International Women’s Day: lifeworthy learning

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Lifeworthy Learning- Twenty first century skills and dispositions. David Perkins

On Wednesday morning we had a whole school assembly to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Our Principal, Jane Danvers, spoke about lifeworthy learning and asked students to think about, who they are as a woman, the image they put forward and how they can best show themselves.

David Perkin’s term lifeworthy learning refers to what are students learning at school that will have a role in the lives they will live. In his book Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World  he defines six broad trends in education that he calls the ‘six beyonds’  The first one is beyond basic skills and dispositions and includes,

…cultivating collaborative skills and disposition, leadership…

As a teacher, I have the opportunity to make a connection between collaborative and leadership skills and to model how to put forward a positive image of themselves as a woman.

In an article by Dr. Reem Al-Mahmood entitled Teaching students how their Social Media presence can affect their professional, academic, and social lives, she says,

Digital literacies are the “capabilities required to live, work, and learn in a digital world” (JISC (2011). La Trobe University considers teaching these literacies a vital aspect of its agendas given the importance of Social Media in students’ lives. Not only do university students need to be able to use and communicate via Social Media, but they also need to understand the professional, ethical, and legal aspects and responsibilities.

At a senior secondary school level, students can use their Edublogs site to engage in online communication to create their e-reputation and interact respectfully in academic conversations that foster critical thinking.

Presenting opportunities for students to experience creating such a digital identity could be defined as lifeworthy in that it is relevant to their future study and careers, as Perkins says,

…likely to matter in the lives learners are likely to live.

Lesson

Read my About Me page and open a few posts on my blog; complete the thinking routine below and post a comment on this post.

Think, Puzzle, Explore

1. What do you think you know about creating an e-reputation?

2. What questions or puzzles do you have?

3. What does the topic make you want to explore?

Resources

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4 Comments
  1. Dear Ms Rooney,
    I have learned that an e-reputation is extremely important and that you should protect it. Other people can formulate perceptions about you based on your online activities, posts, and photos. A question I have is how much can people find about you even if your profile is private? This topic makes me want to explore my digital footprint, and see what others can learn about me just through the internet.
    From Zara

    • Hi Zara, thanks for your comment. You can Google your name to find your digital footprint. The best way to stay private is to never post anything on the Internet, social media or upload anything into a cloud. I take another perspective. One reason why I blog is to share information. I believe in participating in a global collective. I agree with Doug Belshaw who has been blogging for a third of his life. He
      does not copyright his work as he wants to ‘donate my work to the public domain… it’s driven by a desire to spend more time creating than worrying about who’s remixing my work.’

  2. What does the topic make you want to explore?

    I really enjoyed reading through this blog post, as it was very interesting to read about what exactly lifeworthy learning is and the purpose of the term. Reading this, I become interested to explore more about why this is such an important term for students to experience.

    • Hi Emilia, I agree that ‘lifeworthy learning’ is an interesting term. When I first heard it I also wanted to find out more. My interpretation is that our education should give students the skills to learn about new things that have not yet been dreamt of. So knowing how to learn is more ‘lifeworthy’ than knowing factual information. For us, learning research skills and how to present yourself online as a positive respectful person will be beneficial for your academic and work future.

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