Educationists
everywhere have been talking about the transformation of education through
technology. Many have predicted that the interactive internet, the web 2.0, and
social media platforms are going to play a huge role in the future of
education. This may well be true, especially with the rise of MOOCs and online
education, but there’s a need to discuss this in more depth, to examine what
different platforms allow and how exactly these tools can be used for more
effective learning. Without knowing how exactly facebook or twitter or any
other platform can be utilized, and without defining what exactly one hopes to
accomplish through the platform, it isn’t possible to know whether it really
works or doesn’t.
Students
around the world need advanced skills to succeed in the globalized, knowledge
based world of today. 21st Century Learning Design, or 21CLD, professional
development helps teachers redesign their existing lessons and learning
activities to build students’ 21st century skills. It can be linked to your
national or local curriculum standards. The program is based on rubrics
developed and tested internationally for the Innovative Teaching and Learning
(ITL) Research project.
The 21CLD
rubrics help educators identify and understand the opportunities that learning
activities give students to build 21st century skills. A learning activity is
any task that students do as part of their school related work. It can be an
exercise that students complete in one class period or an extended project that
takes place both in and outside of school. The 21CLD rubrics incorporate a
research-based methodology for coding learning activities to ensure you are
embedding 21st century skills in your teaching practices. The 21CLD Rubric for
Student Work provides a framework to assess students’ development of 21st
century skills.