In society today,emojis are used to tell a story or communicate just as the Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics to do the same. As time and millenniums come and go, different styles of communication are created and we as educators must continue to stay ahead of the course when expecting students to be agents of change. Living in a 21st-Century interactive world, we must be able to have students design and distribute original digital work that exhibits effective

communication (Crockett et al, 2011). With the ever-presence of technology surrounding our society, it is important to leverage both media and collaboration together when building 21st-Century Global Digital Citizens. 

By leveraging media and technology, teachers must be conscious of the skills students must learn will only become long-term benefits if we as educators invest the time to create global digital citizens. In order to build such skills, teachers must acknowledge multimedia communication is a reality and we as teachers must focus our attention on the inclusion of visual media (Crockett et al, 2011). Through the implementation of media fluency, Croeckt et al. (2011) discovered studentscan understand that using digital tools to solve problems through the creation of real-life products can become an effective part of their lives. With media fluency, students learn how to not only consume information critically but leverage their production that is aligned specifically to the desired audience (Global Digital Citizen Foundation, 2015a). 

One strategy that I would like to implement into the learning environment that would enforce media fluency would be to have students create digital essays to display their highest level of comprehension. Breaking away from the traditional sense of typing an essay, students will be granted multiple avenues of production options they feel confident or desire using. By allowing the freedom to choose their mode of production, students can create digital essays by creating digital stories or movies, video essays, and slide presentations such as Google Docs and Prezi. No matter the choice, students will need to combine both content knowledge and 21st-Century technology skills to ensure they are preparing themselves for the 21st-Century society they will be working in. By incorporating media fluency, students are developing media fluency skills, which are essential to the learning environment as technology continues to reshape how students evaluate and respond to digital media as well as how they perceive information (Wabisabi Learning, n.d.). No matter the amount of media fluency students develop, if they are not working collaboratively they will struggle to succeed in the 21st-Century workforce. 

            Making collaboration a key aspect of the learning environment, students are granted endless opportunities to work among their peers for the betterment of all earners. However, through the implementation of the Collaboration Fluency process, each student will develop the needed skills to operate in a collaborative working environment using technology as the main tool of production and delivery of tasks. By becoming fluent in collaboration, students will understand the importance of establishing and agreeing to group roles and responsibilities through signing a group contract allowing groups to progress to other fluency levels (Global Digital Citizen Foundation, 2015b). 

            One strategy I would like to implement to incorporate 21st-Century collaboration fluency skills is project-based learning (PBL) activities. Through PBL, students learn through actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects through a collaborative setting (Buck Institute for Education, n.d.). Once students have a baseline of information regarding their unit’s essential question, students can organize themselves into groups and begin organizing how they are going to complete their project-based learning assignment. Taking the inquiry approach, groups will need to establish a deeper understanding of their content by collaboratively working together to complete tasks. One of the benefits of incorporating PBL into the classroom is that it will equip students to admit and meet challenges of the real world, replicating what professionals do on a daily basis (Schuetz, 2018). Furthermore, through the implementation of PBL, students are becoming prepared for the 21st-Century workforce where employers seek workers that possess vital skills and abilities such as working on a team, problem-solving skills, and great verbal communication skills, all of which are encompassed in PBL (Gonzalez, 2016). 

            In closing, the idea of giving our students the freedom to research, discover, design, and create media to display their highest level of comprehension seems Utopian. However, creativity is undefinable and when students are given the opportunities to explore the endless ways of production, their potential becoming 21st-Century global digital citizens increase greatly. 

           

References

Buck Institute for Education. (n.d.). What is PBL? Retrieved from https://www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl.

Crockett, L., Jukes, I., & Churches, A. (2011). Literacy is not enough: 21st-century fluencies for the digital age. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 

Global Digital Citizen Foundation. (2015a). Media Fluency [Video file]. Retrieved from http://globaldigitalcitizen.org/media-fluency-video.

Global Digital Citizen Foundation. (2015b). Collaboration Fluency [Video file]. Retrieved from http://globaldigitalcitizen.org/collaboration-fluency-video.

Gonzalez, J. (2016). Project based learning: Start here. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/project-based-learning/.

Wabisabi Learning. (n.d.). How to teach media fluency skills: 6 cool concepts to try. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://wabisabilearning.com/blogs/future-fluencies/oncepts-teaching-media-fluency-skills.