Communication and the desire to engage with others is at the core of what makes us human. We love to tell stores, share ideas, and have our voices heard. The process of developing these skills is part of what will make us successful friends, family members, colleagues, and even future innovators. With this in mind, the process of exploring content creation skills in the K12 space will allow us to help our students nurture and develop core skills that will make them more active participants in classroom learning while preparing them for a future that will expect content creation and various forms of communication skills to be what proficient in Microsoft Word was to the resumes of yesteryear.
TopThe Future Of Work
Analytical Thinking and Innovation
By challenging students to analyze and interpret various forms of content to understand their underlying message, meaning, inference, and relationships. This of course to helps our students develop a deeper understanding and application for style, usage, and purpose to influence and improve their processes of communication. Many times what is lacking to promote engagement involves both the input and output of skill acquisition. If educators are open to exploring content mediums beyond the canon of literature and imagining creative methods of communication, students can be given a new type of learning experience that will promote curiosity and involvement that may lack in traditional modes and methods of learning.
Creativity, Originality, Initiative
Creativity challenges a person to invoke meaning and purpose in their work. For young learners, creativity must be viewed not just as an act of creating but the mental process involved in finding connections between ideas and expression. As students find new ways of communicating and expressing ideas, they can develop their creative process of making something that others want to engage with and bring value to others. This mindset also address the many barriers that school put in front of teachers ranging from curricular coverage and high stakes testing to a lack of resources. This perception from educators prevents authentic collaboration as well as the ability to nurture creativity in schools at large (Cho, Hyunjung, Pemberton, & Ray, 2017)
Leadership and Social Influence
The capacity for leadership in the future of work is more than just being a boss. Leadership can be viewed as your expert in a content area or in a way that others look for guidance and insight. Content creation on today's platforms and tomorrow is as well will be driven by how well you support others and provide them with value. As educators we must model our relationship with the “real world” and the skill building associated with it for our students. If we are to demand that they prepare themselves for the real world, we must show them that we as adults, and their mentors live in it. When we model as members of online learning networks, and show how we collaborate with peers beyond our institution we refine our own professional practice and provide an example for our students. As leaders mentoring the next generation of leaders, we need be active, engaged participants and modelers who recognize that digital learning is core work, not an ancillary add-on (McLeod, 2015).
Technology Design and Programing
Masters of technology is no longer about knowing how to use devices and software, rather it is the roles and identities you can assume through your technological capacity. This means that design technology is meant to empower users and give them the capacity to design experiences that others can interact with. The ISTE standards for students captures this concept of technology-driven identities in a powerful way that focuses on students as designers, thinkers, communicators, and collaborators not because of their technology literacy, but because they understand how to use technology in unique and powerful ways.
While the classic list of 21st-Century competencies might focus on critical thinking and problem solving, it is clear that the shift in vernacular requires us to help students develop much broader skills that leverage critical thinking and problem solving constantly. Applying these skills through less of the four content creation themes can be both empowering and invigorating for students who many times lose interest in the monotony of daily learning experiences. It is critical that we find a way to balance the focus on this scope of skill development and academic output. If not, we will find ourselves standardizing innovation and turning computer science into an elite and sometimes inequitable AP course that is designed for the “academically capable. (Goode, Chapman, & Margolis, 2012)