The NMC preview is an article which describes the short, mid and long-term trends and challenges that teachers are going to have to deal with as technology begins to play a bigger role in education. The preview suggests that in the long-term technology has the ability to change the whole school experience and the way that schools work. They state that technology is able to change how students move from one separate subject to another by linking all the subjects in a relevant way through technology. The idea behind this integration of subjects is that students can see how different ideas are related to each other. In my opinion, this is a great way of going about schooling because it goes about education in a much more relevant and meaningful way. In the real world people are combining different disciplines in everything they do e.g. a lawyer on any given day may be combing their mathematical ability with their technological and personal skills.
The article suggests that the mid-term impacts of technology trends is that there will be an increase in the use of collaborative learning approaches by teachers. On a student level it could make it easier to complete group projects and assignments. I've already seen the benefit that technology has in this context, when I am able to contact my fellow group members instantly by Facebook Messenger. Programs such as Google Drive are also a good example of how students can collaborate on the one document without having to send it back and forth to each other. Teachers can learn and share with each other, as well as communicate when a student is misbehaving etc. The article also suggests that students will become creators rather than consumers because of the ability that technology has to be creative. I agree with the article in saying that this is a mid-term trend that has not yet been expressed in schools enough as teachers have not yet adapted to the possibilities that technology can create. In the short-term (1-2 years) the article suggests that there will be an increase in online learning as its ease of access, affordability and flexibility increases. I agree that there will be an increase in online learning, however the article is correct in saying that there are a lot of fad-like open online courses that can never provide the same education as face-to-face learning can. Similar to the long-term impact of deeper learning approaches, the article suggests that there will be a short-term rise in STEAM and how these can all be interconnected with technology. Technology definitely has the ability to link different subjects with each other more fluidly as students can learn all subjects on the same device. There are many challenges that teachers and students will have to face as technology becomes part of the curriculum. The article suggests that the solvable challenges are creating authentic learning opportunities through using tools that are already in use by students and real-life experiences. I believe that this problem is very easily solvable by using technology to educate because the use of technology is becoming all the more relevant. Another solvable problem is educating teachers to use technology. The article states that this is a difficult and lengthy problem as teachers find it difficult to adapt from what they know. The biggest way this can be solved is by teaching upcoming teachers technology as much as possible (just like in this ICT unit) so that the modern teacher can be equipped from the beginning of their teaching career. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is the concept of students bringing their own technology to the classroom. This is a great idea as students can take responsibility and own their education. It also means that they can easily bring their work back home with them. Unfortunately BYOD can be problematic. Affordability can stop some students from participating. Classroom management becomes more difficult as students can easily mess around with their own devices. Once these problems are dealt with, BYOD could be a valuable addition to the classroom. Wearable technology in the form of watches, clothes and accessories is on the rise in today's world. Wearable technology could be used to enrich a physical education lesson by being able to track heart rate, distance run etc. with relevant data. This would also make the learning of biomechanics more personal and applicable to a real-life setting when students can track their own data. It would also enthuse the students as they discover the possibilities of technology. Affordability would be the main issue with wearable technology, especially as students can easily damage the technology.
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