Future Trends

According to the 2020 Hurdles and Accelerators Report, the Advisory Board has identified five key hurdles and five key accelerators that schools should address in 2020. Among the hurdles were scaling and sustaining innovation, data privacy, evolution of teaching and learning, pedagogy versus the technology gap, and digital equity.  Among the top five accelerators were learners as creators, data-driven practices, personalization, social and emotional learning, and building the human capacity of leaders (CoSN, 2020). Immediately I notice the similarities of these categories with the AECT Standards for technology. Common in both areas you find pedagogy, leadership, diversity of learners, and technology supported learning. I am sure that if we unpack the standards even further, we will find more similarities. I think we all can agree that education from the standpoint of both teacher and student has changed significantly in 2020.  Technology has been thrust into the foreground for many schools across the country. In order to make remote learning work for all stakeholders, both students and teachers will need to learn to use technology responsibly to engage students, advance learning, and protect the privacy of all.

As a member of the administration team in my school district, our focus is a little broader than within one classroom. However, just like a teacher in a classroom, or a principal of a school; we also use data in everything we do.  Seeing it as the spotlight topic for the report did not surprise me. As more and more lessons are taught online, and more and more classrooms begin using online programs for their lessons; I agree with the report that privacy should be a key issue for all stakeholders. We know that technology and data collection is a driving force for today’s learning environments. Teachers need data to drive their lessons and assure that all students are reaching their learning potential. Students need the feedback that many online programs and teachers provide to help them become active participants in their learning. In my selected content area of math for 2^nd graders, I believe privacy is especially important.  At this age, students follow the lead and recommendation of other students, are intrigued by highly interactive websites, and enjoy the visual attraction of them.  The thing they do not think about when selecting a game to play is what kind of information the website collects about them.  It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to guide the students through this process. After reading this article, I believe this should be a main discussion focus for staff meetings across the country. How much research goes into selecting a program to use?  Is it the choice of each teacher, or are the choices presented to administration for review prior to implementation?  As a new teacher, I find myself searching review website to gain as much information about different programs as possible, prior to using them.  In addition, working with professional learning networks is very beneficial in finding the pros and cons of online programs. Moving forward in my lesson design, program research will be a very large part of choosing my technology. I will be looking for information on the programs website about the information they collect, how the program can accommodate the learning needs of all my students, and whether it is going to redefine my instruction or simply be a substitution for my lessons.

Another point to note in the article states insufficient professional development can prevent educators from trying new ideas and from successfully uniting technology and pedagogy (CoSN, 2020).  As noted above, working together in professional learning networks is a great avenue for increasing your knowledge about technology.  Moving forward, I believe I will work harder to not only attend the PD meetings that I find in my district, but also to rally for more opportunities for professional development that center around the use of technology and data.  I am a firm believer that learning never stops.  Even as a teacher, there is always more information that we can learn from colleagues, professional groups, administration, journals, and even things we can learn from our students.  Every meeting we attend brings new information back into the classroom to benefit the students. I want to grow as an educator, not simply repeat the same old lesson over and over, year after year.  Education is ever-evolving and has changed significantly since I was in school.  I believe the student-centered approach to learning that incorporates portfolio assessments helps to engage students and allows them to articulate their knowledge in a real-life format.  I plan to incorporate more hands-on activities into my lesson and limit the amount of direct instruction where the teacher is the center of the room. I would like to encourage students to make choices in their learning that is going to benefit and engage them. Through networking with other teachers, I intend to offer my students opportunities that will highlight their accomplishments and allow all students to meet the requirements, regardless of their learning levels.

Finally, I was fascinated by the many examples the article mentioned of educational practices from around the world. I have always been intrigued by using technology as part of my curriculum to get first-hand accounts of life in other places through Zoom meetings, penpal programs, etc.  However, it never occurred to me to research educational practices from other countries. I always just thought locally (within US), not globally.  I would like to look into this further and see where I can collect “best practices” for students in my grade level for several different curriculum lessons. My belief is that many students this age have not traveled to places around the world and learning in this fashion would be far more engaging than just reading about it in a book or playing an online game about it. Overall, this article was very information and I will take away from it many great ideas.

References

 CoSN. (2020). Driving K-12 innovation: Hurdles + accelerators. Retrieved from https://cosn.org/k12innovation/hurdles-accelerators