A Video On The 21st Century Learner

The role of informal learning is often discussed–as it is below–in terms of how it can promote improved formal learning performance.

The MacArthur Foundation developed the following video that allows folks from the Digital Media Learning center and other tangent organizations to discuss some about new possibilities in learning and school design, including the role of informal learning with digital technologies.

Some of the quotes appear below. Would love to hear your feedback in the comments section below, perhaps starting with a response to the question, “Are public schooling institutions–as they currently function–critical to the progression of education forms as we move deeper into the 21st century?”

Quotes

“(Learning the content) is very much the 20th century idea around education. But in the 21st century, it’s learning the tools and the skills of remaking that content and becoming the creator and the producer. We know that the learning outside of school matters tremendously for the learning in school…How can we be more active about linking those two together?”

Diana Roten, Director of the Digital Media and Learning Project

“We find when we talk about 21st century skills, people often reduce them to skills for the workplace and skills involving technology. And we’re really talking about skills for creativity, for civic engagement, for social life–the full range of experiences that young people will be involved in in the future.”

Henry Jenkins, Provost’s Professor of Communications

“For teachers, and schools, and classroom learning, there’s an incredibly important role to play which is about giving kids access across the board to a baseline of standards, literacies, expectations, about what they need to participate in contemporary society…to be reflective, and to also take opportunity of the fact that you really have kids and adults in a shared space that’s safe, that’s sanctioned, that gives an opportunity to reflect in every day life….What we’re saying by valuing informal learning is not that we should abandon formal learning, but that we should get those working together in a much more coordinated way.”

Mimi Ito, Associate Researcher, UC Irvine