21st Century Skills

While identifying the desirable outcomes of a course of study would seem like an essential first step in the teaching/learning process, there are two trends unfolding in the literature on 'new literacy' or 21st Century skills.

1. There seems to be an acceptance that there is a finite number of specific skills which will make students eLiterate and equip them for life and work in the 21st Century.
2. Having drawn up the list of skills, there is a tendency to define, teach, and assess these skills in standardized and universalized ways.

Lankshear and Knobel argue that 'digital literacy' should instead be seen as a shorthand expression for the fluid social, cultural and personal practices that are involved in making sense of the texts that we encounter, and through the texts we create.