© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential Thursday, May 14, 2009 

A Day in the Life of a 21st-Century School

• This slide show is about H.S. 21+, an imaginary school that follows the principles of 21st- 
century learning outlined in Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century. It follows one student 
through a day of schoolwork, to illustrate the key ideas suggested by that document. 

H.S. 21+ is not a real school -- it’s a hypothetical school, invented for the purposes of 
this presentation, but nonetheless within the realm of technical possibility.

6:30 AM 
• Sally Student wakes to the ping of an instant message arriving on her laptop. It’s from another student at H.S. 21+ who is working with her on an environmental chemistry project. 
•Schoolwork starts early for our hypothetical student, because 180 days times six hours per day is not 
sufficient to develop the skills and talents of youth necessary to success in the 21st century. 
And new communication technologies, such as instant messaging, allow students to be 
connected with their schoolwork and their colleagues all day, every day.

6:35 AM 
• She researches, from her laptop, the various laws and guidelines on allowable concentrations of PCBs in drinking water. She finds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set the Maximum Contaminant Level at 0.5 parts per billion. 
•From her teachers and librarians, our student has learned how to search effectively the online 
sources that are increasingly available to her, how to determine the authority and reliability of 
a source, and how to skim the search results to ﬁnd the germ of truth that she seeks. 

6:40 AM 
• Sally checks the readings from the probe at the city drinking water monitoring station, which has recently been connected to a web server, so that she can see the readings in real time. 
•Real- time data from all over the world is increasingly available to anyone who can connect to the right web page. The curriculum at H.S. 21+ is designed to take advantage of this, and to develop student skill in using it.

6:50 AM 
• She sends an instant message to the members of her project group, explaining that she saw concentrations of PCBs of 0.7 and 0.8 ppb at times over the last 24 hours. She attaches a graph of the ups and downs, that she constructed with the spreadsheet program on her laptop. 
•Sally is a member of a collaborative project group, assigned by her teachers to come up with a solution to an 
issue of public interest as well as academic importance. The kinds of problems they get, and the ways they 
work on them, are similar to those in the 21st century world of work. 

6:55 am 
• She sends a short report of her findings, with attached data, sources, and graph, to her personal online academic portfolio on the school’s web server. 
•Student work at H.S. 21+ is seldom handed in on paper. Rather its kept by each student in an 
online portfolio, a collection of work that provides evidence of learning to their teachers and 
might later be used for admission to college or interview for a job.

7:00am 
• After practicing her violin for five minutes, she breakfasts with her mom and dad. She is careful not to drink any water from the tap. 
•At meals, the family often discusses the ideas Sally encounters at school. In 
fact, the school provides on its web site family discussion questions that tie in to the 
curriculum.

7:20 AM 
• On the subway on the way to school she listens to a podcast of last week’s debate in the state senate on the Clean Water bill, that she downloaded from the school server. 
•H.S. 21+ takes advantage of the information devices that students carry in their pockets, by 
developing and collecting educational podcasts that provide background and extension to the core 
curriculum materials.

7:30 AM 
• The subway is delayed, so she has time to read, from the same iPod, the next chapter of Thoreau’s Walden for English class. She downloaded this and many other readings from the school server. 
•The school provides an extensive library of electronic texts that can be downloaded to students’ laptops or to their iPods.

7:55 AM 
• At the school library, she meets with two other members of her project group to discuss what they’ve found over the last two days, and what hey need to do next. She learns that the PCB limit in the Senate bill is set at 0.7 ppb. 
•The library at H.S. 21+ is no longer just a place to store books -- it’s become the hub of the 
school, with spaces designed especially to facilitate the small-group project meetings that 
have become an important mode of learning at the school. 

8:10 AM 
• In a large-group math class in the small auditorium, Sally learns about statistical sampling techniques in environmental analysis, from a scientist at the EPA in Washington who appears through  WebEx connection. 
•Desktop videoconferencing capabilities turn any computer at H.S. 21+ into a distance-learning 
station. Subject-matter experts, guest speakers, and remote teachers make regular appearances in 
classrooms and at worktables, extending the human resources available to students as they learn. 

