“How do we create a 21st-century learning environment in our schools?” asked Toni Barone, instructional technology coordinator for the Menlo Park City School District, addressing an audience of parents at a Hillview PTO meeting last week. According to Ms. Barone, the challenge facing the district is to make sure kids acquire the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed in a 21st-century workplace. “For example, the kids who want to become engineers need do more than master technology operations and concepts,” she said. “Today’s employers need them to be able to collaborate, innovate, and think outside the box.”

The MPCSD began its efforts to redefine the curriculum for the 21st century a few years ago, testing the use of Smartboards in some classrooms and purchasing rolling laptop carts to provide better access to computers. Both programs succeeded, and the district turned its efforts towards equalization by installing Smartboards in every classroom. Last year, in collaboration with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a national organization that advocates for 21st-century readiness for every student (www.p21.org), the district began to look beyond technology upgrades. “We realized that a 21st-century learning environment isn’t just about the technology,” Ms. Barone said. “We decided to focus on setting the learning outcomes, and then giving the teachers the technology they need to get there.”

Those learning outcomes are illustrated in the graphic below. The arches of the rainbow represent 21st-century student outcomes, and the pools at the bottom represent support systems. “The idea is that technology is just one of the tools we use to help students learn the 4 C’s—critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity—along with core subjects, life skills, and information and technology skills,” said Ms. Barone.

“So what does teaching our kids these skills mean for our schools and our teachers?” Ms. Barone asked. “What technology should the district use? How much access to technology do the students need? And what skills or technology do the teachers need to master in order to teach their students?” To study and hopefully answer these questions, the district created the 21st Century 2.0 project. This sixth-month pilot program, implemented in the eighth grade Explorers academy at Hillview, has been underway since the beginning of the 2011 school year.

The district designed the 2.0 Project to explore a number of issues. “To start with, we are evaluating the use of tablets in the classroom,” Ms. Barone said. “Tablets cost half as much as laptops, and have some unique features including an exceptional interface for ebooks, and a touchscreen that allows students to write and draw freehand. However, we weren’t sure whether the tablets would have sufficient functionality in the classrooms, or whether they would supply only half of the utility that we would have had with laptops,” she explained.

With regard to access, the district decided to test a workplace model. “At work, you have access to technology whenever you need it,” said Ms. Barone. “We created the same thing here, with a 1:1 ratio of students to tablets.” In addition to the tablets, the district equipped the academy with a class set of Bluetooth keyboards, a laptop cart, and a document camera that facilitates the projection of the teacher’s iPad onto the Smartboard.

“So far the teachers are in pilot mode, trying different things for different assignments,” reports Ms. Barone. Some of the benefits encountered so far include apps that not only serve, but actually enhance the learning experience. “For example, the kids are using Noteshelf, a handwriting note taker, for science. Noteshelf promotes critical thinking and problem solving by allowing kids to create customized, editable science notebooks filled with handwritten notes, drawings and photographs,” Ms. Barone said.

Another example of the technology improving the learning experience involves a writing exercise. In this i