Howard Rheingold's five new media literacies provide model for 21st education system.

In his talk with child prodigy Adora Svitak, famed new media scholar Howard Rheingold discusses five fundamental literacies related to digital technology: attention, participation, credibility, collaboration and network awareness. This is a significant shift from the popular 20th century literacies of reading, writing and arithmetic. As a teacher, I recognize that this shift to a new set of literacies (and I would add search and filter as a literacy to the list) requires us to rethink the curriculum for students in the education system. Svitak provides a compelling picture of the types of students that we need to develop.

Recently Alberta Education recognized the need to transform the education system for the 21st century and embarked on a process of envisioning to develop the school system needed for a child born in 2010.