Presentation given at Illinois Computing Educators, February 25, 2010

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ICE 2010
State of Teaching and
Learning in the 21st
Century
Lucy Gray
Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science
Education
Thank you for having me at your conference, and tonight, I hope to give you a window into current trends in 21st century teaching and learning. I
have four themes that Iʼd like to address and put in context for you.

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Presentation Resources
 Slides can be found at http://lucygray.org
 Links to sources mentioned here can be found
at:
http://delicious.com/elemenous/teachernet09
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Experiences to Inform Your Work
 Chicago Public Schools
 University of Chicago
 Apple Distinguished Educator
 Google Certified Teacher
 Other Recent Activities
 School Talk
 Schoolhouse 3.0
 Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age
Chicago Public Schools
8 years in primary grades
University of Chicago
Computer Science Teacher
Tech Coach
Education Technology Specialist
Apple Distinguished Educator
Curriculum Developer
Conference/Workshop Presenter
Singapore
Google Certified Teacher
Google Teacher Academies
Google Search Curriculum
Recent activities
School Talk
Schoolhouse 3.0
Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age

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Another Nation at Risk Moment?
Publishing Industry
Globalization & the Economy
College Tuition
Test Scores
Race to the Top
The list goes on...
“Were national and state leaders to openly acknowledge that blaming teachers as a group for the ills of poor schooling and then expecting those
very same awful teachers to turn around and work their hearts out to remedy those ills is simply goofy. Over 3.5 million teachers do the daily
work of teaching; they teach reading, wipe noses, find lost backpacks, write recommendations, and grade tests. No online courses, charter
schools, vouchers, home schooling, or any other star-crossed idea that business-driven, entrepreneurial reformers design will replace them. So
blaming and shaming teachers into working harder is no recipe for improved student learning. Surely, like any group of professionals, teachers
have to be prodded and they have to be supported. Prodding they get a lot of; support is where these so-called leaders fall down badly.”

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Teaching for a Living: How
Teachers See the Profession Today
State of Mind
EdWeek
Disheartened
40%
Idealists
23%
Contented
37%
This study was published the other day and frankly, it alarmed me. Conducted by Public Agenda and Naperville-based Learning Point
Associates.
The disheartened tend to be older, have been teaching longer, and tend to be in low income schools. The contented tend to be veteran teachers
with graduate degrees in middle income and affluent schools. Idealists had the strong sense of mission about teaching and believe in their
efficacy in terms of test scores.

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Teaching for a Living: How
Teachers See the Profession Today
DISHEARTENED teachers are more
likely to:
• give their principals poor ratings for
supporting them as teachers
• express concerns about working
conditions, student behavior, and
testing
Disheartened
40%
Idealists
23%
Contented
37%

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Teaching for a Living: How
Teachers See the Profession Today
IDEALIST teachers are more likely to:
• say they became teachers to help
disadvantaged students
• believe their students’ test scores have
increased a lot because of their
teaching
• say that good teachers can lead all
students to learn, even those from poor
families or who have uninvolved
parents
Disheartened
40%
Idealists
23%
Contented
37%

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Teaching for a Living: How
Teachers See the Profession Today
CONTENTED teachers are more likely
to:
• report excellent working conditions
• be experienced in their profession
• work in middle- or higher-income
schools
• believe their students’ test scores have
increased a lot because of their
teaching
Disheartened
40%
Idealists
23%
Contented
37%
I hope you all are contented. But, we canʼt afford to stay contented. We have to help all children and teachers feel the same way about teaching
and learning.

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Be the Change
Piano Stairs
You should want to be part of this change:
Revolutionary
Transformative
Invigorating
Challenging
Potentially FUN
Itʼs easier than ever to participate in this change because shared leadership is being embraced more often and because technology lets us network
outside of our school silos.
Iʼm here to report that change is happening. Itʼs not happening everywhere, itʼs not happening for every school. But there are some very exciting things going on
and if you want to know more, you should think about four key areas that I believe are converging.
“the paradox of being blamed for a problem and then expected to turn around and solve the very same problem.”
“Over 3.5 million teachers do the daily work of teaching; they teach reading, wipe noses, find lost backpacks, write recommendations, and grade tests.
No online courses, charter schools, vouchers, home schooling, or any other star-crossed idea that business-driven, entrepreneurial reformers design will
replace them. So blaming and shaming teachers into working harder is no recipe for improved student learning. Surely, like any group of professionals,
teachers have to be prodded and they have to be supported. Prodding they get a lot of; support is where these so-called leaders fall down badly.”
- Larry Cuban