8:20 AM 
• She realizes that her data-gathering from the online probe might not be accurate, because of the small number of sample readings she collected. She  questions the scientist in real time over the WebEx connection. 
•The statistics concepts she learns in the math class are especially designed to 
coordinate with the topics and assignments of the science curriculum: it’s not by 
happenstance that Sally’s small-group project task requires data-sampling and 
conclusion-making that calls for certain mathematical understandings, that coalesce in a 
single day.

8:30 AM 
• From the auditorium, Sally re-examines the data in her spreadsheet with one of her colleagues in the library, sharing their screens to compare their findings. She begins to re-think her conclusions. 
•Students at H.S. 21+ are encouraged to stay in touch with each other and with online resources, 
even while they are engaged in a lecture or presentation. In fact, the faculty rewards students who interrupt the class with ideas and resources from the outside. 

9:20 AM 
• Sally sends an instant message to a local senate staff intern, double-checking on allowable concentrations of PCB in latest version of the clean water bill. 
• Students at H.S. 21+ use the same communication tools that are used in business, government, and higher education, enabling them at any time to tap into community resources that are relevant to their schoolwork.

9:55 AM 
•Math class begins. sally asks a question about sampling rates in measurement statistics.  The math teacher connects to the online water quality probe, copies the data into a spreadsheet, and uses the SmartBoard to show the class how to perform a simple test of significance.  Sally copies the formulas to her laptop.
• The math curriculum at H.S. 21+ has shifted toward the kinds of math actually used in science, business, and engineering, such as probability and statistics. It also integrates common software tools and presentation devices, moving away from pencil and paper. Most importantly, it welcomes coordination with the team projects that drive students’ work.

11:00 AM 
• The English class discusses the chapter of Walden they read last night. The teacher brings up a topographical map of the pond area from Google Earth. Following along on her laptop, Sally switches to a satellite view, and notices a factory very near the pond. 
• A theme for this semester at H.S. 21+ is the relationship between humans and their environment, and even the English department goes along. 

11:30 AM 
• She uses FaceBook to locate a student at a school near Walden Pond that’s interested in environmental science. She sends a note suggesting a collaborative project to measure PCB levels in the pond. 
• H.S. 21+ prides itself on developing students who are self-starters and resourceful researchers, who use whatever tools are necessary to get the job done and who identify opportunities to extend their studies in new directions. 

11:55 PM 
• At lunch, project colleague Xu En-lai connects to the web site of China Daily. He translates for the others at the table the fact that they are considering a guideline for a 0.6 ppb limit on PCBs in drinking water, starting in 2010. 
• The online environment at H.S. 21+ encourages access to multilingual and multicultural resources and connections, and encourages students to apply them to their projects.

12:30 PM 
• Sally finds the chemistry teacher in lab learning to use some new probes and software. She asks to learn more about PCBs are, where they come from, and why they are harmful. 
• Teachers as well as students are learners at H.S. 21+. Faculty members actively seek out the latest developments in their fields and learn how to use them.

12:35 PM 
• The chemistry teacher suggests a self-paced online course on the EPA’s web site, which helps Sally and her group to better understand the scientific and social issues. 
• Each department at H.S. 21+ has assembled a directory of online courses and tutorials relevant to their field, to which they send students.

1:25 PM 
• Sally and her team report to their faculty project coach on their progress. He reminds them to save a daily progress report to their academic portfolio, and suggests they focus their study on a single aspect of the proposed clean water bill. 
• To bring the disparate areas of the curriculum together, to make learning more relevant to the world around them, and to develop collaboration skills, H.S. 21+ schedules each student into a team project group with a faculty coach, with time alloted for them to work together during the school day. The topics for the team projects are carefully concocted by the faculty to enable contributions for all departments, and to aim at problems and issues in the real world. 

1:45 PM 
• Sally connects to the city online water-quality probe and downloads a much larger sample of readings into her spreadsheet. After applying the  statistical tests she learned earlier, she is less sure that the PCB level is dangerous. 
• Students in the H.S. 21+ apply the basic productivity software tools to what they are studying. Their teachers seek out opportunities for them to practice these tools.

