Volume 3, Issue 6
From the January Edition of eSchoolNews:
New framework helps work21st-century skills into Eng-lish classes
English teachers now have afree resource to help them infuseso-called 21stcentury skills intotheir curriculum, thanks to colla-boration between the Partnershipfor 21st Century Skills (P21) andthe National Council of Teachersof English (NCTE). This new re-source
—
a framework that pro-vides teacher-created models forhow 21st-century skills such asproblem solving, critical thinking,communication, collaboration, andcreativity can be incorporated intoEnglish classes
—is part of P21’s
effort to create curriculum mapsthat demonstrate how to teach key21st-century skills in the class-room. By offering sample lessonsthat combine 21st-century skillswith interdisciplinary themes suchas global awareness and civic,economic, and entrepreneurial lite-racy, the new 21st Century SkillsEnglish Map gives concrete ex-amples of how to align teachingand learning with the standards of
the 21st century. ―This framework,
which includes examples takendirectly from proven classroompractices, represents an excitingtool for teachers and students asthey move toward a 21st-century
education system,‖ said Kylene
Beers, NCTE president.The map cites specific studentoutcomes and provides modelsthat aim to help student achieve-ment in grades four, eight, and 12.
Free site measures stu-
dents’ information literacy
skills
TRAILS-9, which stands for Toolsfor Real-Time Assessment of In-formation Literary Skills, usesmultiple questions to assess theinformation literacy skills of stu-dents based on sixth- and ninth-grade standards. The free site,which is a project of the Instituteof Library and Information Litera-cy Education, was developed togive library media specialists atool to identify strengths and
weaknesses of their students’ i
n-formation-seeking abilities. Theassessment, which asks multiple-
choice questions such as ―You
need to find an editorial on Presi-
dent Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s
New Deal program. How wouldyou be most likely to find one
from that time period?,‖ reporte
d-ly has been used by more than5,000 library media specialists inall states and 30 countries and ad-ministered to more than 100,000students.
New fair-use guide offerscopyright protection foreducators
Hoping to clear up the confusion
over the ―fair use‖ of digital
mate-rials in teaching and learning, apanel of university professors has
developed a ―Code of Best Pra
c-tices in Fair Use for Media Litera-
cy Education.‖ The document cl
a-rifies how fair use applies to themost common situations wheremedia-literacy educators make useof copyrighted materials in theirwork, and it offers guidance forinstructors so they can make moreinformed judgments about usingthese materials. Created though apartnership among the MediaEducation Lab at Temple Univer-sity, the Center for Social Mediaat American University (AU), and
AU’s Washington College of Law,
with funding from the MacArthurFoundation, the code identifiesfive principles of consensus aboutacceptable practices for the fairuse of copyrighted materials, whe-rever and however it occurs: in K-12 schools, higher-education insti-tutions, or nonprofit groups thatoffer media-education programs.
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