The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The website can be found at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ **
I can appreciate the mission behind this company's stance to create collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders to address the needs of 21st century children which are my children and your children.
They point out that every child in America needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders in the 21st century. They claim that there is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces. They espouse that to successfully face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges and a globally competitive workforce, U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by infusing 21st century skills.
How do they address these concerns? They have well over 500 resources and tools that can be utilized to foster 21st century skills which are touted as being:

Information and communication skills (information and media literacy skills; communication skills) , thinking and problem-solving (critical thinking and systems thinking; problem identification, formulation and solution; creativity and intellectual curiosity), interpersonal and self-direction skills (interpersonal and collaborative skills; self-direction; accountability and adaptability; social responsibility), global awareness, financial, economic and business literacy, and developing entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options, and civic literacy.

They have a lot of big companies behind them such as AOL, Verizon, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, the National Education Association and even the U.S. Department of Education.

This site seems to take its job pretty seriously. I believe in the mission as I am aware that technology is only going to become better, faster, smaller and inundate every facit of our lives one day. I do not believe that day is too far off. I will avail myself of the information on the site to better equip my students to possess 21st century skills. There is a on-line summit in June that I have signed up for and it will be fascinating to be a part of the global conversation regarding 21st century skills. They will address important education reform initiateves concerning 21st C.S. I do believe that as far as technology is concerned, the United States are laggards. As a somewhat new educator, I have seen very little technology integration into the classroom. Where does the disconnect lie? Is it the lack of funding? Lack of vision? I don't know. I do know, however, that I can make a difference in my own classroom.