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Getting with the 21st Century
June 13, 2007

I've really been hitting the road this month, travelling more than I normally like. But there have been some good opportunities and I hate to pass them up. 

Lat week I was in Charleston, WV (first trip to WV, wow, is it beautiful) to sit in on a meeting of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. I've always been fascinated with the Partnership, but never really understood what they were all about. The members are mainly big technology companies (Adobe, Dell, and from our world Thomson Gale). AASL is one of the few non-profit members and its executive director, Julie Walker, is an active participant.

The partnership's focus is on cores subjects (as defined by NCLB), 21st century content (like global awareness, financial literacy), learning and thinking skills (critical thinking), and ICT literacy (that's information and communications technology.) The last two have school librarianship written all over them. The Partnership also talks about life skills (leadership, ethics) and 21st century assessments (like portfolios.)

At the meeting the three partner states (WV, NC, and WI) presented their best practices. What's interesting is how each state took the ideas of the Partnership and used them differently, often integrating them into existing initiatives. A few more states have recently joined the partnership: ND, ME, and MA, I think.

Clearly the Partnership provides educators with a framework to connect the world of the classroom with the world of work, with the idea of producing graduates who are more prepared for the workplace. How big of a role do school librarians play in this vision? Hard to say. In WV, they've renamed the librarians Technology Integrationists. Yikes! Can someone from WV let us know what that means? And what happens to the books? (I hate when people start renaming librarians, especially when it smacks of a Technological Revolution.)

I left wanting to know more. We need a feature from one of the Partner states, maybe North Carolina, told from the perspective of the school librarians. How is the Partnership changing your program? Any volunteers?

Posted by Brian Kenney on June 13, 2007 | Comments (0)