Critique
and evaluate practice in the context of different audiences (local, national
and/or international) and their perspectives;
Our world and more to the point – the world of our
learners, is a rapidly changing and evolving entity that is heavily influenced
and guided by trends and developments at both a local and global level. Trends
seem to be aspects of education that we need to be developing over a period of
time. Networked communities, equitable access and digital fluency are aspects
in education that can't be fixed overnight. They need time, strategies and
problem-solving to find the best solutions that help each individual school
develop stronger awareness around these issues. Visser and Gagnon (2005)
suggest that a ‘trend’ is something that refers to the statistically observable
change or general orientation of a general movement (Visser & Gagnon, 2005; Karataş et al,2016).
Each year Core
Education work to identify the various trends and influences that they see
impacting on education in New Zealand for the upcoming year. This year they
have identified the fact that we are experiencing exponential change in every
sphere of their model. They believe that the traditional approaches to coping
with and responding to change do not sufficiently meet the demands of such
exponential change, and thus the trends identified will require new ways of
thinking about and responding to change. They also identify the concept of
digital disruption, which emphasises the ways that digital technologies are
disrupting rather than simply augmenting or adding to what we currently do.
Together, these things are driving the transformation that is occurring in all
facets of our lives — including education (Core Education, 2017).
The US National Intelligence Council (2017) states
that technological innovation accelerates progress but leads to
discontinuities. Advances in technologies have the potential to enhance
education by providing a raft of new and exciting opportunities for both
educators and students alike. The
pace of change driven by new technologies and technological advances looks set
to continue and even accelerate, meaning that existing skills in the teaching
workforce will need to be frequently upgraded (Core Education, 2017).
When we stop to consider the changes it has made in the past few years alone we
are only able to guess what both ourselves as teachers and our current students
are going to be immersed in the near future. I think we are at a point in time
where we are ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ and with emerging technologies being vastly
different to what we have experienced in the past, we as teachers will be
required to find new ways to adapt to digital change in more sustainable ways
(Core Education, 2017).
Games and gamification are integral aspects of future
education. They have the potential to motivate and engage our students through
solving problems using facts and information available to them through
game-based learning. We have all used methods of gamification in our classes at
some stage be it giving points for rewards or simply to modify behaviour in
some way. The technological use of gamification however, is rapidly gaining momentum
both in education and in the commercial sector and this is a trend that has the
potential to revolutionise education.
So far it has been an interesting journey at our school. We regularly
use gamification throughout the day with such things as devised points systems,
Class dojo, and Kahoots with our children. Some staff have been able to tap
into some of these gamification areas such as Minecraft to capture not only
their skills but their creativity. As a staff we have begun to develop
authentic and meaningful contexts from which they can apply their skills and
that’s exciting for everyone. The thing we need to be aware of however,
is that in implementing gamification into our teaching and learning, we need to
keep focusing on maintaining these meaningful and authentic learning contexts
and not simply using technology merely as a more creative way of providing
information to our learners.
References
Core Education. (2017). Ten Trends - 2017. Retrieved from http://core-ed.org/assets/PDFs/Ten-Trends-6July2017.pdf
Karataş, S., et al. (2016). A Trend Analysis of
Mobile Learning. In D. Parsons (Ed.) Mobile and Blended Learning Innovations
for Improved Learning Outcomes(pp. 248-276). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
National Intelligence Council. (2017). Global
trends: The Paradox of Progress. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved from https://www.dni.gov/files/images/globalTrends/documents/GT-Main-Report.pdf
Visser, L., & Gagnon,
K. (2005). Defining “Trends” and “Issues” in Distance Education. Conversation
with Donald Paul Ely Y. Visser, L. Visser, M. Simonson & R. Amirault (Eds.
de la serie), Trends and Issues in Distance Education. International
Perspectives, pp.83-89.
Hi Trev. I agree with your comments about making sure the outcomes for our students are meaningful and authentic when implementing gamification into our classes. There is a real danger that programmes like Kahoot and Minecraft could become the modern equivalent of colouring in, if not managed properly. It's essential our students are creators of the games as well as the consumers. As you know, I use Minecraftedu a lot in my room. It is an excellent vehicle for teaching the 21st skills such as collaboration and creativity. We have clear goals for what needs to be achieved. This is in contrast to the lunchtime Minecraft Clubs, where the students are still working collaboratively, but on self set projects.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting read Trevor. You are so right in that we need to be constantly upskilling ourselves to adapt to digital change so it is augmenting learning and not disrupting it. Whatever digital technologies we select to enhance our students learning, it needs to be meaningful and authentic, not just a different (digital) way of teaching the same thing. The SAMR model comes into play here, I think a quick reference to that will confirm whether our digital learning contexts are on the right track.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments ladies. It's going to be an interesting time in the coming next few years as we wait and see what other new technologies appear to challenge us. We need to keep on challenging our students to experiment and explore new learning avenues with digital technologies and I feel doing this in a gamified manner can help do this while keeping students motivated and engaged.
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