This document is an outgrowth of the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP).The NETP presents a shared vision and call to action for transformational learning enabled by technology at all levels of our education system. Building on the work of leading educa-tion researchers; state, district, school, and higher education leaders; teachers; developers; entrepreneurs; and nonprofit organizations, the NETP recommends actions that would enable everywhere, all-the-time learning and ensure greater equity and accessibility to learning opportunities over the course of a learner’s lifetime. While the concepts, recommendations, and examples in the NETP are applicable to higher education and postsecondary learning, they draw extensively from P-12 frameworks and rely heavily on its terminology and promising practices, but are not primarily applicable to the complex context of postsecondary learning or devote specific focus to its promising practices.
Official Full-Text Publication: Lim, C.P. & Wang, L.B. (Eds.) (2016). Blended Learning for Quality Higher Education: Selected Case Studies on Implementation from Asia-Pacific. Paris, France: UNESCO. on ResearchGate, the professional network for scientists.
Gone are the days of digital textbooks and lectures. There are approximately 2.7 million students enrolled in online courses in the U.S. and new technologies are now available that allow these students to experience personalized “learning by doing.” From virtual manipulatives for algebra to digital ultrasound simulations for career health courses, adaptive technology is evolving to offer online instruction that engages and motivates students at a deeper level.
The future of Higher Education is a popular topic of discussion among academics and administrative staff alike. But, while there are plenty of differing positions about what will facilitate the most important changes in the next few years, there seems to be a consensus that technology will be leading the charge.
In an attempt to get a better grasp of what to expect in Higher Ed IT in the next 4 years, Optimal Partners is collaborating with eCampus News to survey CIO’s and other IT decision makers at a wide range of universities in the U.S. and ask them about the status of Higher Ed IT.
As scientific understanding and artificial intelligence leap forward, many professions—such as law, accounting, animation, and medicine—are changing in dramatic ways. Increasingly, these advances allow non-experts and machines to perform tasks that were previously in the sole domain of experts, thus turning expert-quality work into a commodity. With new technologies displacing workers across many fields, what will be the likely impact on the teaching profession? Will machines replace teachers?
Despite the hype and fear, machines are unlikely to replace teachers anytime soon. Rather, they are poised to help overcome several structural barriers that make it difficult to ensure that an effective teacher reaches every student.
School systems face a number of challenges, including teacher shortages, a lack of clear methods for developing high-quality teachers, and teacher burnout and attrition, to name a few. And even the best teachers struggle to address the diverse learning needs of their students or find time to focus on developing students’ deeper learning and noncognitive skills amidst pressures to cover core instruction.
The additional benefit for using tools like these is that you can take what you hear and learn and the next day in class anonymously share some ideas to get the discussion going.
Even if you try to keep things anonymous, you will have the students who immediately fess up and say “yeah that’s mine,” because that’s just what the students do, which is okay because they are willingly sharing what they said.
And if it does come down to a right or wrong kind of question and that student is in fact incorrect, that’s an even better lesson–a better example for the other students in the classroom to show that it’s okay to answer something and to be wrong.
In our innovative classrooms across America, students are using technology in ways that were unheard of just ten short years ago. In a small elementary school in Northwest Baltimore, students use their Makerspace to create 3D printed materials, learn to code and engage in other making activities. In another school in Philadelphia, a student fulfills his senior capstone project requirement by creating a “Smart Beehive” that uses sensors and a camera to track the health of a bee colony.
While there are some schools of education that prepare pre-service teachers to excel in these types of technology-rich environments on their first day of in-service teaching, there is still room for growth in our teacher preparation programs as a whole, particularly as more schools shift towards digital learning.
The technologies that exist in classrooms today won't necessarily be the same ones that are around in 10 years. In particular, the days of desktop computers and laptops are numbered, according to educators in Campus Technology's 2016 Teaching with Technology survey. The survey polled faculty members across the country about their use of technology for teaching and learning, their wish lists and gripes, their view of what the future holds and more.
In an open-ended question, respondents were asked to predict what education tech would die over the next decade. Desktop computers were mentioned by 29 percent of the 408 people who suggested anything at all. That type of tech won hands-down by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 compared to the next most popular choice: clickers, referenced in 16 percent of the votes.
