Trend influencing Education - Week 27

Week 27 - Trend influencing education in New Zealand or Internationally

Raewyn Hollinger

Technology is rapidly transforming our lives, and as a teacher, the impact is huge. The reason I became part of the Mind Lab programme was the need to be aware of the changes and how they affect student learning. I feel that ignoring the changes occurring globally is not taken responsibility for being an effective teacher and the future of our students.

For this reason, the trend I have chosen to discuss is “The Brave New World” (OECD 2016). It identifies how technology is advancing quickly, and the impact of this on how we interact as teachers both professionally and personally. The negative aspects of this trend are also discussed.

When reading the OECD report, it was clear that all trends were important and relevant to education, but the pace of technological development is described as “Exponential” (OECD, 2016). The other important factor is that it is unpredictable. Where will technology lead us? What jobs will be available for our students I n 10 or 20 years’ time? For these reasons, it is important to have students confidently integrating technology into their daily lives, and most importantly, as a part of their learning.

The following diagram summarises all the positive and negative aspects of the technological trend (OECD, 2016, P101)

 

 

The relevance to education, and classroom teaching is clear to me when analysing this chart. Students can more easily communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world. The impact on their learning and confidence is huge as I found when students became part of the NZ Read Aloud programme on Edmodo. As I read a book to my class, they were analysing and discussing it with students from anywhere in New Zealand, and I had the opportunity to provide an activity for all the students which was challenging as I was putting my practice out there for others to critique. The students were able to comment and give feedback to all the students, not just their own class. We were able to look at the learning standards of different schools in comparison to our own, which impacted on our own efforts.

The Impact on Education:

Technology has already impacted Education in many positive ways – how we communicate with parents, individualising learning for students, support for students with learning needs, ease of gaining information, and more. In my class I have been developing the use of Google classrooms. I have had positive feedback from students and will continue to develop this so that it really improves the quality of student learning. I have found that students off school for a long period of time have access to their learning. Students have commented on how they can go back and relearn something that they haven’t quite understood.

The New Zealand Government has taken steps to include technology into our curriculum with the recent release of their digital technology curriculum which will be implemented in 2018. Students form Year 1 to Year 10 will be expected to be involved in digital technologies education. More importantly for me, it has been recognised that there needs to be funding for teachers to up skill and learn the skills needed to teach the new curriculum.

References.

National Intelligence Council. (2017). Global trends: The Paradox of Progress. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved from https://www.dni.gov/files/images/globalTrends/documents/GT-Main-Report.pdf

OECD. (2016) Trends Shaping Education 2016, OECD Publishing, Paris. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/trends_edu-2016-en