By Kristen Hicks
on May 13, 2015@atxcopywriter
Editor’s note: This
piece was originally written by Katie Lepi and ran on February 28th, 2014. A
lot has changed since then, so we’ve had author Kristen Hicks update this piece
with the latest techniques and innovations.
 |
| Image via Flickr by Alan Levine |
Each year, the New Media
Consortium and EDUCAUSE release the NMC Horizon Report, which
looks at the technology most likely to shape education in the next five years.
The 2015 report highlights a number of key changes that educators, those at the
higher education level in particular, should be aware of.
6 Important Trends in
Education Technology
A number of experts
weighed in on the six technology trends that are making the biggest impact on
education. If you read the report itself, you’ll see not only a description of
what the trend is (which we’ve summarized below), but also a few examples of
institutions or organizations that have already embraced it.
1. The
Need to Develop Cultures of Innovation
The world is changing and
higher education must change with it. Many schools have recognized this fact
and are working to change how things are done in order to better accommodate
new tech and to encourage innovation. Some universities are borrowing ideas
from the business world, and are adopting processes that resemble an agile
startup model, which makes incorporating change as you go easier.
Likewise, a number of
universities have already embraced the idea that technology itself can and
should be treated as a catalyst for improving how learning works. A fairly widespread
example is the growing adoption of BYOD programs. Why not turn the tools
everyone is already using into a means for making your courses better?
A culture of innovation
not only embraces the new technology and ideas re-shaping education, but also
adapts to the changing ideas about what’s most valuable in the world outside of
higher education. Policies that emphasize the high-level skills increasingly
valued in the business world – creativity, risk-taking, collaboration,
entrepreneurship – help make higher education both more meaningful to students
in the moment, and more valuable to them in the future.
2.
Increasing Collaboration Between Institutions
The number and importance
of educational consortia is growing. Technology is one of the catalysts of this
on two very different levels:
a.
Tech is expensive, but also increasingly important.
Schools can’t just opt out
of using technology, but with budgetary concerns and complaints about tuition
already a huge issue for educators at all levels, purchasing the tech needed is
a challenge. This is especially so considering that “the tech needed” has a
frustrating tendency to change within a couple of years (or less).
Consortia make it possible
for colleges to band together and demand more affordable and sustainable tech
solutions. One university alone has limited power, but many universities
negotiating as one can make a difference in how tech deals work.
b.
Schools can share data and content.
Technology makes it
possible for a college to make a large number of lesson plans available to
anyone who might benefit from them. It allows colleges to cull the large
amounts of data they’ve each collected to gain greater insights from it all.
We’ll address this one further in #4, but the takeaway here is that tech makes
collaboration and sharing between institutions and their students possible on a
large scale that benefits everyone.
3.
Possibilities of Assessment and Measurement
Tech brings with it an
increased access to data. Colleges can now collect extensive and detailed data
on how students are learning, what teaching methods work the best, and which
kinds of education and career paths lead to the greatest success. Basically,
from day one of a student’s educational experience through their life after
graduation, they’re producing a huge quantity of data that can be put toward
improving the individual experience of students, as well as how higher education
works as a whole.
Data is playing a key role
in adaptive learning, which empowers students to
better understand their progress and take more control over their learning.
Additionally, adaptive learning gives teachers insights into how students are
doing and what they need most. It can also help drive more informed
curriculum decisions designed to help students perform better. Data-driven learning
and assessment is becoming a big and influential field in the higher education
space.
4.
Proliferation of Open Educational Resources
As mentioned earlier,
technology makes it easier than ever for colleges or professors to make
resources freely available to anyone they may benefit. Many educators are happy
to jump on the bandwagon. The number of open educational resources (OER)
available to anyone willing to do some digging to find them is growing.
- OER can refer to any type of digital content, including:
- Courses
- Course materials
- Textbooks
- Research articles
- Presentations
- Videos
- Tests
- Software
The movement to make more
information free goes beyond just insisting that there be no cost to students.
It extends to encouraging that the resources be free from any ownership and
usage rights.
While the cost of higher
education remains one of the most consistently debated topics in the industry,
making use of creative commons resources and open textbooks could be the key to
bringing costs down in at least one area of higher ed. OER repositories and
search tools already exist, but they could still use some work and are likely
to improve if the trend continues in years to come.
5.
Increase in Blended Learning
Online learning is growing
at a rapid pace. As the report points out, one in ten students were taking courses exclusively online already by
2012, and even more were taking at least some of their classes online. The
shift to online learning has been heavily aided by tech improvements in fields
like learning analytics, adaptive learning, and asynchronous and synchronous
tools.
But blended learning may be the even bigger
innovation to come of the shift to online learning, as it combine the benefits
of the technology of online learning with the accessibility of working with
teachers face-to-face. Access to more online resources in whatever format
students learn from best, accessible wherever and whenever they want, enables
better learning outside of the classroom. Add to that a greater availability of
teachers once in the classroom and you have a powerful tool that provides
students with the best of both worlds.
The best practices for
blended learning are still being developed, but as more colleges experiment
with it and track what works best, it can only get better.
6.
Redesigning Learning Spaces
If we’re bringing more
tech into the classroom, the classroom must change to accommodate. The
traditional model of a lecturer standing at the front of a classroom, talking
to a room full of students seated in rows, ignores the possibilities of what
tech can add to the equation.
Some colleges are
experimenting with re-designing the classroom space to encourage the
integration of technology and more collaboration between students. A common
example of this is a classroom in which the lecture’s podium is moved to the
center and surrounded by round tables for students that integrate a key piece
of technology like an interactive whiteboard or a computer.
Other colleges are working
to expand the idea to other spaces. Many libraries are being re-designed
to enable more access to technology and comfortable learning spaces within
them. Schools are adding more power outlets and comfortable seating to hallways
and atriums so students can do their studying there.
Learning can happen
anywhere, just as long as students have access to the right tools. A few tweaks
to what the common spaces on college campuses look like can help take that idea
further.
Still, while NMC report
seeks to predict the tech trends that will influence education the most in the
next five years, five years is a very long time in the tech world. These trends
are all poised to change how the educational landscape looks, but may be taken
over by newer technologies and the trends and issues they produce. We’re living
in an exciting time for ed tech. The possibilities of new opportunities for
schools and educators will only grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment