Contemporary Trends

A contemporary trend relevant to my practice:

Rapid technological advancements are changing the working landscape, both in New Zealand and globally.

"Rapid technological advancements will increase the pace of change and create new opportunities but will aggravate divisions between winners and losers." (Global trends: The Paradox of Progress, US National Intelligence Council, 2017, p6)

This trend captivates my attention as I see an enormous disparity between the digital skills our students will require, and opportunities for them to learn these through our education system.  I also observe on a day-to-day basis the increased level of engagement my Year 8 students have when using a digital platform; yet I struggle to provide quality digital learning opportunities for my students given the resources currently at my disposal.  As the teacher leading ICT in my school, I am also acutely aware of the vastly different levels of ICT ability of the teachers in my school.  

The trend of advancing technologies is relevant both in New Zealand and internationally.  'Trends Shaping Education, 2016' highlights the need for students to learn advanced digital skills, and the responsibility educators have for enabling this. The European Commission estimates that "Europe could face a shortage of up to 900,000 skilled ICT workers by 2020."  An OECD Ministerial meeting on the digital economy concluded,"To ensure that individuals can engage in digital activities and adapt rapidly to new and unexpected occupations and skills needs, a stronger emphasis has to be placed in promoting strong levels of foundation skills, digital literacies, higher order thinking competencies as well as social and emotional skills."

How are education systems in New Zealand and overseas responding to this trend?

The New Zealand Digital Technologies Curriculum, due to be implemented in schools from 2018, attempts to provide some structure for up-skilling our students in digital technologies.  It encompasses five technological areas and spans the entire Year 1-10 age group, as well as NCEA Levels. 

Several overseas countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and USA, are poised to make a digital curriculum compulsory by 2020, with many other countries to follow suit by 2025.

Opportunities and risks

While digital technologies offer many positive opportunities for our students, we have to acknowledge the risks as well, and prepare our students to manage these risks.

"... new technology can be a double-edged sword: despite its positive impacts, it can also give rise to previously unknown risks and dangers" (Trends Shaping Education 2016, p20)

We, as educators, have a responsibility to teach our students about keeping safe in an online environment, as this environment is new for many of their parents.  While this may appear to be the domain of the family, some parents don't have the knowledge or capacity to teach their children to be safe in an online environment.  There are numerous, quality, free resources; readily available online; (examples linked here) to assist in teaching students how to be safe online.

Potential educational impact provided by digital technologies

ERO (2015) cites the term, 'educationally powerful connections', referring to agency, ubiquity, and connectedness, as powerful tools to transform student achievement.  All three of these concepts are made possible through the use of digital technologies and I suspect that it is within this domain that the key to uplifting the achievement of all New Zealand students lies.