Developing the 21st-century social studies skills through technology integration

Abstract

Recently, technology has become an educational necessity in global-digital era. Facing these phenomena, social studies (SS) should make innovations related to changes of 21st-century skills and learning paradigm, which is characterized by the principles of disclosure of information, computing, automation, and communication. Technology integration into SS learning is one of the learning innovations in the global-digital era, and powerfully supports the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) as stated in their visions: meaningful, powerful, value-based, challenging, and active. It also strongly supports the development of three core skills of the 21st-century, including learning and innovation skills; information, media and technology skills; life and career skills that developed in partnership with the Partnership Forum for 21st-Century Skills (P21). This paper examines and describes academics evolution toward a commitment and further developments in research; 21stcentury skills map for the SS; and the implications for developing teachers' competences and teachers' education curriculum.