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.