Changing Understanding with Media: Then and Now

    The following chart provides a quick comparison of how traditional education has been organized in the past and how it needs to change in order to prepare students for living all their lives in a 21st century media culture. Media literacy education, with inquiry as its core, provides the engaging bridge over which students can pass to learn the critical process skills they’ll need to not just survive but to thrive as adults in the 21st century.


                                     

        19th – 20th Century Learning                         21st Century Learning
                         

• Limited access to knowledge and information (i.e.‘content’) primarily through print                      • Infinite access to knowledge and information (‘content’)                                                                                                                                                increasingly through the Internet

• Emphasis on learning content knowledge that may or may not be used in life                              • Emphasis on process skills for lifelong learning

• Goal is to master content knowledge (literature, history, science, etc)                                         • Goal is to learn skills (access, analyze, evaluate, create) to                                                                                                                                             solve problems

• Facts and information are “spoon-fed” by teachers to students                                                   • Teachers use discovery, inquiry-based approach

• Print-based information analysis                                                                                          • Multi-media information analysis

• Pencil / pen and paper or word processing for expression                                                          • Powerful multi-media technology tools for expression

• Classroom-limited learning and dissemination                                                                        • World-wide learning and dissemination

• Textbook learning from one source, primarily print                                                                  • Real-world, real-time learning from multiple sources,                                                                                                                                                  mostly visual and electronic

• Conceptual learning on individual basis                                                                                 • Project-based learning on team basis

• “Lock-step” age-based exposure to content knowledge                                                              • Flexible individualized exposure to content knowledge 

• Mastery demonstrated through papers and tests                                                                       • Mastery demonstrated through multi-media

• Teacher selecting and lecturing                                                                                              • Teacher framing and guiding

• Teacher evaluates and assesses work and assigns grade                                                              • Students learn to set criteria and to evaluate own work

• Teaching with state-adopted textbooks for subject area with little accountability for teaching           • Teaching to state education standards with testing for                                                                                                                                                  accountability


    As you can see there is a huge different between centuriues. If you want to know the main reason, it's this :)