Global Trends Digital Technology

Global Trends - Digital Technology

This week’s topic seems to be a lot more difficult to share ideas about as I’m having to summarise what the global trend of digital technology is all about and analyse the way it is affecting education in general and our school community specifically. This is not as easy as just ‘telling our story’ about our school and community.

The OECD book Trends Shaping Education 2016 suggests that this trend appears to be about the hugely increasing use of mobile and adaptive technologies that allow us to do multiple tasks, innovate, communicate, engage, learn, do our jobs and live in comfort. It is about how our lives and technology can now not be separated and that we depend on it in many ways.

 This trend is also about the disadvantages that include, hacking, cyberbullying and disorders associated with the use of technology.

For example decreasing attention spans, digital withdrawal disorder and fear of missing out syndrome. Another disadvantage mentioned by Matt Britland’s in his blog is that technology needs energy which leads to pollution and global climate change.

The role of education with regards to the global trend of digital technology seems to be about utilising the advantages, to enable students to be confident, connected and lifelong learners and managing the risks and dangers for the students.

The implications for educators are:

• The classroom environments are changing. The furniture needs to have flexible uses.
• Virtual and augmented reality means that students can access learning experiences outside of the classroom and can interact with a 3D world
• There is greater flexibility around how students learn and share their thinking to accommodate a much wider range of learning styles.
• Students can have instant communication with global networks
• Collaborative learning is an advantage when using digital technology
• Students are able to tackle real-life problems and explore passion projects that they are really interested in.
• Students need skills and strategies to deal with cyberbullying, unsafe online behaviour
• There is the possibility of self-paced learning, flipped classrooms, and even online schools.
• Individual students can experience personalised learning that is at the right level for them but will still challenge them. They will be positively reinforced as they learn
• Students will develop real-world skills and competencies that can be used in their jobs.

Here at Corinna School, 90% of students in the senior and middle school have Chromebooks that they use as a tool to enhance their learning.

 When they first buy the Chromebook, they and their parents attend a meeting to discuss, learn about and share their understanding of The Kawa of Care which we hope will enable us all to be cyber safe. They then sign an agreement that shows they fully understand their responsibilities.

 We use the SAMR model to guide our practices and believe that our learning experiences must be transformational. Eg The digital technology enhances the learning experience in a way no other tool can do.

 The students in our class plan where they move the furniture in the room according to what and how they are learning. This is more necessary when they are learning collaboratively with their digital tools, which happens most of the time.

They use digital tools to support them solve authentic problems together when doing their inquiries. This tool makes it easier to research, organise thinking, communicate thinking and present ideas in a range of ways.

The students reflect on their learning by writing learning stories on their learning blogs. They share these with other students, with their whanau and also ‘with the world’ who can comment on them. The fact that they can get feedback from such a massive audience really influences the thought and effort that they put into these learning stories.

Any learning tasks can be completed by the students at home or they can extend their learning by finding out information or ideas that interest them. They are all enthusiastically involved in passion projects and they feel positive about working on it at home on their Chromebooks.

We are working hard to ensure that Chromebooks are used effectively to enhance learning in ways that enable our students to develop skills and competencies for their futures. We are also trying hard to manage the risks.