Jigsaw Pieces

Now I understand why it is that the elective subject needs to be done later in the Masters course. As I am writing the framework for my second assessment task for ETL523 Digital Citizenship for Schools, it feels like the other subjects I have studied are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and this one is the board holding it all together.

I am starting to understand, at a deeper level what 21st century education is and how it fits with other elements such as the NSW Syllabus, the global environment and the Quality Teaching Framework.The aim of 21st century education is to equip teachers and students to function creatively and collaboratively at a high level. The nature of the work place is changing in Australia. Manufacturing is dying in this country so Australians need to provide the world with an alternative reason to "buy Australian". The answer to this is in education, not only of the foundation skills of Literacy and Mathematics but also to be creative and collaborative.

 Australians need to see themselves on the world stage because the problems we are facing are so vast and complicated that a team of minds is required to solve them. We are more interconnected with the world than ever before. The changing nature of the image economy has made this so.

Change, of course, is the only certainty. If we don't equip our students to be efficient learners then they will be left behind. How then, are we to do this? On a small scale, creating and teaching children and educators how to establish a PLN is one way of achieving this. If we can all learn from each other then the huge amount of information available becomes more manageable. We don't need to reinvent the wheel so to speak, as someone somewhere will be willing to share how they did it themselves. Of course we need to mindful that we must share our learning too if we are to be honourable global citizens.