Preparing Students for a 21st Century Global Workforce

By Dani Herro, Assistant Professor of Digital & Media Learning

The rapid expansion of sophisticated Internet technologies — convergence of Cloud computing, social media, games, and virtual spaces all accessible on mobile devices — is shifting practice in innovative K–12 schools.

The new reality in preparing our students for life in the 21st century centers on understanding that the workforce they’re entering is global, and required literacy skills are multimodal and digital. Traditionalists who insist on “old-fashioned schooling” organized around the teacher-as-expert and students receiving standard curricula aren’t realistic about what’s currently required for success in the real world. Oconomowoc Area School District (OASD) in southeastern Wisconsin, and a handful of innovative districts across the state and country, is rethinking what it means to prepare students to be college or career ready, and passionately transforming their practice.

The Changing Definition of Literacy

Literacy has always been defined by the technology at hand. From hieroglyphics to pencils and slates, the printing press, radio, television, and the personal computer, each tool has shaped what it means to be literate. Donald Leu, director of the New Literacies Research Lab, aptly sums up the changing definition of literacy influenced by “what is required by society and valued by individuals.” Both are vastly different than a decade ago. What is distinctive about today’s “literacy” is the explosive speed in which Internet technologies and related devices are pushing on communication, collaboration, information sharing, and knowledge-building. Much of it in real-time enhanced by audio, video, or highly graphical platforms. Multimedia has given way to virtual environments, interactive maps, data analytics, and simulation. In essence, the Internet is simultaneously engaging us, at times making us smarter, and demanding new skills. Text isn’t dead; it’s just not enough anymore. Schools realize they need to tap into the learning potential of IT while teaching responsible use; visionary districts are pushing back on the forces changing a global society.

“Schools realize they need to tap into the learning potential of I.T. …”

Research Translating Into Innovative, Sustainable Learning Environments

What does innovation in school look like, and how can K-12 educators provide sustainable learning environments? The answer is somewhat dependent on the vision, resources, and fluidity of the organization, however, examining educational research while capitalizing on free or inexpensive Internet technologies is a good starting point. Cloud computing, social media, digital game design, and mobile devices are available, accessible, and preferred by 21st century learners. Perhaps most important, global entities in business, health care, military, journalism, and government agencies require these mediums as tools for learning, training, communication, information dissemination, and feedback.

“Administrative, technical, teaching, and student voices were instrumental in building a collective plan to support 21st Century learning.”

OASD has spent the last five years rethinking policies, procedures, professional development, and curriculum to meet and exceed Common Core or state standards, while providing kids with digital-aged skills. The transformation began with a close eye on research and a lot of passionate educators wanting to connect with a noticeably different learner. A handful of OASD teachers and administrators believed students engaged in texting, social media, gaming, and creative media production were learning from their time online, and these experiences were worth examining. Their hunches were backed up by educational research, trends, and predictive reports all drawing similar conclusions. Cloud computing, digital text, mobile devices, game-based learning environments, and Web 2.0 or social media tools were expected to greatly impact K-12 education, shifting literacy practices and influencing learning. These tools are projected to be part of supportive structures providing avenues to collaboratively solve problems, express creativity, think analytically, and connect globally. OASD took the research and reports seriously, and got to work.

Policies, Support, and Infrastructure

After rewriting policies allowing the educational and responsible use of Web 2.0 tools, staff embarked on a journey that began with creating and modifying curriculum to include digital literacy skills and tools, and ended with building a high-speed fiber wide-area network. Administrative, technical, teaching, and student voices were instrumental in building a collective plan to support 21st century learning. In turn, OASD’s vision and curricular goals necessitated moving data faster as increased demand for cloud computing, 3-D immersive environments, and video production became a part of daily teaching and learning.

A technical support team, whose members readily acknowledge the new revolution in digital media, reinforces the shift, and learning is pushing the boundaries of the “old models” of building and maintaining a locked-down network in favor of a secure but increasingly open network. In addition to technical support, OASD offers an expansive professional development program offering on-site graduate courses, certifications, trainings, and encouragement for instructional best practices in the face of innovation. IT support, leadership, and professional development are key to a successful transformation.

