Dell Technologies conducted a study in 2017 about how technology will affect work and society in the future. They say that 85 percent of the jobs that will be available in 2030 don’t exist yet and that “the ability to gain new knowledge will be more valuable than the knowledge itself.” (Dell Technologies, 2017). This means that we need to teach our students a new set of skills to prepare them in the 21st century.
So what does 21st century learning look like? We need to teach students skills like the “four C’s” (communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking). They also need to learn about cultural awareness, how to become ethical citizens and how to use technology. As educators, we can take advantage of the technologies we have available to us to engage students in these skills.
Using a makerspace is one way of implementing technology to engage students in 21st century skills. While investigating 21st century learning at my own school this week, I began to think more about how a makerspace can benefit our students. This is something that the school has been investigating recently, but I wasn’t clear as to what the value was. I thought it would be fun and engaging for kids, but it wasn’t until I thought about the best ways to prepare kids for the future that I realized adding a makerspace will be a valuable addition for our students. If used properly it could promote the use of all 4 C’s. If students were asked to help someone in the community solve real-world problems using the makerspace they would need to communicate and collaborate with that person to understand the issue. They would also need to use creativity and critical thinking to come up with a solution.
References
Dell Technologies. (2017, July 12). Realizing 2030: Dell Technologies Research Explores the Next Era of Human-Machine PartnershipsRetrieved from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/realizing-2030-dell-technologies-research-explores-the-next-era-of-human-machine-partnerships-300486894.html
Brian Durst EdTech 