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Convergence of Themes
 Social Media
 “Generational Diversity”
 21st Century Skills
 Learning Environments
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So, weʼre at an very interesting and exciting crossroads in education. I believe that the art of teaching is more important than ever in the grand
scheme. And, if you are interested in participating in change, to any degree, you need to be aware of four trends or themes that I believe will
impact your classrooms . As potential leaders in your buildings, I hope you will consider these ideas.

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The School at Columbia
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The School at Columbia is not your typical school, yet we can learn much from their practices. Itʼs a private K-8 school near Columbia University.
Half of the students are children of faculty; half come from the neighborhood. All are chosen by lottery. Constructivism drives the curriculum, and
that drives their use of technology.
This School embodies these four themes that I will address in more detail:
1. Social media is important.
2. There is long range planning about 21st century skills in relation to childrenʼs development.
3. They value skills such as collaboration and cooperation.
4. They provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

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The School at Columbia
12
The School at Columbia is not your typical school, yet we can learn much from their practices. Itʼs a private K-8 school near Columbia University.
Half of the students are children of faculty; half come from the neighborhood. All are chosen by lottery. Constructivism drives the curriculum, and
that drives their use of technology.
This School embodies these four themes that I will address in more detail:
1. Social media is important.
2. There is long range planning about 21st century skills in relation to childrenʼs development.
3. They value skills such as collaboration and cooperation.
4. They provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

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The School at Columbia
13
The School at Columbia is not your typical school, yet we can learn much from their practices. Itʼs a private K-8 school near Columbia University.
Half of the students are children of faculty; half come from the neighborhood. All are chosen by lottery. Constructivism drives the curriculum, and
that drives their use of technology.
This School embodies these four themes that I will address in more detail:
1. Social media is important.
2. There is long range planning about 21st century skills in relation to childrenʼs development.
3. They value skills such as collaboration and cooperation.
4. They provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

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The School at Columbia
14
The School at Columbia is not your typical school, yet we can learn much from their practices. Itʼs a private K-8 school near Columbia University.
Half of the students are children of faculty; half come from the neighborhood. All are chosen by lottery. Constructivism drives the curriculum, and
that drives their use of technology.
This School embodies these four themes that I will address in more detail:
1. Social media is important.
2. There is long range planning about 21st century skills in relation to childrenʼs development.
3. They value skills such as collaboration and cooperation.
4. They provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

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The School at Columbia
15
The School at Columbia is not your typical school, yet we can learn much from their practices. Itʼs a private K-8 school near Columbia University.
Half of the students are children of faculty; half come from the neighborhood. All are chosen by lottery. Constructivism drives the curriculum, and
that drives their use of technology.
This School embodies these four themes that I will address in more detail:
1. Social media is important.
2. There is long range planning about 21st century skills in relation to childrenʼs development.
3. They value skills such as collaboration and cooperation.
4. They provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

16. +
The School at Columbia
16
The School at Columbia is not your typical school, yet we can learn much from their practices. Itʼs a private K-8 school near Columbia University.
Half of the students are children of faculty; half come from the neighborhood. All are chosen by lottery. Constructivism drives the curriculum, and
that drives their use of technology.
This School embodies these four themes that I will address in more detail:
1. Social media is important.
2. There is long range planning about 21st century skills in relation to childrenʼs development.
3. They value skills such as collaboration and cooperation.
4. They provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

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The Social Media Explosion

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Defining Social Media
 “Online technologies and practices that people use
to share opinions,insights,experiences,and
perspectives with each other.”
 “Social media are works of user-created video,
audio,text or multimedia that are published and
shared in a social environment,such as a blog,wiki or
video hosting site.”
Social media is everywhere you look these days. From Facebook to YouTube, the American public is creating content, submitting comments,
and networking with others. This explosion is here to stay and to understand how are kids are using these tools, you must experience them
yourselves to some degree.

