What the Millennium Teacher Must Know and Be Able to Do

Abstract

Pedagogical tools for the millennium teacher will look very different from those in place in most classrooms today. Video, sound, and text will all be interwoven, creating environments that will engage students as all senses are engaged. Students will be exposed to information and people in “real-time” settings, will be using a variety of learner-based tools (Bull, Bell, Garofalo & Sigmon, 2002), and will employ tools that speak to each other. As Kellner (2001) indicates, such new technologies may appear exotic in the present, but “will become increasingly commonplace in the future and will force a rethinking of education” (p. 47). Teachers will not be, nor should they expect to be, “experts” in the classroom, but will serve as guides, while they themselves receive guidance and assistance from others to support the use of technology tools that will be “in place” in millennium learning environments. Millennium teachers must ask for and expect this support, as it will be necessary to meet the “three musts” of teachers for millennium classrooms.