Week 30 - Contemporary trends in New Zealand or internationally.

In this post I will discuss the impact of global trends on education and the influence of perspective of national and international audiences on teaching practice. 

I will analyse, critique and evaluate the impact of digital learning as the global trend I am currently faced with daily in my classroom and the impact it poses for my practice in light of different audiences, using Rolfe’s model of reflection. ‘Trends in education’ refers to medium to long term, observable changes that occur in philosophy, policy and/or practice that impact on education (Visser and Gagnon, 2005; Karataş et al, 2016 and Wilson 2012).

What?

The impact of digital learning is a trend that capitivates my attention as it has been the theme for me throughout my Mindlab journey. Especially how as educators, we need to embrace “digital natives’ in ways that they connect with by make the learning more rich and relevant.  As well as being mindful of this trend, it plays into my discoveries and actions as part of my Teacher Inquiry on flipped learning, by using technology more thoughtfully for instructional purposes to allows me to  stretch learners’ thinking (Daggert, 2014) in order to support their growth as life long learners in an ever growing digital environment.

So What?

The trend towards Digital Learning is seen in the table (Digital Technology in Schools, 2017), below which reveals that between 1995 and 2017 the average number of school owned computers per student has increased from 18:1 to 2:1 students in primary schools and from 10:1 to 3:1 students in secondary school. This demonstrates a huge trend in students having greater access to computers, especially when we consider these statistics do not take into account students who have their own devices.

This data shows that students have far more access to digital technology than before and that we as educators in both sectors must be open minded in our approach to careful planning to use the technology effectively. This has become more apparent in my use of technology within my class as part of a flipped model.

As my Mindlab journey has progressed, I have used Google classroom as part of the ‘flipped learning’ and used the in class time for more ‘active learning’ using collaboration and leveraging the teacher-student relationship. Due to this I have had more ‘buy-in’ from parents for children to have their own devices as they can see learning happening inside and outside the classroom. The parents can also see that their child’s device is being used for learning and often children are sharing more learning through digital technology than they did before.

Now What?

I am very conscious that there still needs to be a balance of  some of the traditional delivery of lessons but being part of Mindlab, has allowed me to embrace digital learning and I have become more willing to disrupt my traditional delivery systems by flipping the learning and using a more blended approach. It is important for New Zealand educators and educators around the world to keep on being upskilled with current technology, create a culture of life-long learners (by role modelling), be open to change and use technology to create platforms for learning because this is what we need to do to educate our students.

As my Mindlab journey has progressed, I can clearly see the limitations and barriers that could impact on the Digital Technology trend across New Zealand and other countries, this is the upskilling and the willingness to upskill that allows educators to become more proficient with digital technology themselves. Currently at my school, there only 5 teachers who have been on the Mindlab course, it has been encouraged by management but it has been viewed by some as too much extra work and has put a few, who could have been persuaded, off. It is on teachers as part of their own professional development with the publication of Our Code, Our Standard, they need to be more up to speed in developing the culture that can support the student’s learning , especially in this digital world.

References

Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014 MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf

Karataş, S., et al. (2016). A Trend Analysis of Mobile Learning. In D. Parsons (Ed.) Mobile and Blended Learning Innovations for Improved Learning Outcomes (276). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Visser, L., & Gagnon, K. (2005). Defining “Trends” and “Issues” in Distance Education. Conversation with Donald Paul Ely Y. Visser, L. Visser, M. Simonson & R. Amirault (Eds. de la serie), Trends and Issues in Distance Education. International Perspectives, pp.83-89.

Research New Zealand. (2017). Digital Technologies in school 2016-2017. Retrieved from https://2020.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Digital-Technologies-in-Schools-2016-17-04-05-2017-FINAL.pdf

Wilson, B. (2012). Trends and issues facing distance education. In L. Visser, Y. Visser M., R. Amirault & M. Simonson (2nd Ed.) Trends and Issues in Distance Education. International Perspectives (pp.39-54). North Carolina: Information Age Publishing, Inc.pp. 248-