14 DAY TRIAL // Come February 2010, no less than five countries around the world will kick off pilot projects in their schools designed to bring 21st-century teaching and learning in classrooms. Developed through a collaboration between Cisco, Intel and Microsoft, the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) project is focused specifically on not only defining the 21st century skillset but also research and develop new methodologies and technologies that will allow the success of teaching and learning efforts tailored to the future.
And while five countries might not sound like much, fact is that Microsoft, Cisco and Intel only started sponsoring ATC21S in January 2008, under the mantra “What is learned, how it is taught and how schools are organized must be transformed to respond to the social and economic needs of students and society as we face the challenges of the 21st century.”
So the fact that Australia, Finland, Portugal, Singapore and the United Kingdom have agreed to participate in pilot projects is an immense step forward for ATC21S, towards having schools around the globe teach students not in accordance with an obsolete educational model from the 19th century, but in accordance with the needs of today and tomorrow. Fact is that schools everywhere are still far from this goal, but thanks to efforts such as the ATC21S from Microsoft, Cisco and Intel, students at least in the immediate future might have a chance at starting off in life equipped with 21st-century skills.
The five founder countries that decided to deploy ATC21S pilot projects in schools will do so as early as February 2010. Microsoft revealed that over 60 global education experts had been tapped to lead the research phase of the effort. At the same time, the start of 2010 represents a critical point in the evolution of ATC21S, as the Redmond company noted that the key research necessary for the project to transition from a theoretical phase into a practical phase was complete.
“When we’re successful, we’ll change how school s and students are evaluated. Instead of looking solely at math and reading scores to measure performance, teachers, schools, districts and governments will also examine how students are acquiring the skills to succeed in the future. At Microsoft, we believe that every one of the planet’s 1.4 billion students deserves the best education we can give them. Our participation in the ATC21S program is an example of our efforts to help schools deliver on that belief. Please be sure to read about other ways that we are focused on transforming education over the course of this week, including: our work in connecting colleges and universities; helping youngsters grasp computer programming; and enabling students in impoverished countries to make better use of the scarce PCs available to them,” revealed Anthony Salcito, vice president for Worldwide Education.