Review and Critics about Partnership for 21st Century Skills Website.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills (http://www.p21.org) is an organization formed in 2002 by U.S. Department of Education, individuals and organizations such as Microsoft, Apple and Cisco Systems, Inc. P21 states their mission as: To serve as a catalyst to position 21st century readiness at the center of US K12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders.

Watch video to learn 21st century skills that students need.

This organization focus on defining necessary skills for 21st century education in US schools, and research strategies about how to integrate those visions into core curriculums. Unfortunately, this organization aims to change U.S. education only, and collaborate with U.S. related individuals and organizations. 21st century means collaboration and integration with the world. Therefore, this site should accept members and partners worldwide, and should be a global website.

First of all, I did not like the theme and menu style of the website. Theme is not user friendly, and it is a bit difficult to find contents. For instance, as a physics teacher, I would like to see what physics teachers can do to integrate 21st century skills into the curriculum, but I could not find. Secondly, there are no specific examples and strategies about using 21st century skills. All skills and strategies are written with general terms.

What surprised me the most is; the web site is still Web 1.0. There  are no interactive pages, and nobody can communicate or contribute to this website unless they are a member. I would like to see forums, discussions, and wikis where people discuss  definitions, objectives, applications and integration of 21st century skills into specific curriculums. In other words, I like the idea behind the partnership for 21st century skills organization. At the other hand, it is visible that they could not catch the 21st century, and could not update website accordingly. They should do more than using twitter or asking people to upload their videos.

Like P21 website wrote, ICT and communication skills are the heart of 21st century skills. Web site states life and career skills such as how to adapt to change in the environment and technology, how to communicate with the world and be flexible, how to become a self learner with using the internet and technology, and how to work as a team, manage projects and guide and lead others. Reading all these skills helped me to acknowledge the needs of my students and encouraged me to search teaching strategies that can develop those skills. As I have said, those skills are the most valuable skills that we can teach to the students.

By the way, 21st century skills include mastery in core subjects such as English, world languages, Arts, Mathematics, Economics, Science, Geography, history, government and Civics. To say the truth, I do not think that these core subjects are 21st century skills. First of all, it is impossible for every student to master in all those subjects. The site should limit the core subject according to the interest area of the student. Moreover, I think only the mathematics is essential for every student. The rest might be different according to the interest, learning style and intelligence type of student.

Educators focused on creativity, innovation, critical thinking and problem solving skills before, and they will focus on the future regardless of the century. Therefore, one does not need to count those skills as 21st century skills.

Finally, you can visit P21 website to learn more about 21st century skills and frameworks. Especially, ICT, life and career skills are well explained, and one can use this information to integrate 21st century skills into his / her curriculum. For instance, I am planning to give team project assignments and ask students to publish their project details in  a wiki page.