21st Century Literacy Skills

Princeton University’s Wordnet website defines literacy as “the ability to read and write”. Throw the phrase “21st Century” in the front and the definition becomes more complicated.

So much in fact that Wikipedia, which contained over 3 million articles by August 2009 does not have an article titled “21 Century Literacy”. Anybody game?!

There are countless websites devoted to developing 21st century literacy skills in students centered on the 3 R’s and the 4 C’s: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This blog breaks down the categories into basic literacy, visual/media literacy, information literacy, as well as 3 others.

So which is the most important aspect? If you were given the task of choosing only 1 21st century literacy skill, what would it be? While critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity are essential to a student’s progression into a professional setting what stands out to me is a student’s understanding of how to evaluate media in the 21st century. Back in the 20th century information was much more limited. Students received information from a central source such as a teacher, a parent, a textbook, or a television. In today’s society students can still turn to those sources for information, but also have exposure to millions of opinions from around the world. What’s more so, this information doesn’t have to be accurate. No longer can a student (or adult for that matter) simply take what someone states as truth in the hopes that their intent is positive. Students need to be taught to evaluate media and the source of information more than they are being taught now. They need to be able to dissect a print ad or television ad to determine what the author’s intent is.

Teaching students to evaluate media is a form of 21st century literacy that is a mashup of critical thinking and communication. Having these skills will allow students to more easily navigate media and increase their collaboration and creativity. Much of technology education today evolves around learning how to manage and master an application instead of inferring and evaluating sources. Unfortunately, I am just as guilty of this as many other technology educators today.

Below are some resources that I’ve found to be helpful for educators looking to increase their knowledge of 21 Century Literacy Skills.

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

http://networkedteacher.wetpaint.com/ 21st Century Skills for Teachers

http://www.medialit.org/pdf/lit2105.pdf The Center for Media Literacy’s excellent resource kit