Technology Trends In Education

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Key Trends

1. Advancing Cultures of Innovation discussed the long-term trend of driving technology adoption in K-12 schools. I believe I have a unique perspective on this topic having taught elementary grade students as well as both junior and senior high school students. I was amazed at how easily the elementary age students adapted to new technology. It was obvious that technology, which did not exist for me or even my children, improved the learning capability of these young learners. With a background in the computer software business, I witnessed over and over again how certain resources (consultants and business users) adapted easier, learned quicker and became proficient ahead of others due to their solid technology background.

2. Deeper …show more content…

Coding as a Literacy Although this is considered a “short term” trend I firmly believe this one of the most important educational trends today. Many schools and countries have instituted basic coding into their curriculum. Coding skills learned at a young age will ultimately assist all learners, and especially those of a lower socio-economic, advance in today’s technology based job market. I see very little emphasis put on this type of technology in our current school district. I believe this needs to change because in my experience in the software industry these skills are highly sought after, very well compensated and in short supply.

6. Rise of STEAM Learning Obviously the importance of the (STEM) curriculum helps in our technological world. The trend to add Art making a STEAM complete will assist the creative aspect of using technology in education. In my experience, students who were gifted musically seemed also to be gifted mathematically. Being a math-o-phoebe myself, I have always seen the connection between those with gifted musical skills and being able to handle creative thinking in math and science areas. Collaborative and cross-discipline achievement is only enhanced by the arts.

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Rethinking the Roles of Teachers The most important sentence in this paragraph is "classrooms are shifting from teacher centered to student centered...." I agree that college teacher prep curriculum lags behind the technology generation. Even twenty years ago my teacher education program prepared me for very little in the real life classroom. Improved teacher training and professional development should have a technology based approach. I would have benefitted far more from a class on Microsoft tools than 'Theory of Classroom Management'.

10. Teaching Computational Thinking Continuing a comment from the section above, I believe a course in computational thinking would have been of greater value to me in my teacher training. In my experience as a software consultant, we implemented large supply chain systems that we had to break into smaller manageable parts and then analyze the results. I have used this approach in teaching the causes and effects of WW I to my students.

11. Achievement Gap I believe one of the main culprits of achievement gap, especially when socio-economic groups are concerned, is funding. I can cite many examples over the years of students that I taught who did not allow negative stereotyping, or low socioeconomic status, to thwart their achievement. Technology is an important tool to increase equity in education. At-risk student populations need to be recognized and

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