Who will have the controlling influence on defining and testing 21st Century skills?
Educational authorities may be losing their controlling influence as corporations drive the agenda in their search for employable knowledge workers with a truly global approach. The Assessment & Teaching of 21st Century skills project was created by Cisco, Intel and Microsoft and launched at the Learning and Technology World Forum 2009 in London.
In Australia, Prime Minister Gillard has set the school improvement agenda on students reaching the top five ranked school systems in the world for reading, mathematics and science by 2025.
The inclusion of this new skills assessment in PISA will mean that all students will be tested in collaborative problem-solving from 2015. This will have far-reaching effects on governments, education systems and on teaching and learning processes in schools.
https://theconversation.edu.au/changing-tests-and-the-pms-2025-goal-for-schools-7280
In January 2013 the system will go live, and will be available to every country in the world (providing a suitable technology infrastructure exists).
Their draft paper on the Technological Issues for Computer Based Assessment is very comprehensive and a great read. The paper reviews previous research and development in two ways, describing the main tendencies in four continents (Asia, Australia, Europe and the US) and summarizing research on how technology advances assessment in some crucial dimensions (assessment of established constructs, extension of assessment domains, assessment of new constructs and in dynamic situations).
http://dern2.acer.edu.au/dern/research-reviews/page/online-assessment-technological-issues
ATC21S Collaborative Problem Solving long version
Ways in developing tools to measure 21st century skills such as CPS being used in a participating school in Australia.
Collection centre http://www.assessmentfocus.com/k12-collaborative-problem-solving.php
The Future of Learning, Networked Society – Ericsson
Teach kids to solve problems – the answers are everywhere – Stephen Heppell – teachers have been slow to use data.
Daphne Koller less and less of education is about delivering content – more back to teaching where the instructor engages in thinking skills and problem solving skills.
Anne De Nicolo 