1:55 PM 
• She also notices a pattern to this longer string of data points -- it seems to rise and fall over time. She plots it on her spreadsheet. Her teacher suggests she try fitting a curve to the data, and shows her how. It is close to a sine curve, with a period of about six hours. 
• The faculty at H.S. 21+ is prepared to deliver just-in-time learning: when a situation arises that demands the application of a new skill or concept, the teacher is ready to teach it. The role of faculty coach to the project groups provides many opportunities for this kind of learning. 

2:20 PM 
• Three members of the project team meet in the library during their study period. This will be their last face-to-face meeting before tomorrow’s presentation of their findings. They discuss the periodic nature of the PCB levels, and realize it times perfectly with the rise and fall of the tide: the PCB levels rise as the tide falls. 
• Students at H.S. 21+ know they will be rewarded for discovering new patterns and relationships so they actively seek them out. And the school is designed to provide spaces and scheduled time for students to work together to make these discoveries.

2:30A PM 
• The team assigns tasks to each other: one will go down to the riverside to capture video of the tide; another will animate the spreadsheet with the sine curve; Sally will record some introductory music from her violin; another agrees to assemble all these pieces into a multimedia podcast. All these pieces will later be assembled into a podcast, which constitutes the team’s report of their work.
• H.S. 21+ supports students’ application of images, video, music, and animation to their work whenever they contribute to the understanding of the topic. And they provide a lending library of devices that make media capture and editing and display possible.

3:00 PM 
• At basketball practice, Sally talks with her scrimmage partner, who is doing an internship at the local office of the state senator. The clean water bill is in her committee. Sally explains her group’s findings, and promises to send a copy of their podcast tonight as soon as it’s done. 
• Sports and community internships are required of all students at H.S. 21+, because they build elements of character that complement academic work 

4:30 PM 
• Before leaving school, Sally finds an open practice room and records a bit of Bach on her iPod, which she will later send to the team member who’s assembling the podcast. She chooses a piece whose melody rises and falls, just like the PCB data. 
• The arts are integrated,with the rest of the curriculum. Artistic appreciation, composition, and expression are required for all students, since they have proven themselves to be essential elements of academic and career success.

6:30 PM 
• The first draft of the team podcast arrives in her email. Sally sends a draft copy to her friend at the senator’s office, and suggests a few corrections to the assembler. Just before she’s called to supper. 
• Schoolwork does not end at 3 PM. Students are expected to complete much of their academic work after school hours. They don’t call it homework, and it seldom consists of problem sets or repetitive exercises -- it’s mostly work on the group project that happens outside of school.

• 8:00 PM 
• Sally settles in to the novel she’s been reading. 
• Not everything is online for the students of H.S. 21+. They and their teachers realize that books are best for some kinds of ideas in some settings, and that reading remains the key skill for success.

8:30 pm 
• The ping of an instant message interrupts her reading. Her basketball buddy says the committee wants to play the podcast at the committee meeting, which is still going on, deadlocked on the issue of PCB levels in the clean water bill. Sally gets the rest of her project team in a video chat window, and they all give permission. 
• Students at H.S. 21+ learn to use a variety of tools for collaborative work, including videoconferencing. This not only builds the kinds of skills they will need to succeed in the future, bet enables them to extend their learning beyond the school day.

10:00 PM 
• Sally’s parents call her in to see the TV news report on the compromise that got the clean water bill out of committee on a 6-4 vote. In the back of the committee room she glimpses a fleeting shot of her animated data plot playing on a senator’s iPod. 
• Schoolwork takes on a new meaning when it links with what’s happening in the world outside of school. Faculty at H.S. 21+ carefully craft the group projects to maximize connection with the important issues of the day.

10:30 PM  
• After a short IM chat with her team, Sally is ready for bed. She sleeps contentedly. But she wonders -- Why would the PCB level vary with the ocean tide? 
• The dream of the leadership of H.S. 21+ is to see every student end the day with a sense of wonder and curiosity linked to important academic objectives.