Higher education institutions today face an increasingly pressing challenge: advancing digital literacy among students and faculty, according to a new report from the New Media Consortium (NMC). “Digital Literacy: An NMC Horizon Project Strategic Brief” aims to “establish a vision of digital literacy and serve as a call to action for higher education leaders across the United States.” Commissioned by Adobe Systems, NMC researchers surveyed more than 450 education leaders, faculty and staff to assess the current landscape of digital literacy in higher ed.
Technology has become ubiquitous in today’s colleges and universities, integrated into “every facet of campus life to enhance course design, course materials and interactions between learners and instructors,” the report noted — yet many students still struggle to use the technologies and tools available to them. A recent Pew Research Center study found that just 17 percent of adult learners are “confident in their ability to use digital tools to pursue learning.” In other words, their digital literacy skills are not keeping pace with the proliferation of technology on campus and in the workplace.
Dr David Parsons, National Postgraduate Director at the Mind Lab by Unitec, provides a brief overview of the top ten learning theories for digital and collaborative learning. These include conditioning, constructivism, constructionism, connectivism and communities of practice.
A sound understanding of the theoretical foundations of your teaching choices assists with effective evaluation, redesign, and adaptation to changing needs of your learners.
“I don’t know if it’s an age thing, or if they’ve just been taught something over the years,” she said. The sofas were added to give students the freedom to choose where to sit and a chance to move around during the class period. No one dared to try them out until the second week of school.
Ekstrom realized that the students are more likely to have the confidence to try something new—whether it’s a new seating option or a new study method—when they feel they have her support. At the beginning of the school year, her students assemble a sort of homemade textbook, complete with a table of contents, goal trackers, and space to write notes and reflections. Ekstrom uses the notebook to teach students about different note-taking and study methods, and over time, allows them to use whichever method works best for them.
The article seems to reflect more of a focus on personalisation rather than "data"... the two are intertwined for sure - but personalisation ultimately speaks to relevance, personal agency and autonomy... not always features of classroom engagement strategies.
Post once, reply twice: the epitaph for online learning. Post once, reply twice: the fundamental flaw of instructional design.
Critical Instructional Design is new, and as such is grounded in the work of a very few people. I coined the term in January 2016 in an article on Hybrid Pedagogy, but the article -- and the MOOC that it supported -- simply put words to work I’d been moving toward since 1999, when I took my first job as an instructional designer.
At the core, that work was to develop a method for questioning our assumptions about learning and learning environments. It assumes that learning is a liberatory, discursive act of resistance, and that it exists within the context of a world mired in issues of social justice.
How do teachers captivate their students? Here, in a feature we call How I Teach, we ask great educators how they approach their jobs. You can see other pieces in this series here.
Jeremy Beckman uses a combination of high-tech gadgets and old-school face-to-face communication to connect with his students and their families.
A high school math teacher at Discovery Canyon Campus High School, a Pre-K-12 International Baccalaureate school in Colorado Springs, one of Beckman’s tried-and-true methods for connecting with parents is to attend their kids’ basketball games and band concerts. On snow days, he teaches his AP Calculus class from home via YouTube so the students don’t miss any lessons.
Nothing can kill a flipped learning program more quickly than the selection of expensive, complex technology that is poorly suited to flipped learning. Education technology graveyards are littered with the remains of tools, programs, and gizmos that teachers couldn't or wouldn't use. If teachers, administrators, IT staff and school districts had only known how to identify the best and simplest technologies for flipped learning. Now they can.
This one-hour, free course was created to empower you with the ability to avoid the 17 biggest mistakes educators routinely make when choosing flipped learning technology. When you're done you'll have the ability to distinguish between the good, the bad and the ugly in flipped learning technology. You'll also receive a certificate to prove that you've been trained in this vital skill.
Gone are the days of digital textbooks and lectures. There are approximately 2.7 million students enrolled in online courses in the U.S. and new technologies are now available that allow these students to experience personalized “learning by doing.” From virtual manipulatives for algebra to digital ultrasound simulations for career health courses, adaptive technology is evolving to offer online instruction that engages and motivates students at a deeper level.
