Reading Reaction 1: What students need to be successful in the 21st century

I liked Fisch & McLeod's video, Did You Know.  It clearly points out the digital reality for those who may not see it clearly.  For some teachers who feel that traditional teaching strategies are the only way, this might give them a wake up call and help them to realize that traditional teaching strategies won't work with students who interact on a completely different level.  
I also really liked Alice Mercer's response to Dr. McLeod's blog. There are two factors: effectiveness and convenience.  Teachers shouldn't spend all their free time on work.  That being said we also need to make sure our curriculum is effective.  We can balance effectiveness and convenience if we try.  Mercer's highly effective, very convenient category should be the goal for all teachers though the reality is probably somewhere in between that and highly effective, not convenient.
In order to achieve this highly effective, very convenient goal, we need to keep in mind the 21st century skills students will need to be successful both in school and in their future careers.  Students still need the traditional core subjects, but integrated within those courses they should also acquire information literacy (knowing how to find, use, analyze, and communicate information), flexibility and adaptability, technology skills, and innovation skills (Shelly, Gunter, & Gunter, 2010).  Students need to be able to adapt to the rapid changes our world is going through and be able to use the technologies available to them which means we as teachers need to be able to do this.  We need to learn new technologies and integrate them in our classes not because they're shiny and new or because they might hold our student's attention, but because our students will need to know how to use these technologies.  Many teachers fall back on traditional teaching strategies because they are comparatively easy and definitely more comfortable since they are well known.  Therefore, we need to stay on guard and remind ourselves of what our students really need to know regardless of whether it is comfortable to explore new strategies.