Intelligence is “a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture. .. it suggests that intelligences are not things that can be seen or counted. Instead, they are potentials–presumably, neural ones–that will or will not be activated, depending upon the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers and others.”
Howard Gardner, 1999
Higher education has the strong role of igniting an individual’s intelligences. I want to stress it in the plural form, intelligenceS. Higher education must be able to support the individual’s academic and cognitive/technical competency as well her gregarious ability. This role of the higher education has expanded with the present technological trends (from web 2.0 to 3.0, from structured to rhizomic connections) happening.
We are experiencing not just information overload but communication overload. There is massive socialization of space and disregard to privacy. Fragmentation of culture and spawning of culture have been happening everywhere. (Dijk,2006) Let’s not forget that we are dealing with millennial learners, accustomed to having constant access to the web and routinely face their day-to-day clinging to their personal technologies.
My perspective now is that we need to re-imagine the face of our 21st century graduate. Is she the Bill Gates, the Steve Jobs or the IBM type, or the extrinsic Lady Gaga? It may be difficult to look at personalities. It will be better to scrutinize the intelligences our near future requires while we look around the technophilia all around.
These are the important skills or intelligenceS we need to build among our students in higher education in this century.
1. informational skills 2. visual skills 3. intercultural skills
4. linguistics skills 5. crisis skills 6. health and environmental literacy
7. ethical literacy 8. content producer.
Reference:
Dijk, J. V (2006). The network society 2nd edition. London: Sage publications.
convictionsandfreethoughts 
There are interesting new “fluencies” for 21st century learners too.
I guess i like the thought of distinguishing between fluencies and skills.
I feel the change in terminology and concept better supports the lifelong learning paradigm.
Actually, my thoughts on the 21st century skills do not include fluency yet. These are supposedly the baseline skills. Fluency or competency or expertise would be another combination of tacit & explicit capacity of a learner immersed on the use of technology for personal, professional, social or even learning engagements.
Fluency was also explained very well in Alec Couros’ presentation – http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/towards-digital-fluency . I actually shared this with the colleagues in the dept. Check out slides 26-30. He explained that fluency is the use of technologies strategically in your profession, personal or learning engagements. It’s having a positive outcome to your engagements & being able to predict the outcome as you become better.
And maybe I will add too, that fluency is at the same time being adaptive to the many changes in the techno-tools and environment. At the rate of the changes going on right now, Apple or Google or Microsoft may still be uncertain to how big of the slice of the pie they will enjoy in the next few years. Many new developments. There will always be something new to learn or use or even the space where we work and play. My random thoughts..
I like this presentation
I would have to agree with the “skills or intelligences” that a 21st century graduate MUST possess because learning, during the past decade or so, has expanded literally beyond the four walls of a classroom. We have to admit that there are things that we can learn and will be learned outside the classroom, and we learn them through experience. Educators might as well prepare/train their students to be competent not only inside the classroom (through books, lectures, etc), but also outside a school setting.
I believe and would like to add also that a 21st century graduate needs to be not only book-smart, but also street-smart. It’s time that we focus more on covering all “intelligences”, rather than simply targeting a particular intelligence.
Learners of today really are different from the learners of the past. And with the continuing evolution of technology. Imagine what would the learners be like in the next 50 years. So as instructional designers, we must be always adapting to the changes happening around us.
I agree that the 21st century graduate is prone to experiencing information overload and communication overload. With all the technologies available, students tend to spend too much time in front of the computer or with their gadgets. I’m not saying that this is totally a bad thing because it also provides advantages especially in learning, but moderation should be observed. I can’t help but compare 20th century graduates with 21st century graduates. Both have a lot of similarities and differences, but one major factor that sets them apart is technology. Acquiring information before must have been tedious because one had to refer mainly on books. But today students can refer not only on books but also on the web which can provide information in a very short span of time. 21st century graduates are more technologically adept and can keep up with the rapid advancement of technology.
I also agree with the important skills/intelligences that are needed to be acquired by the students in this century, especially with Informational Skills, Content Producer, Ethical Literacy, and Crisis Skills.
The rapid acceleration of technology & the adeptness of present students to technology now prescribe management of the knowledge, information, interests, connections and other learning sources. Our old model of having specific sources of information, primarily from our teachers and experts may not fit. We must have an architectural meme of some sort to effectively pull, push our learning artefacts, maybe even reuse or remix & reproduce them. And maybe we have to start from our own learning engagements.
With the emerging technologies now, there should be changes in the ways and goals of education. The students’ use of these technologies and the importance of the technologies to them should be put into consideration when looking at education and how it will be taught so that it accomodates the important parts of a students life and so that it will also be relevant to them.
As technology advances, skills and intelligences’ of a learner change as well. It is true that the 21st century graduates are not only experiencing information overload but also communication overload due to the massive growth of popularity of different social medias. As instructional designers, we must not let ourselves be left out by these technological advancements but we must go along with these technologies and maximize the use of it in education.
Students today are exposed to technology almost every day. They are dependent to their personal technologies since it gives them convenience and makes life easier for them. Since the students of today are the workforce of tomorrow, they must be developed in not just a single intelligence but rather, they should be developed in all types of intelligences and be well-rounded individuals. With this, when the students graduate, they will be prepared and ready to take on the corporate life and develop their skills even further. Then as the new generation comes, the graduates of today will be their mentors and guide them to an even higher level of intelligence so as to continue progress.