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Implications for Education?
http://searchenginewatch.com/3634651
For those of you beg to differ… itʼs hard to argue with the evidence.

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Implications for Schools
We need to start being thoughtful about leveraging the power of social media for student learning.
We know kids are using social media on their own. How is it impacting classrooms? Is it impacting classrooms yet? Hereʼs one example of a
thoughtful approach.
The School at Columbia University in New York City explicitly teaches their students about the appropriate practices in social networking. They
have their own social network and media sharing system which I will discuss further in my next session. In this example, the students have made
profiles of famous mathematicians. Each profile is researched and written by students, and then tagged with keywords pertaining to that
individual. A tag cloud of these keywords appears on the front page of this social network. If you click on one of these words, youʼll see all the
profiles that a linked by that term. Students start to see connections and putting the work of mathematicians into meaningful contexts.
This is just one example of social media being used in the classroom. The point is that collaborative, social online tools can be leveraged to deep
learning.

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“Managing Generational
Diversity”/ Looking to the Future
Generational diversity is a new concept to me and it popped out to me in an a recent article in District Administrator. The article is linked here,
and basically the premise is: How do we capitalize on experience and innovation in our schools by looking at generational learning styles? . After
reading this article, it occurred to me that this seems to be an overlooked area of school management.
In an somewhat unrelated manner, it also occurred to me that we need to look at schools and technology from a longitudinal basis. How are we
preparing our students for the long term? I believe that we are dealing with multigenerational issues in educational technology; itʼs not a
simplistic matter of digital natives vs. digital immigrants. Young teachers may know Facebook, but do they know how to integrate technology
effectively and meaningfully?

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Think About Students & Teachers
 Adults have different learning styles.
 Baby Boomers
 Gen Xers
 Gen Yers
 Kids have had different levels of exposure to technology.The
period of time at which our schools have been wired is fairly
short.

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This is a tool that might help you put yourself into your studentsʼ shoes. What can we assume about studentsʼ knowledge and experiences? How
are their experiences different from ours? How can we blend well together?

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Online activity pyramid: by
generation
The vast majority of online adults from
all generations uses email and search
engines.
While there are always exceptions, older
generations typically do not engage with the
internet past e-commerce.
The majority of teens and GenY use SNS, but
fewer maintain blogs. Online adults older than
Gen X are less likely to use SNS.
Basic online entertainment
(online videos, playing games)
E-commerce
(online shopping, banking, and travel reservations)
Research and information gathering
(product research, news, health and religious information searches)
Email and search
Active engagement
with social media
(visit SNS, create SNS profile,
create blogs)
More advanced online
entertainment
(download videos, music and
podcasts)
More advanced communication
and passive social media use
(instant messaging, visit SNS, read blogs)
State of the Internet
2009: Pew Internet
Project Findings and
Implications for
Libraries
There is a natural progression within peopleʼs use of technology. Some people may move up this pyramid; others may not. Hopefully, they all are
engaged at least in the email and search layer. Schools need to be cognizant of where their teachers are in terms of scales such as this. How
are schools balancing the payload? Are we reasonable in our expectations of our peers given generational learning styles?

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Project Tomorrow Speak Up Day
Recommendations
 Un-tether learning and leverage mobile devices to extend learning
beyond the school day and meet all learners in their own world
 Create new interactive, participatory learning spaces using tools such as
online classes, gaming and simulations, online tutors, and virtual reality
environments
 Incorporate Web 2.0 tools into daily instruction especially those that
develop collaborative or social-based learning and provide unique
opportunities for students to be content developers
 Expand digital resources in the classroom to add context and relevancy
to learning experiences through new media tools
 Get beyond the classroom walls and make learning truly experiential
such as using high tech science instrumentation and creating podcasts
with content experts

26. (c) Project Tomorrow 2009
Let’s add some context:
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002
K-12 Classroom Internet Connectivity
Classroom Internet Connectivity
2007
Coming Soon to Campus:The New "Free
Agent" Learner
Julie Evans, CEO-Project Tomorrow Campus
Technology 09
Jul 27, 2009

27. (c) Project Tomorrow 2009
Let’s add some context:
Thinking about your students:
How did they use technology within learning
and instruction in their K-12 lives?
Based upon those experiences, what are their
expectations for your classrooms?

