Mason+Teachers+Wiki

Welcome to MHS21
Welcome to the Mason High School Teachers Wiki! This site is devoted to professional-development about 21st Century Skills and Learning. Hopefully, it provides you with a good overview of the 21st Century Skills and the implications for teacher and student learning at Mason High School.

Introduction to a Wiki
A wiki is a web page with an edit button. The word wiki is Hawaiian for quick. A wiki can be made up of multiple pages. This is the Homepage of the Mason High School 21st Century Skills Wiki (MHS21). Each page within a wiki has four elements (see tabs above): The page itself, a discussion page, a history page and a notification page. The pages appear as web pages, until you click 'Edit This Page", the page then appears like a word processor. Click "Save" to display the wiki as a Web Page. If you would like to learn more about wikis and the basics behind contributing to a wiki, follow this link to What is a Wiki.

Navigating this Wiki
If you are ever lost within a wiki, click on your username in the upper right. There you will see a dashboard display with links to all of your wikis. Once you are in a specific wiki, the left hand area of the page usually links to pages within that wiki. Other helpful links could also be placed there. On this wiki, click on MHS21 Home to return to the homepage of the wiki. For fun, click on My Account in the upper right corner. You can upload a photo or picture as your personal icon, change your email and creae a user profile. Take a moment to check out the Help link. Notice the links in the 'Navigation' area to the left. There are direct links to other pages in this wiki, links to the department wikis and links to resources.

Practice
Your first task is to go to the Sandbox and follow the instructions posted there. You will practice editing and contributing to a discussion board.

Get an overview of the Framework of 21st Century Learning
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has developed a [|Framework for 21st Century Learning]. The skills, knowledge and expertise students should master to succeed in work and life in the 21st Century are: [|Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes] [|Learning and Innovation Skills] [|Information, Media and Technology Skills] [|Life and Career Skills] The partnership also describes the critical support systems necessary to ensure student mastery of 21st century skills: 21st century standards, assessments, curriculum, instruction, professional development and learning environments.

Read about 21st Century Skills
As the introductory portion of the 21st Century Skills professional development, read the following article from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The entire article can be read online here: [|The Intellectual and Policy Foundations of the 21st Century Skills Framework]. These links seperate the article into sections that define the framework set forth by the Partnership: A pdf copy of the article can be downloaded here:

Participate in the Discussion
Contribute to the discussion by responding to at least three prompts located on the discussion board on one of the 6 pages of The Intellectual and Policy Foundations of the 21st Century Skills Framework (above or Reading links in the left margin). You may also choose to start your own discussion thread. These contributions are the criteria for the 1 hr of PD "credit" you receive for completing the 21st Century Reading. You may begin contributing now. Please complete the reading and discussion contributions before your MHS 21st Century Skills PD Session.

Read More with your Department
Some departments may choose to develop wiki collaborations of their own. If so, further instructions will come from your Department Head/Curriculum Leader. If a PLC wants to use a wiki for collaboration, please contact me and I will establish a wiki for you.

Have Fun Developing New Ideas
It may seem odd to you that we are discussing how we should begin developing 21st Century Skills in the year 2009. We are very interested in finding a term that does not suggest we are already behind the times. Go to this page to suggest a Replacement Term for 21st Century Skills.

Read or contribute what you have already read about 21st Century Learning
Resources is a page that is available for all members to share links, quotes, videos, etc.