21st Century Skillz

My MAT classes emphasize 21st century skills, by which the professors often seem to mean using computers and/or the Internet. But my non-MAT classes (linguistics and film studies) focus on traditional texts. I guess you could call these classes old-fashioned. But I find myself thinking more critically about, engaging more rigorously with, and feeling more challenged by the materials in those classes.


In contrast, the projects I do in my MAT classes are often fun, and they tend to look impressive. I've built websites and Prezis, created Glogs and Vokis, and contributed to Voicethreads. I attended class as a Second Life avatar and uploaded videos to YouTube and embedded widgets on wikis. I've blogged and tweeted and posted to forums ... sometimes in lieu of attending class. But I don't know how much I learn by doing these activities. Honestly, I often spend more time fiddling with tech tools than I do thinking about the content.


I've had a chance to observe several classrooms, as a volunteer, a substitute teacher, and while doing my pre-student teaching observations. I've noticed that teachers use powerpoint pretty often, and if they have one they also tend to use an Elmo. Students get to visit a computer lab to work on specific projects. In some schools the lab comes to the classroom, in the form of a little cart full of computers.


But I'm not sure how often I see teachers integrating 21st Century skills into the classroom in ways that promote real learning. Maybe I am viewing other students through my personal biases, but it seems to me that 9 times out of 10, students enjoy using computer mainly because being online or working Web 2.0 tools is fun. Students aren't more engaged in the content. In fact, sometimes they are so engrossed in the technology they pay less attention to the content.


I worry that we think computers are automatically more interesting, and it gives us a license to be lazy in our lesson planning. I also worry that when we send students to a computer lab, we give them permission to turn off their own thoughts in favor of Internet searches and flashy graphics.


On a very simple level, for instance, I notice that student papers look good: properly formatted; crisp black ink printed on bright white paper; spelling errors, thanks to spell-check. But when I read the papers, they aren't all that impressive. Similarly, when I used Voki in a 3rd grade classroom, I noticed that we spent so much time getting the kids logged onto the (old, slow) computers that we had little time left, and ended up rushing them through the process of listening to and commenting on each others Vokis.


I think some of these issues could be addressed by giving schools better technology and making it more readily available. When you have to leave the room to give every child a computer, it's a lot more difficult to integrate technology fully into your curriculum. But I also think we need to re-think our reliance on technology to spice up our lesson plans. Honestly, if the material is boring, using a powerpoint presentation to teach it won't help. And if the tech tool is fun and interesting but it doesn't encourage students to think more deeply, what's the point?


I am struggling with this because I truly do believe students need to acquire 21st Century skills: using technology, navigating the Internet, working collaboratively. But I also think students need to find the joy in learning. I'm worried that's happening less and less as students perceive traditional texts as "hard" or "boring" and teachers, anxious to engage their students, rely on technology without linking it to genuine content.