The rapid advancement of technologies and their ubiquitous use in our daily lives have dramatically changed the way knowledge is created and disseminated. As a technology-enhanced pedagogical approach, blended learning – the deliberate combination of online learning with face-to-face classroom-based learning – provides higher education institutions (HEIs) with the opportunities to enhance the quality of teaching and learning. While many of these opportunities have been well-documented in the literature, implementing and scaling up blended learning courses pose enormous challenges for HEIs in the Asia-Pacific region.
To address these challenges, UNESCO Bangkok in partnership with The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) launched a two-year project to build the capacity of HEIs for blended learning. One of the outcomes of the project was this book by a team of blended learning experts and leaders in the region. Blended Learning for Quality Higher Education presents a framework and self-assessment tool developed from a holistic view of building institutional capacity to drive, sustain, and scale up blended learning. It incorporates case studies from experienced HEIs in the region to demonstrate how the framework and its dimensions could be operationalised, and how the gaps identified in the self-assessment exercise could be addressed.
Virtual education expert details six ways these schools are better than traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms.
Modern technology connects us and allows communities to share resources in unprecedented ways. Virtual education leverages these connections to provide everyone, regardless of geographic location, access to experts and high quality learning experiences. As technology has improved, virtual education has evolved to become a tool that helps close gaps in high schools and colleges.
Quality online learning programs provide rigorous curriculum, meaningful teaching resources, and access to specialized programs, such as industry training for students, schools and teachers.
Free online marketing training to get the digital skills you need to grow your business, your career. Free courses from Google to become a digital expert
3 reasons why there’s an increased need to get rid of keyboards and move to pen-based computers for today’s students.
If today’s educators continue to encourage the use of keyboards instead of digital ink and paper, they run the risk of being a ‘pager’ teacher in a smart phone world, holding on to a past that has outlived its usefulness and limits students’ cognitive potential…at least, that’s what human history and recent research is telling us.
In the first few months of the new semester hubbub, what if there was an assistant at the beck and call of students to help them navigate the college process? While the campus faculty and staff are likely too busy during those first few days to answer all the questions on students and parent’s minds, chatbots – akin to Siri, Cortana, and Alexa – could provide the ideal digital assistant to make not only these first few days run smoothly, but also the student’s entire time on campus.
With campus technology already sorely outdated (an EDUCAUSE survey from 2013 found that the average age of student information management systems is over 13 years) AI and chatbots could be the catalysts that finally bring campus tech into the modern era.
From applying to college, to arriving on campus, declaring a major, signing up courses and eventually graduation, there are a multitude of ways bots can help to streamline the process, maybe as soon as next semester.
There are monumental changes on the horizon. The future of education is as thrilling as it’s ever been, and although it’s impossible to predict all that is about to happen, we can be certain of some changes.
Education will provide more opportunity for students to excel as unique individual learners. New technology and ways of thinking will allow for students with multiple learning styles to find their place in the classroom, for re-engineered classroom layouts, and for new paths to graduation through secondary education.
If we embrace it with the right attitude, the future of education will be more capable and all-encompassing than it is now and than it ever has been.
There needs to be some positive acceptance that young people are going to use this technology. I don't think that just denying it is reasonable. I also don't think an extended period of removing technology is likely to be helpful. I think that it is reasonable to take technology "time outs," to have environments and maybe even times where the family interacts with each other and not the outside world through texts. It's sort of a return to the dinner table as a place where you learn how to engage in face-to-face, meaningful contact. Put your tech aside. You can return to it afterwards.
And I think to lead by example is critical because we now know that parents are as guilty as their kids in pulling out a phone during a dinner conversation and texting. I think that that is really critical just to say it has to be balanced and we're going to practice how to balance it as a family.
While students enjoy learning with robots, research finds that teachers are more sceptical – worrying about their job security and technical capabilities of robots.
The article looks at "robots" but ignores the more significant developments around "bots", cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, EDM, predictive analytics, and the rest of the digital ecosystem that will become - has already begun - part of the teaching process. Teachers will increasingly be asked to draw upon interactions, consultations and evaluations with the likes of IBM Watson to find educational solutions for their classes.
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