The book “Skills in Action! – Reality Homework Using Technology” offers fourth grade primary school teachers 5 structured workshops divided into three levels of technological difficulty. The objective is to encourage young people – through realistic, complex, and new situations – to develop creativity and problem-solving skills that will be fundamental for their personal and social growth. The workshop activities are comprised of three levels of technical complexity. In this way, everyone can use them, even teachers who are less familiar with technology. In the various activities proposed, technology plays a secondary role with respect to the development of skills, which remains the main objective of the text.

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The 5 Workshops

“Skills in Action” proposes five different activities (“reality homework”):

 
Listen to my story.
Producing an audio story

 
Literary critics.
A book review

 
Play with me.
Organizing an event

 
How is the weather?
Analyzing meteorological data

 
Active citizens.
Recognizing problems in one’s own school

These activities can be customized by using resources and materials other than those suggested in the book, or by partially developing an activity.

Each activity is structured to have three levels of technological complexity.

The 3 levels of technological complexity

Level A requires competence with basic technical instruments.
Step by step instructions are provided and the activity is conducted in a way which provides use of some basic functions of the operating system or software.

Level B is an intermediate level.
The activities are more structured, both from a didactic-methodological point of view and a use of technology point of view.

Level C is the advanced level.
Composed of more detailed proposals from a technological and methodological point of view.

A Look Inside the Book

For those who wish to know more about “Skills in Action!”, here’s a little excerpt of the book translated into English.

“Skills Education”

In Italy, the theme of teaching skills has been part of the educational debate for several years now. Regarding “skills”, in the 2012 Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) Guidelines, we read: “The school curriculum is finalized to ensure the maturity of skills in the student at the end of the first cycle, which are essential for personal growth and social participation, and which will be certified”.

The maturing of skills is considered as a fundamental purpose of the school, essential for the fulfilment of personal development in the students.

The Objectives of the Book

1. Propose skill-based activities. Knowledge of a subject matter is important but acquiring the skills necessary to reach that goal is far more ambitious.

2. Expect the use of technology. Despite being a secondary objective, technology use still represents a brick in the wall of skill development.

3. Teacher support. Most of today’s teachers have immigrated into the digital world over the course of their professional lives, which makes it necessary for them to receive supported when needed. The activities illustrated in this volume, structured to have three levels of technological complexity, make it possible to “include” the teacher, by providing him/her with a useful and accessible tool.

4. Create meaningful scenarios. In each activity, a scenario that serves as a framework for the proposed activity is provided, so that the activity can be easily contextualized.

The Elements of “Skills Education”

What does it mean to work on skills education? Here are the elements that should characterize this type of teaching.

1. Complexity
A complex task is a task in which there are numerous aspects to be treated and no one single way of solving the problem.

2. Newness
In order to be considered “new”, the contents and skills of the task that the students should complete must have a different context than that with which the students are familiar.

3. Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity is a consequence of the characteristics of newness and educational complexity for skills that refers to the world of reality.

4. Openness
The term refers both to the partial definition of instructions given to students, so as to encourage greater creativity during the resolution phase, and the existence of a recipient of the "external" task, different from the teacher.

5. Cooperation
The cooperative working mode must be learned and practiced because, in addition to simulating real, every day experiences in which we interact with others, it enhances and enriches the learning schemes of each individual student.