Researching the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner

My first session was a preconference led by Donna Shannon of the University of South Carolina and Gail Dickinson. The purpose of the preconference was to write researchable questions that would be worthy of grant-funded initiatives.

While this session was not what I expected (I wanted to hear what the research said), I found it very interesting. The presenters provided participants with a bibliography of resources dicussing ways 21st century students learn. The participants were invited to add additional resources to the bibliography, thereby expanding the knowledge base. Next the participants were divided into four groups to look at each of the aspects of the new standards. We were ask for formulate our questions intensely looking at the standards.

My group dealt with Standard 4: Pursue personal and aesthetic growth. I am very interested in this standard, because to me, it truly showcases students lifelong learning and information using practices. Much of the skills, dispositions, responsibilities, and self-assessment strategies discussed here must become second nature to users or all media. But because of the nature of the media, this internalization of dispositions is very hard to gauge. Age of the users and the training the users received must impact these dispositions. How can dispositions be measured?

In our quest to help young people become wise and ethical users of technology and ideas we face many obstacles. One is how to teach children to guard their privacy on social networking sites when many of these sites are blocked. Sure, in blocking these sites we prevent some problems, but we also lose the opportunities to guide and teach.

If I were to conduct any research right now, I think I would like to see what, if any, generational differences in regard to privacy occur among my friends on Facebook. My friends' ages range from 6 to 83.

Information on this session can be found at http://aaslconference.pbworks.com/ .