Editor's Note
Everywhere, it seems that we are reminded that our world is somehow different from just a few years ago. News stories describe unbelievable breakthroughs in medicine or science made possible by computing technologies. Best-selling books describe a “flattened world.” Children spend free time gaming with other children across the globe. Indeed, Bob Dylan had it right: “The times they are a changin’.”
Education policy and practice are in the middle of these changes. Policy makers, academicians, and independent groups that shape curricula are making recommendations about the ways in which education must change in order to fully prepare today’s youth for tomorrow’s possibilities. One example is the Partnership for 21st Century Skills,
a coalition of education, business, and government leaders that advocates a set of new skills to prepare students for the challenges of participating in communities and workplaces in an information age. These skills include: information and communication skills, thinking and problem-solving, interpersonal and self-direction skills, global awareness, and civic literacy.
The Summer 2007 issue of Meridian contains articles from researchers and practitioners that contribute to the discourse characterizing this new territory and to the growing ways in which these new skills might be fostered. Caroline Sheffield characterizes gifted digital natives and describes how the use of technology in developing 21st century literacy skills is especially appropriate for these students in her article, Technology and the Gifted Adolescent: Higher Order Thinking, 21st Century Literacy, and the Digital Native. In GIS Live and Web Problem-Solving, Rita Hagevik, Diana Hales, and Julia Harrell describe GIS Live, an exciting use of information and GIS technologies and networked learning to engage students in problem-based learning. Sandra Harpole and Lori Kerley report on SMART, a project designed to address some of the difficulties in disseminating instructional technologies in rural areas. And in a flattening world, the developments in other countries with respect to technology education can offer insight into the ways nations can assist and learn from one another in the process of adapting to change. Clement Oni offers us a perspective on the impact of computer education in Nigeria. Through addressing information and communication skills, thinking and problem-solving, and global awareness, we believe that this issue speaks to the challenges that this new era affords.
Holt Wilson
Editor, Meridian : A Middle School Computer Technologies Journal
