Why is it that the 21st century education is being defined by where the teaching is occurring and the technology that is utilized?

There is the brick and mortal classroom where teaching is delivered in a traditional school.  There is the blended classroom, where teaching is delivered both in the traditional classroom and online.  There is the virtual classroom where teaching is available totally in the online environment.

In my experience designing authentic engaging learning experiences for students and teachers, one realization is increasingly clear.

It doesn’t matter what type of classroom that the teaching is being delivered in nor the technology that is being utilized.

What matters is designing a learning environment where the facilitator of learning, teachers or student, has the knowledge to choose a technology – a tool – not because it is cute or fun or because it is the latest and greatest gadget, but because it delivers the most important result of education: learning.

To Focus on Learning, one of the three big ideas of a professional learning community, it is critical as educators that we choose technologies that result in the following:

1. Creating critical thinkers
2. Ensuring standards are mastered at the appropriate level
3. Connecting learning skills and twenty-first-century tools that result in learners who are information, communication, and technology literate.

To learn more, visit the P21 website, check out Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, or read 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn.

As educators and learners, it is possible and powerful to move our students…

• From blackboards to blogs
• From classrooms to cyberspace
• From pencils to postings
• From isolation to innovation
• From cool technologies to critical thinking