“The 21st Century Fluencies are not about technical prowess, they are critical thinking skills, and they are essential to living in this multimedia world.” (Ian Jukes)  The “fluencies”  of the “digital citizen” referenced here are:

• solution fluency
• information fluency
• collaboration fluency
• creativity fluency
• media fluency

An underlying goal of the 21st Century Fluency Project is to “…assist in transforming learning to be relevant to life in the 21st century.“  For the majority of learners there has long been an unbridged chasm between what has been taught in the classroom and life outside of school.

Prior to the digital era, the problem of irrelevance was compounded by the reality that success in school required a strong aptitude for reading, writing and test taking.  With the advent of digital text, along with accessible multimedia tools, there is realistic hope for meaningful change in the learning enterprise.  This is especially critical for learners who have hitherto underperformed or failed at school.

Learners who will never succeed in predominantly text-oriented schools, now have numerous options for receiving information.  Likewise, varied media and combinations of media are available for using that information to problem solve and for creative expression.  Learners can show what they know without having to express it in essay format.  Within a meaningful and often engaging process, all learners now have the opportunity to develop skills that have the power to inform and enrich their personal and working lives.

Aviary is a free online suite of extremely powerful multimedia tools that can be used by learners to help gain 21st century fluencies.  The suite includes a sophisticated image editor that can be used to create from scratch or for modifying exiting images,  a vector editor, an effects editor, a color editor, an image markup tool for screen captures, a Firefox extension for doing quick screencapture, a versatile audio editor, and even an amazing music creator.

Aviary has to be experienced to be fully appreciated, and they make it easy to take a quick look.  There is an introductory page with accompanying video for each tool.  Aviary also provides numerous video tutorials for its tools.  Tutorials are rated beginner, intermediate or expert.  It is still in beta, but Aviary now offers Aviary Education for the classroom.  They claim it is “100% school safe”, and it contains features to facilitate classroom use.  You have to request an account for your classroom.

Finally, Aviary offers a forum for sharing work that has been created with Aviary.  This means there are plenty of sample products to examine.  In the gallery, you can see the sources for a created work, along with alternative versions and derivitatives that have been created by others.  I’ve included below a sample of work created in the image editor, and ‘symphony’ that was put together in the audio editor. Please take time to click the play button and listen to some of the amazing music.

EdibleArchitecture.egg by meowza on Aviary