28. (c) Project Tomorrow 2009
What grade where they in . . . when we
reached the 90% Internet access in K12
classrooms?
Class of 2009 – just graduated seniors
10th grade in high school
Class of 2011 – your current 3rd year students
8th grade in middle school
Class of 2013 – your current incoming freshman
6th grade in middle school
Are they really “digital natives?”

29. (c) Project Tomorrow 2009
Let’s think about your future students:
Class of 2015 – incoming to 11th grade
Class of 2017 – incoming to 9th grade
Class of 2019 – incoming to 7th grade
How digitally native are these students?
What are their expectations for learning?

30. (c) Project Tomorrow 2009
What grade where they in . . . when we reached
90% Internet access in K12 classrooms?
Class of 2015 – incoming to 11th grade
4th grade in elementary school
Class of 2017 – incoming to 9th grade
2nd grade
Class of 2019 – incoming to 7th grade
Kindergarten
Are you ready for these students and
their expectations for you?

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Implications for Schools
 Increases the need for targeted, sustained, and thoughtful
professional development.
 How are you meeting the needs of adult learners with very different
learning styles?
 Necessitates strategic human capital planning
 Requires schools to think of skills sets needed by students at
various points in their academic careers while gauging the
future of technology.
 How are you preparing to students in relation to changing technology?
 How is your school changing to meet the new needs and desires of
students?
 How are you balancing student engagement and rigor?

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21st Century Skills Buzz

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The Pedagogical Shift
 New models of teaching and learning are emerging
 Rigorous content + 21st century themes
 “Sage on the stage” to “guide on the side”
 New literacies need to be taught strategically
 Examples:
 developing a search mentality
 Student personal learning networks (PLNs)
 Standards and accountability aren’t going away
 Assessments need improvement
 A return to constructivism
 Going global is easy
In response to the need to address 2 achievement gaps that are present in the US… between those the underserved and the more affluent and
between US students and the world at large….

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The Partnership for 21st Century
Skills

35. +
MacArthur Digital Media and
Learning Initiative
The MacArthur Foundation is funding a great deal of research on digital media use and learning. This holds great promise for informing our
practice in the next few years.

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Implications for Schools
Schools need to think about how they are approaching new literacies. How many schools are specifically addressing the development of a
search mentality with their students?

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Implications for Schools
Just was teachers are developing personal learning networks, our students are doing the same. How can we leverage this process in schools?
How can we prepare our students for a networked world?

38. +
Learning Environments
Re-defined

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Learning Anywhere & Everywhere
 Personalized instruction
 Personal learning networks
 Mobiles
 School Design

40. +
NYC’s The School of One
 Summer school pilot
 Middle school math
 Flexible space
 Personalized curriculum
 Regular assessments
 Variety in delivery of
instruction
 Lesson plan bank
 Partnered with publishers

41. +
The Third Teacher

42. +
The Third Teacher

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Impact on Schools
 How does physical space affect learning?
 How space be used flexibly in your classroom or school?
 What will schools of the future look like?

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So What ?
 Social networks: You must be open to at least letting your
kids drive the technology use in your classrooms. Be willing to
engage them in the ways that they learn best.
 Generational diversity: Change is not going to happen
without schools working as teams to look at longitudinal
goals.
 21st century skills: The art of teaching comes through via
the weaving of 21st century themes into core content. You
need to give guidance and thought to classroom activities.
 Learning environments: Just as we’ve looked at the whole
child, we need to start emphasizing the whole learning
environment. Personalized learning for both students and
teachers is important.
Social networks: We must lift bans on tools and “educate the fear” out of our communities (Cheri Toledo).
Generational diversity: Letʼs leverage the experiences in our buildings. Letʼs also think carefully about our studentsʼ tech experiences throughout
K12.
21st Century Skills: Teach to studentsʼ strengths and interests; guide them in how to be good digital/global/participatory citizens.
Learning environments: We must educate the whole child by looking at the whole picture.

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Recommended Reading
 A World is Flat
 A Whole New Mind
 Disrupting Class
 The Global Achievement
Gap

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Contact Information
Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com
Skype: elemenous
iChat/AIM: elemenous
Blog: http://lucygray.org
Delicious, Flickr,YouTube etc: elemenous
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