21st Century Skills in my own work

Incorporating 21st Century tools and skills into my classes is something I've generally been working on over the past few years, but I guess I didn't realize then that it had a tag name. The first time I incorporated use of such skills was in about 1996, and it was a choice of assignments. Actually, I initially set it as one of the choices because I had a young student then who was computer literate...he ran circles around our tech teachers (but then it was just basic keyboarding, and very little learning about actual programs except for emailing and windows which had just worked the holes out of win95). Anyway, students then had a choice for their Shakespeare project, and of those options, those with computer savy could work with a partner and create a website. Things were so new then, at least to us! We were really just getting in a computer for each teacher, and things were becoming more digitalized. I can't even fathom how things could change so quickly...but here we are thirteen years later and even many four year olds have some basic computer know-how.

Now, in 2009, I require writing assignments, and many times students have to begin their hand written drafts in class, but students are not allowed to hand in to me a polished piece that is not typed up. My composition students are required to write a research paper, yet now the information is so much more accessible than it was those few years ago; "just google it" the saying goes and how many hits did it come up with? What are the links? What is the url? This is jargon many would not have understood at that time. But now, when my composition students go to the media center, they direct themselves to the computers, but not to look up information in the library books--oh no--instead they google everything. Whereas I indexed my information on 3x5 cards, they copy and paste theirs. Whereas they used to present with maybe a few magazine pictures stuck to a poster board, 0r some handsomely hand-drawn drafts and charts, students today really don't think twice about a Powerpoint presentation. Recently, when students for my World Literature class wrote a comparison paper based on The Tragedy of Macbeth and Medea, they presented the ideas they wrote about in the media of their choice, including websites and Powerpoint.

It is all changing; it is hard to keep up with, but the 21st Century skills needed are ones I think, given the chance and the interest, our students can grasp and own, and pass on to others.