retrieved from https://computerexplorers.com/Student-Achievement-Brief.pdf