"All of a Sudden It's the 21st Century And I'm Illiterate?"

Yesterday, while reading Will Richardson's blog (a blogger I will be profiling next after we've had enough time to dine on David Warlick), I came upon this item released by NCTE. Last Friday NCTE adopted a list of skills indentified in a definition of 21st Century literacies. Here's the list:

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and
cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of
purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous
information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

This list contains many of the same basic elements as the recommendations David Warlick posted last week. The skills listed by NCTE are exactly what we're trying to accomplish with this blog.

The list also raises some pretty big questions. How important is it that educators possess this literacy? Who's responsibility is it to help educators develop these skills? Lastly, to what extent are the educators that you know 21st century literate? What bullet points might need greater focus?

- Joel