Reaching 21st-Century Learners

I received a letter recently from Kendall Heide, a library media specialist and School Library Journal reader from Maize, KS. His letter brought to mind an interesting challenge: How do we change our schools from applying technology to "what we already do," to being able to apply what we do within a "new culture of technology"? What Heide is referring to is the challenge of educating the 21st-century learner, the millennial, whose orientation to technology is innate and who views technology not as a way to do something better or more efficiently than it was done before, but as the only way to do it.

I mention Heide's question because it's what we all should be asking. How do we create seamless, scalable, customized, information-rich, 21st-century learning landscapes that more effectively link most of today's students with the way they inherently learn and process information?

Technology is not an application to 21st-century learners, but rather an organic process as intuitive to them as tying their shoes. One of the primary challenges of the School Library Journal Leadership Summit in March was to jump-start the conversation that would lead to a plan to integrate 21st-century learning skills into our schools by leveraging the role that library media specialists play as technology leaders. (A lively post-summit blog with resources is now available at www.slj.com/summitblog, and a toolkit will be published in the June issue.) However, this role is often not recognized by other educators, which led me to commission SLJ's first survey to explore the definitive technology role that librarians play in K–12 schools.

Conducted by the dynamic duo of Sally Brewer, an associate professor of library media and technology at the University of Montana's School of Education, and Peggy Milam, a media specialist at Compton Elementary School in Powder Springs, GA, the survey (parts of which will be published in the June and September issues of SLJ) shows just how integral a role librarians play in the immersion of technology into the curriculum as well as in the tech training of students and teachers. Of the more than 1,500 librarians nationwide who responded to the survey, more than 90 percent reported training students and 80 percent reported training teachers to use technology resources. The study found that formalized collaboration, a key objective identified at the SLJ summit, occurred among 50 percent of respondents at the elementary school level. However, collaboration drops off precipitously at the middle- and high-school levels, according to the survey.

The integration of 21st-century learning skills is no longer an experiment: witness Governor Mike Easley's creation of the North Carolina Center for 21st Century Skills. The state of North Carolina worked in conjunction with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) to develop the center, which will be supported by an initial $250,000 allocation from North Carolina and matching funds from the private sector. The Partnership's goal is to develop similar relationships with other states which would then create their own centers.

At a time when the acceptance of 21st-century learning skills is gaining serious momentum and a strong dose of legitimacy, so, too, do library media specialists need to cement their role in the learning community as legitimate and indispensable purveyors, instructors, and assessors of a technology-infused curriculum.

Evan St. Lifer
Editor
estlifer@reedbusiness.com