Bevil Wood­ing

Tech­nol­o­gy is hav­ing a pos­i­tive­ly dis­rup­tive im­pact on class­rooms around the world. It is be­ing fu­elled by the func­tion­al­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty of con­sumer-friend­ly de­vices and the in­creas­ing ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of dig­i­tal con­tent, par­tic­u­lar­ly via In­ter­net. It is clear that the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, ready or not, is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing its ver­sion of the tech­nol­o­gy rev­o­lu­tion.

The Chang­ing Face of Ed­u­ca­tion

As part of my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as Chief Knowl­edge Of­fi­cer at Con­gress WBN, I spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time re­search­ing and de­vel­op­ing mod­els for us­ing tech­nol­o­gy in ed­u­ca­tion. Con­gress WBN is an in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tion. We op­er­ate schools and oth­er ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives in coun­tries across the world as di­verse the U.S., U.K., Kenya, Zam­bia, New Zealand and the Caribbean. In this con­text, po­si­tions about what is the best tech­nol­o­gy are al­ways rel­a­tive.

De­ci­sions can range from "what are the best mo­bile apps or tablets for the class­room?" to "do we re­al­ly need to clut­ter the learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment with tech­nol­o­gy?" Smart­phones, smart-boards, tablets and flat-pan­el TVs in the class are re­al op­tions in some places; but not so much in oth­er parts of the world where the cost of ac­quir­ing and main­tain­ing high-tech gear is sim­ply be­yond the reach of schools and stu­dents.

In this di­verse spread of needs and wants, there is con­sen­sus on one thing: Tech­nol­o­gy is chang­ing the face and na­ture of ed­u­ca­tion, and schools and ed­u­ca­tors need to adapt. Yet, for every suc­cess sto­ry, there seem to be more ex­am­ples of failed im­ple­men­ta­tions.

Well in­tend­ed lap­tops-in-schools pro­grams, or tablets-in-the-class ini­tia­tives morph in­to mon­ey-down-the-drain, or frus­tra­tion-in-the-class out­comes. How­ev­er, the tech­nol­o­gy per se, is sel­dom the cause for bro­ken tech­nol­o­gy-in-ed­u­ca­tion dreams. I usu­al­ly do not have to scratch too deeply to find that fail­ures can be traced to: teach­ers not be­ing prop­er­ly ori­ent­ed or trained; schools not be­ing ad­e­quate­ly out­fit­ted, lo­ca­tion in­ap­pro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy be­ing de­ployed; or rel­e­vant dig­i­tal con­tent not avail­able. A scratch deep­er typ­i­cal­ly re­veals that lead­ers did not suf­fi­cient­ly in­vest in con­nect­ing the dots be­tween vi­sion and im­ple­men­ta­tion.

The Tech­nol­o­gy Im­per­a­tive

There is, it seems, a dis­con­nect be­tween the promise of ed­u­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy in the­o­ry and man­i­fes­ta­tion of its po­ten­tial in the re­al world. This dis­con­nect may well have to do with the out­mod­ed way suc­cess in ed­u­ca­tion is still mea­sured. Ex­am re­sults not holis­tic stu­dent de­vel­op­ment, re­main the pri­ma­ry mea­sure of ed­u­ca­tion suc­cess.

It should come as no sur­prise then, that the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor's re­sponse to the dis­rup­tive po­ten­tial of tech­nol­o­gy is more akin to the pub­lic ser­vice than it is to the pri­vate sec­tor.

Adam Web­ster, a U.K. teacher and ed­u­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy blog­ger got it right when he wrote, "The prob­lem with the re­al world is that it func­tions at a dif­fer­ent pace and in a dif­fer­ent way to a school. Schools don't need to be pro­gres­sive to be suc­cess­ful, they sim­ply need to pro­duce good re­sults."

The pri­vate sec­tor un­der­stands that in­no­va­tion, ef­fi­cien­cy and adapt­abil­i­ty are not op­tions, they are im­per­a­tives. Sur­vival in to­day's glob­al mar­ket­place man­dates use of tech­nol­o­gy to re­main com­pet­i­tive and rel­e­vant. By con­trast, learn­ing in­sti­tu­tions seem to func­tion un­der some un­writ­ten code that ob­lig­ates them to main­tain sta­bil­i­ty and pre­dictabil­i­ty. There­in lies the in­her­ent chal­lenge with tech­nol­o­gy in ed­u­ca­tion.