Snapshot of Learning

In 2008, the district piloted two Techno Savvy elective courses asking students to investigate global issues such as cloning, animal testing, global warming, and the death penalty, and then administrate a blog defining the issues, discussing the facts, listing pros and cons, and asking readers to answer critical questions. Students shared research through social bookmarks and produced podcasts about their topic.

The learning and skill development exceeded a number of academic standards, hit on almost every 21st century skill, and proved valuable enough to extend it to other grade levels and topics.

Today, a snapshot of learning within OASD includes the following:

• Elementary-aged students use iPod Touch devices to practice reading fluency with the voice recorder tool; practice math facts and hone logic skills; create digital stories with apps that allow them to narrate images, produce movies, and use a dictionary and thesaurus; use map, weather, and sentence building apps; and read or listen to animated books. This small, inexpensive, intuitive, mobile computer opens up a world of learning possibilities to enhance standards-based instruction.
• Thanks to a grant from a local public education foundation (OPEF), students enrolled in high school English courses use iPads to read, discuss, research, and practice literary applications. iPads are also used in some special education classes and in libraries.
• More than 300 5th and 6th grade students enter Quest Atlantis, a virtual world with standards-based units of study produced by educational researchers, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Parks Service.
• Sixth graders play, and then design games in Gamestar Mechanic, an inexpensive web-based international audience for play tester feedback.
• High school students have the option of taking a newly created elective course, Elements of Game Design, which includes three iterations of game design stressing the aesthetics, dynamics, and mechanics of creating games. Video creation, QR codes, Google Sketch Up, Google Apps, and mobile devices are all tools used for learning within the course. Microsoft Research’s Kodu, a free game-design platform, engages students in 3-4 weeks of game design in a highly immersive environment. Students’ fi nal project is an augmented reality game created and played on a mobile device.
• Social media sites, such as Edmodo, provide a repository of links for podcasts, video, documents, student work, and collaborative discussions around topics of study. This closed but connected environment allows teachers to scaffold learning, model responsible use in social networks, and respondin real time. Students benefit from increased access to learning and from apprentice-type relationships with one another as they assist peers in finding resources and providing feedback. Widely used with 4th-7th grade students, Edmodo has proved an engaging and efficient way of learning.
• FLeXConnect is OASD’s newly launched virtual school housed in a learning management system (LMS). Virtual classroom spaces, like Elluminate Live!, facilitate online meetings, and Google Apps augment the LMS for more intense collaborative work. The promise of anytime, anywhere access to learning cutting across time, place, and space is slowly becoming a reality.

The examples above are a broad snapshot of what’s happening in the district. If you enter individual classrooms you’ll see teachers and students using a wide variety of web-based technologies. Make no mistake, the focus is on content and higher-order skill development with learning facilitated by teachers scaffolding curriculum and concepts helping students construct and develop appropriate skills. While Google Apps, mobiles, social media, games, and virtual spaces are the vehicles in OASD’s efforts preparing students for a global life and workforce, curricula remains foundational.

Final Thoughts

Perhaps the best indicator of how passionate teachers are about this transformation can be summed up by project presentations from a cross section of teachers in a recent OASD graduate course entitled A Critical Look at Social Media, Games, and Emerging Technologies. Teacher-designed lessons for students across grade levels and disciplines included an online simulation analyzing authentic annual business reports, exergaming options for physical education students, social media and Google Apps used to create videopodcasts replicating high-quality news reporting, a video made by special education students demonstrating their understanding of immigration in the 1800s, video and QR codes to introduce a World Language mini-documentary project detailing cultural traditions and celebrations, analysis and creation of investment options using online data, and a social network to support students building cars in a “motion in design” unit. As researchers theorize personalized learning environments made possible by sophisticated data analytics and the creation of learner profiles will slowly enter K-12 practice, OASD is well positioned to meet learning needs with customized “paths of learning.” While the unending transformation work is far from easy, the impassioned educators find it rewarding, exciting, and necessary.