Page 1

Educational Report
Volume 1 Issue 1 Current and Future Trends in Education Oct. 2013

The Report Is Out and The Trends Are In

dvisory board members have identified the trends they see in education this year. They are ranked according to how significant each was likely to be for K-12 education in the next five years. The first of these being education paradigms shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning, and collaborative models. This means more institutions are embracing face or online hybrid learning models. Online learning environments have great advantages for students including opportunities for collaboration and equipping students with stronger digital skills. The second ranked trend is about how social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and information, and communicate. It is stated that more than a billion people are on Facebook and other social media hubs. Some of these include educators and students using social media as a way to share current

events and keep up to date on articles and opinions. Third, openness- concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information-is becoming a value. This isnt about information being free, it is about it being easily accessed, and it is a very important aspect of education. A fourth key trend is that as the cost of technology drops and school districts revise and open up their access policies, it is becoming more common for students to bring their own mobile devices. Schools are launching Bring Your Own Device programs so that students can use their own devices in classrooms and schools can focus more on helping students who cannot afford their own devices. Last, the fifth trend agreed upon is the abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the internet is challenging us to revisit our roles as educators. Mentoring and preparing students for the world

Page 2

they will live in work in is becoming more and more important because resources and education is everywhere now that the internet is so accessible. These are the five key trends educators see having major importance in the next five years throughout schools everywhere and through grades K12.

Significant Challenges
Six challenges were highlighted for schools trying to adopt new technology into their school systems. These we were arrived at by the board from their own experiences, articles, current events, and other sources. One major challenge that was pointed out is that local and organizational constraints are likely the most important factors in any decision to adopt- or not adopt- new technology, or any given technology. The number one challenge is ongoing professional development needs to be valued and integrated into the culture of the schools. Teachers are often

given a new technology and pressured to use it and integrate it into their classrooms, the problem is there is no knowledge of this new technology and teachers often underutilize, or do not utilize this new technology. Second, too often it is educations own practices that limit broader uptake of new technologies. Changes in attitude are needed under this challenge. Many times resistance to change causes more issues; attitudes need to be more willing for change in the schools because education and technology are constantly changing fields. The third highlighted issue is new models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to traditional models of schooling. This is all about schools looking for ways to provide a high quality service and more opportunities for learning. These discussions are all about opening new doorways to online learning. Challenge number four is that K-12 must address the increased blending of formal and informal learning. Schools have dominated education with testing and formal education but informal activities and teaching methods need to be practiced more in the classroom. Another challenge, or the fifth one laid out by the board is that the demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by

Page 3

current technology or practices. Their remains a gap between the vision and the tools needed to achieve the goal of personalized education. And the sixth and final challenge is that we are not using digital media for formative assessment the way we could and should. Although there has been a significant rise in the use of technology to asses, there is still a gap in the changes this assessment brings. These challenges, or trends, are a reflection of how technology affects education and how it still needs to change. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cloud Computing
What is it? And is it a good idea for education?

the ability to download the document work on it some more and then save it back to your Drive on Google. So how can this information be utilized in schools? Well many students are required to have a flash drive or some other means to save their documents at school and take them home to continue working on them. This of course costs money and only so much can be stored on these devices. If, instead, schools could use something like this cloud computing. Students can save many more documents, projects, and other various school works when using this as opposed to other devices like flash drives.

loud computing can be defined as expandable, ondemand services and tools that are served to the user via the internet from specialized data centers and do not live on a users device. An example is Google. Yes the search engine. If you create a Google account as a user you have the ability to save documents, forms, any type of project on your account. Once this has been done you can get on any computer log into your account and view the document. You also have

Mobile Learning

obile learning is all about educational sources making their informational available online and optimizing it for the use on mobile devices. This might seem a little odd at first, why would people want their information to be more easily accessed on a phone? Well how many people are owners of smart phones rather than an average cell phone? I am sure it is an

Page 4

overwhelming percentage. Mobile devices, even tablets and smaller laptops and notebooks are becoming more and more popular with younger generations and therefore they need to be utilized in schools and in education. Using a product that students are already familiar with is a great way to get them excited and involved with education. Technology is one of the best ways to involve students because that is something they are surrounded with and something more and more young adults are skilled with. A few uses laid out in the report by NMC that make mobile devices so important are that they are such a significant distribution channel for magazines and e-books. This is appealing to major education publishers. An example is Pearson, who is designing textbooks that have interactive elements optimized for mobile devices. Also with having a smart phone or a table students have such a large variety of content right at their fingertips. Overall it is stated that tablets, smartphones, and mobile apps have become too capable, too ubiquitous, and too useful to ignore. With this said it is obvious that more and more schools need to find ways to incorporate these technologies into their classrooms and their students lives.

ne specific example of this mobile learning is the idea of Bring Your Own Device. Since many students already have one, a few, or all of these devices, smartphone, tablet, or smaller laptops, it is a great cost effective idea to have students bring in a device of their own to use in class. This cuts cost for schools and time for teachers because they dont have to teach students how to use the different devices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~