Today’s employers are looking for more than a college degree in their new hires. They expect their potential workers to be conversant in the 4Cs of 21st Century learners: communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. The 4Cs have been identified through the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) which originated through the National Education Association (2106). The National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), published through the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), were also recently revised in response to significant technology trends. The standards outline the skills that students, instructors, and educational administrators must possess to excel in today’s technology-rich environment. In the process of developing the revised standards, ISTE drafted the seven traits of Digital Learners (ISTE, 2016). These skills are often demonstrated through the effective use of technology tools, critically evaluating how to apply technologies to our personal and professional lives, and the ability to find factual information on the Internet. To address these needs, the SUNY Exploring Emerging Technologies for Lifelong Learning and Success (#EmTechMOOC) facilitates the development of the 4Cs within 21st-century learners. This open-access resource is an online learning opportunity targeted to the lifelong learning needs of students, faculty, staff, and anyone from across the globe who have a desire to keep pace with technology change.

An understanding about various applications including image sharing, blogs/wikis, audio, video, gamification, simulations, and a host of other broad technology concepts allow students to gain skills necessary for 21st-century learners. Hands-on discovery learning helps participants gain an understanding about the value and implications of using established and emerging technology tools for personal and professional growth. The course modules also help participants develop lifelong learning habits to keep pace with technology change.

Learners develop personal ePortfolios to showcase the artifacts created through Discovery Exercises. Reflections about their learning and the exploration and discovery process is included in their ePortfolios to demonstrate knowledge, skills, and accomplishments.

One way learners are able to demonstrate that they made a concentrated effort to improve their abilities of the 4Cs of 21st-century learners is to utilize social media and emerging technology tools that support these skills. Students can search the web to locate freely-available online tools, tutorials, and resources and explore the tool/resource to create artifacts for their ePortfolios. Artifacts can range from video clips captured from a webconference, a photo gallery, a blog, presentations. The possibilities are limitless. They can also access the EmTechWIKI website, to follow along with Discovery Exercises, which encourages hands-­on exploration of a growing, curated resource collection which can be used to develop their artifacts to include within a learning ePortfolio.

#EmTechMOOC supports the development of media-rich and reflective portfolios. This project consists of two associated parts. The EmTechWIKI database is a curated resource to help learners discover tools and tutorials to construct creative artifacts for their portfolios. This rich collection of technology tools and resources can also be used together with #EmTechMOOC, a Massive Open Online Course hosted on the Coursera platform, which provides a supportive environment for dialogue and sharing among participants, which has been built to complement the MOOC. Learners can also communicate about the development of their artifacts within their personal communication channels connected to a college course, such as LMS discussion forums, social media like Facebook and Twitter, or any other public or private learning community.

The following rubric is available to measure the quality of completed ePortfolios.

Users created ePortfolios that showcased video, audio, and other media created as a result of Discovery Exercises where they are prompted to identify a particular objective, for example, tell a story, create partnerships, enhance productivity and then select a technology tool that will help them to meet the objective. They then develop an artifact through hands-on application of the technology tool they have selected. Artifacts are then embedded within an ePortfolio. The ePortfolios also contain reflections about the learning and how the learners gained greater insight into the various tools and resources they explored.

Example ePortfolios are available at: http://bit.ly/eportfoliogallery

A few examples of ePortfolios created through #EmTechMOOC are also attached.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2016). ISTE national educational technology standards (NETS). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

National Education Association. (2012). Preparing 21st century students for a global society: An educator’s guide to the “Four Cs”. Alexandria, VA: National Education Association. Retrieved from: http://www.nea.org/tools/52217.htm

Roscorla, A. (2106, March 7). ISTE Identifies 7 Traits of Digital Learners [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/ISTE-Identifies-7-Traits-of-Digital-Learners.htm

Spires, H. A., Paul, C. M., & Kerkhoff, S. N. (2018). Digital Literacy for the 21st Century. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition (pp. 2235-2242). IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch194

Participation information:
- #EmTechMOOC - Encourages reflective thinking and building 21st-century skills to become digitally literate in today's information society. (launched March 2018)
- As of Dec. 23, 2019 there are approximately 5,000 registrants from 150+ countries worldwide.
- 692 are faculty, staff, students, and alumni from campuses around the SUNY system.
- The course has an average of 100 active participants per month.

See EmTechMOOC Impact Infographic: https://emtechwiki.webapps.buffalo.edu/emtechmoocs-impact-statistics/

This innovative instructional initiative has resulted in local, national, and international recognition.

Open SUNY Effective Practice Award Program – Honorable Mention 2019 (We would love to add full recognition of a SUNY Effective Practice Award to our collection.) – This award acknowledges best practices, strategies, and innovative online teaching and learning activities, initiatives or programs with the Open SUNY community of online practitioners.
https://www.slideshare.net/alexandrapickett/2019-open-suny-effective-practice-award-showcase

Educause 2019 Horizon Report > Higher Education Edition – The #EmTechMOOC Project Director, Roberta (Robin) Sullivan, served as a member of the 2019 EDUCAUSE Higher Ed Expert Panel to guide the discovery and selection process of the 2019 Horizon Project > Higher Ed Edition. The Horizon Project is a global ongoing research initiative that explores the trends, challenges, and technology developments likely to have an impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. Results released in April 2019.
https://library.educause.edu/resources/2019/4/2019-horizon-report

Scholarly Publications about the outcomes of #EmTechMOOC are below:

Sullivan, R., van Putten, C., Cole, E., Fulcher, K., Kruger, J., Sipley, G., Rigolino, R., Herman, J. (Pending spring 2020). Empowering Faculty to Design Technology-Enriched Student Learning: a Constructivist and Connectivist Hybrid MOOC. In P. Maki & P. Shea (Eds.), Using Context-based Technology-enabled Assessment. (pp. TBD). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Sullivan, R., & Van Putten, C. 2019. Building an eportfolio to showcase mastery of 21st century skills. In Chen, B., deNoyelles, A., & Thompson, K. (Eds.), Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository. Orlando, FL: University of Central Florida Center for Distributed Learning.
https://topr.online.ucf.edu/building-an-eportfolio-to-showcase-mastery-of-21st-century-skills/

Sullivan, R., Fulcher, K., Kruger, J., Sipley, G., van Putten, C. (2019). Emerging Technologies for Lifelong Learning and Success: A MOOC for Everyone. Journal of Educational Technology Systems. 47(2).
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047239518821065

Sullivan, R., Neu, V., Yang, F. (2018). Faculty Development to Promote Effective Instructional Technology Integration: A Qualitative Examination of Reflections in an Online Community. Online Learning Journal (OLJ). (22)4.
https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/1373

Sullivan, R., van Putten, C., Neu, V., Yang, F. (2018, October 24-26). Tools of Engagement Project (TOEP): Equipping All Learners with 21st-Century Skills. ePIC 2018, the 16th. International ePortfolio and Identity Conference (pp. 92-95), Paris. Caen, France: Reconnaître.
https://epic.openrecognition.org/2018-2/