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Bruce and Levin (1997) use the term media in relation to technology use: "We view the effects of technologies as operating to a large extent through the ways that they alter the environments for thinking, communicating, and acting in the world. Thus, they provide new media for learning, in the sense that one might say land provided new media for creatures to evolve. This view of media encompasses but extends the familiar idea of media as a place to put information. Today, interactive multimedia technology provides us with a new way to draw upon children's natural impulses. These new media hold an abundance of materials, including text, voice, music, graphics, photos, animation, and video. But they provide more than abundance. Bringing all these media together means that we can vastly expand the range of learning experiences, opening up the social and natural worlds. Students can explore the relations among ideas and thus experience a more connected form of learning. Perhaps most importantly, these new media are interactive and conducive to active, engaged learning. Students can choose what to see and do, and they have media to record and extend what they learn. Learning is thus driven by the individual needs and interests of the learner."
Bruce and Levin (1997) note that the focus of the educational technology should not be on the capabilities of the hardware or software but rather on how the learner uses it. They emphasize that when technology is used as a tool to complete a task, the task itself becomes central in importance and the technology is merely a means to approach the task. As students gain knowledge, they also need to be able to think through technology in order to express the concepts they have synthesized. Technology as Media, http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te8lk4.htm
As the communities around the country set educational objectives, the development of 21st Century Skills should be a key objective. In the rapidly changing economy, there is a corresponding shift in the skills and abilities that student will need to thrive in the future. These twenty-first century skills include digital literacy, inventive thing, effective communication , teamwork and the ability to create high quality products. The CEO Forum School Technology and Readiness Report: Key Building Block for Student Achievement in the 21st Century, http://www.ceoforum.org/reports.html
A Global Imperative: The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit, http://www.nmc.org/publications/global-imperative
- 21st century literacy includes creative fluency as well as interpretive facility. Just a traditional forms of literacy imply the ability to speak and write as well as to read, 21st Century literacy implies the ability to articulate and create idea n these new forms, as well as to understand the layers of meaning they may convey (Jenkins, 2004: Flood 2004)
- 21st century literacy means learning a new grammar with its own rules of construction. Tools that make multimedia easily accessible are contributing to the spread of, and the need for education in, 21st Century literacy. The underlying concepts must be teased out. While the grammar of this new language is not yet fully understood, it seems to be at least to some degree, intuitive to young people. Digital natives easily grasp how visual and other multimedia components can enhance communications, even if their use of it is largely informal. As young people create casual multimedia, they are also creating the opportunity to experiment , learn , take risks, and become fluent. (Woolsey, 2005)
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