Stu­dents are grad­u­at­ing in­to a world in which tech­nol­o­gy is in­ex­tri­ca­ble wo­ven in­to the evolv­ing fab­ric of so­ci­ety. Yet, un­der cur­rent ed­u­ca­tion mod­els, good ex­am re­sults sel­dom re­quire in­no­va­tion, or cre­ativ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy. So un­less the de­f­i­n­i­tion of rel­e­vant knowl­edge and learn­ing is changed, ed­u­ca­tors have no re­al in­cen­tive to make the sweep­ing changes re­quired to evolve the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

Schools and coun­tries must ask "Is our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem ad­e­quate­ly prepar­ing stu­dents for the re­al world?" A neg­a­tive re­sponse should not be tak­en as an in­dict­ment, but as a man­date for de­ci­sive ac­tion.

Evolv­ing the Sys­tem

It is a ques­tion we con­stant­ly ask in our schools and chal­lenge our­selves to re­spond to. Ul­ti­mate­ly, tech­nol­o­gy should be em­braced be­cause it serves the need to pro­vide a qual­i­ty learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment. Ex­am­ples at home and abroad prove that tech­nol­o­gy can trans­form how ed­u­ca­tion con­tent is de­liv­ered; en­gag­ing stu­dents, teach­ers and par­ents in in­ter­est­ing new ways in the process.

Video-con­fer­enc­ing soft­ware can used in the class to link stu­dents with their coun­ter­parts in oth­er coun­tries. Mul­ti­me­dia li­braries can be pop­u­lat­ed with lo­cal as well as in­ter­na­tion­al con­tent to sup­ple­ment the cur­ricu­lum and ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty. Par­ents can use smart­phones, tablets or com­put­ers to lo­gin to an on­line sys­tem to re­view their child's progress and in­ter­act with sub­ject teach­ers. Stu­dents can ac­cess the In­ter­net on their own de­vices for re­search, in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tions or even for games and so­cial net­work­ing � just like they would in the world they are be­ing pre­pared for.

Still, cau­tion is re­quired. Re­al risks at­tend the ben­e­fits of tech­nol­o­gy in schools. Safe­guards to pro­tect users from in­ap­pro­pri­ate con­tent have to be put in place and con­stant­ly as­sessed. Re­spon­si­ble use of tech­nol­o­gy should be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to stu­dents across sub­ject ar­eas. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, strong em­pha­sis should be placed on on­go­ing ed­u­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy train­ing for teach­ers as well as par­ents. It is al­so im­por­tant that stu­dents be taught to val­ue dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ation, as a counter-bal­ance to their nat­ur­al in­cli­na­tion for con­tent con­sump­tion. Schools should al­so cater for build­ing in­ter­nal tech­ni­cal trou­bleshoot­ing and main­te­nance ca­pac­i­ty to sup­port stu­dent and staff needs. In so do­ing, the sys­tem evolves to serve the tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven de­mands of ed­u­ca­tion in the dig­i­tal age.

Nav­i­gat­ing the Fu­ture

The truth is, though, tech­nol­o­gy has been chang­ing ed­u­ca­tion for mil­len­nia: from slates, chalk­boards, foun­tain pens and cal­cu­la­tors, to lap­tops, mul­ti­me­dia pro­jec­tors and touch-screen de­vices. Through every tran­si­tion there was op­po­si­tion; yet with every tran­si­tion the na­ture of ed­u­ca­tion evolved.

To­day we are at an­oth­er tran­si­tion point, and if we have learnt any­thing from the past it is that lead­er­ship, not tech­nol­o­gy, will de­ter­mine how well and how quick­ly we nav­i­gate to the in­evitable tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem of the fu­ture.

See al­so:

Re­think­ing ed­u­ca­tion Busi­ness and learn­ing in the Dig­i­tal Age

Tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled learn­ing for the Dig­i­tal Age

De­sign­ing Con­nect­ed Class­rooms

Bevil Wood­ing is the Chief Knowl­edge Of­fice of Con­gress WBN (www.con­gress­wn.org), a val­ues-based in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it, which op­er­ates North­Gate Col­lege in Trinidad and To­ba­go and ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives glob­al­ly; He is al­so the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Bright­Path Foun­da­tion, an ed­u­ca­tion-tech­nol­o­gy non-prof­it (ww.bright­path­foun­da­tion.org). Fol­low on Twit­ter: @bevil­wood­ing or at: face­book.com/bevil­wood­ing or con­tact via email at tech­nol­o­gy­mat­ters@bright­path­foun­da­tion.org