Wanted: Smarter use of technology for education

MANILA, Philippines - There is a consensus among educators that enhancing 21st century skills will allow nations to prepare the future workforce to succeed in a fast-paced, highly competitive global economy.

This was the opening statement of Gordon Payne, divisional director of i21 Events Group-UK, at the opening of the second Bett Asia Leadership Summit in Singapore on Wednesday.

Payne welcomed 100 speakers from 30 countries and over 600 conference delegates to the annual gathering of top educators, policymakers, and school leaders across Asia to discuss technology’s evolving role in education.

Indeed, there was a consensus among speakers and presenters that transformation is happening across society, not just in education, and the challenge for educators is to be able to gaze into the looking glass with a clear sense of purpose and adapt to the sweeping changes.

“Our kids are not the same people we were when we were in school,” commented Marc Prensky, founder and executive director of The Global Future Education Foundation and Institute. “Education needs to be more than just an academic exercise.”

Prensky, who is credited for coining the words “digital natives” to refer to the generation born into “the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet,” emphasized that the possibilities are endless for transforming education as we now know it.

Keeping up with these changes, however, is another thing.

“Your students are already running without you, reading without you, studying without you, learning without you. It’s all happening outside the school,” affirmed Bruce Thompson, director of Asia, worldwide ducation, Microsoft.

Pedagogical shift

The issue at hand is always the seeming disconnect between the traditional classrooms we have today with the learning needs and styles of a highly digital generation who will work in a completely different world.

Citing figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released in 2013, Thompson said that by 2022, there will be 6.2 million job openings in cloud-based technologies. In Microsoft’s own backyard alone, there are currently 18,000 full-time jobs open worldwide. 

“They’ve been open for months, many months. We just can’t find people to do the jobs and it is actually increasing. The gap is getting wider for us,” he said. “Companies like Microsoft have created a wealth of opportunity but we also wonder if we are setting students to become employable with today’s curriculum.”

Microsoft is not alone in this predicament. But the overarching summation of the employers’ wish list for 21st century skills they look for in hires include: curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, computational thinking, communication and collaboration skills.

Needless to say, teaching methods need to evolve. There have already been great strides all over the world in this transformation journey. These include the use of new pedagogical concepts such as personalized learning, project-based learning (PDL), interdisciplinary learning, simulation and gamification, among others.

Thompson said at the very basic level, teachers need to be able to use technology to create content, manage digital resources, or use online grading system. However, other competencies are not only desired but also necessary to move forward such as the ability to use data systems, design online instruction, use course management systems, and create personalized learning environments.

The Finland example

In March this year, Finland made headlines when it announced that it was radically changing classroom instruction by teaching by topic, instead of by subject. This was from a country whose approach to education was already very different from the rest of the world.

Known for its world-class education system for more than a hundred years, the country is now preparing for the next hundred years. A project called “Hundred” is underway and its mission is to develop education for the century. 

“Our biggest mission at the moment is we want to help schools change,” said Saku Tuominen, creative director and founder, Scool, a Finnish education company that concentrates on developing innovative educational formats. “Digitization is not a change in technology. It is a change in thinking. We are moving from linear thinking to exponential thinking, which means things can happen surprisingly faster.”

Among the bold innovations in education the group has introduced in recent years include free seminars for teachers, with outside experts from many different domains invited to explain what is happening outside schools. The idea is to introduce an open mindset that can embrace concepts from other domains and industries and use it to innovate in its own sphere.

Tuominen also mentioned a mobile application called “Triplet”, which is currently in use in Finland by educators that changes evening news into education material overnight. 

“If there is a shooting in Paris, the very next morning at 7 a.m. every Finnish teacher has a piece of the news on their  mobile and they have background of what happened and they have ideas on how to use the information in the classroom,” Touminen said. The content is free.

This type of innovative thinking is highly encouraged. In a video message, Anneli Rautiainem, head of unit of basic education and early childhood education, affirmed that as learning takes place anywhere, there is a need for educational leaders to revisit schools and see what is happening there.

More than devices or infrastructure

“There are a lot of things that we can do to transform learning for the better, but we are not doing it fast enough. We’ve got to work closely with schools and educators to help them prepare for this change,” Anthony Salcito, Microsoft’s VP for worldwide public sector education, said in a media briefing at the sidelines of the conference.

And it is not just about the digital divide or the technology gap because he said even some technology-rich countries like the US have not scaled or transformed fast enough.

“We’ve got to think differently. It is not just about digitizing the classroom. It is about how we use technology to create a new connection beyond the classroom for learners,” he said.

Most schools are focused on devices and access – buying computers and connecting them to the Internet.  

“What typically follows is automation – getting the books digitized, doing digital exams and doing the exact same stuff they’ve been doing with the computer. But what is slower to progress is how we change the curriculum, how we change assessment or the teaching and learning environment,” he explained.

But there is a world of possibility even with the most unlikely of technologies.

Microsoft, for example, earlier announced a partnership with Code.org to bring Minecraft-inspired coding tutorial to students and educators. The tutorial, available on http://code.org/mc, introduces players to basic coding with the fun and familiar environment.

“Minecraft represents many things – creativity, strategy, collaboration, and survival, just to name a few. What many may not realize is that Minecraft has the power to transform learning on a global scale by creating a virtual world and then advancing in it, getting real-time feedback on their problem-solving skills from the teacher,” Salcito wrote in a blog post.

More than 7,000 teachers around the world are actually already using Minecraft in the classroom, he said.

“Technology alone is not going to change anything. You’ve got to spend more time thinking what is the foundation for the change that you are trying to make. We are trying to work with policymakers and influencers to aspire to work for a different kind of change.”