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Hotseat 3 - "Hot topics"

Explore the hot topics and trends in ICT

ExploreThinking about ICT trends and hot topics

Part of my job at CORE Education is leading the thinking we do in our organisation which results in the publication of our annual 'ten trends'. These trends are intended to provide insights into some of the ICT-related innovation and issues we need to be aware of and engaging with as educators to understand the ways in which these may be impacting our practice, and the lives of ours students. The video below provides a brief introduction to these trends (and lets you see me rather than just read what I'm writing)...

What are the trends?

These trends are an attempt to monitor and map developments in our education environment that are being driven predominantly by innovation in the technology space. They are not predictions about the future, rather, they are an attempt to outline a trajectory of development, providing us with the opportunity to consider the potential impact(s) on our work as educators. 

Why should we be interested in the trends?

Some people are just naturally inquisitive about new ideas and things, others are just happy to stick with what they know and can find change annoying. As educators we have a responsibility to be informed about what is happening in our professional environment, and to ensure that we are are adequately prepared for the changes that we may be faced with as these trends impact what we do. 

A second reason is that technological change is a fact of life in our world, and technological change isn't additive - it is ecological. That is, a new technology doesn't just change something, it changes everything - think of the wheel, fire, internal combustion engine etc. This is true in our education system (and the world that we operate that system within). The internet, for example, hasn't just provided a different way for us to access information, it has changed the entire way we can think about the time, place, and pace of teaching and learning. In our previous discussions about the use of a VLE we touched on this. A VLE doesn't simply provide an alternative to a text book for sharing resources with students - it creates a whole new environment within which the acts of teaching and learning can occur, impacting on the time and place of learning, and on the roles of teacher and learner within that system. 

How can engaging with these trends help us?

There are a number of reasons I believe that engaging with understanding these trends can help us as educators. Here are some (in no particular order) - you may have more you can think of...

  1. Our students are growing up immersed in this technologically rich environment. It doesn't automatically mean they understand or can operate within it effectively. They need our guidance and support - and if we are ignorant or ill-prepared, we do them a disservice by effectively creating a 'digital divide' between their experience in school and their experience outside of school.
  2. We are constantly being bombarded by change. Engaging with these trends can help us move from being reactive (causing stress and negative feelings) to being proactive (feeling empowered) in our response to this change.
  3. Engaging with the trends can help us be prepared for potential conflicts and issues that may arise when these technologies do emerge (e.g. focusing on cyber citizenship programmes in our curriculum).
  4. More importantly, early engagement can help us find ways of accommodating or even adapting these new technologies for the benefit of our students and the wider education community (e.g. adapting data analysis tools to aid our internal assessment and record keeping systems). 

ReadingKey Resources

Here are a couple of key resources for you to review as part of this hotseat:

CORE's Ten Trends - Each year, CORE Education’s experienced staff of researchers, education trainers, and technology experts pool together their expertise, and publish CORE’s prognosis on what are the coming ten major ICT-related trends that will make an impact upon education in the coming year.

Horizon Report - published annually as the centerpiece of the NMC Emerging Technologies Initiative, The Horizon report charts the landscape of emerging technologies for teaching, learning. I am on the consultative board for this report, and find it an exciting and challenging group to participate with. You can find links to all of the reports that have been published on the left hand menu of the page.

ChatLet's discuss this

For our hotseat discussion this time I want to focus our thinking purely around what you see as the key issues and trends affecting your teaching and learning. In order to do this I encourage you to look at the resources I've shared, and consider the reasons I've provided for engaging with these. In our discussion over the next couple of weeks let's use the opportunity to ask questions and share ideas about some of these trends and where we see them taking us in the future. 

To kick things off for this discussion, I invite you to list your 'top three' trends - that is, the three things from these lists (or something else not included here) that you think are the priority at the moment, the things having the biggest (or potentially biggest) impact on the lives of our students as learners and us as educators. 

Some further 'big questions' to get us started might be...

  • Are there any trends that are missing from these lists that you think ought to be included? 
  • Are there trends here that you have questions to ask about, things you're not clear about?
  • Are there examples of these trends that you can point to - places where schools are already engaging with these trends in positive ways?

 

 

 

Document Actions

Your top three trends

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Mar 31, 2012 09:45 PM
To kick things off for this discussion, I invite you to list your 'top three' trends - that is, the three things from these lists (or something else not included here) that you think are the priority at the moment, the things having the biggest (or potentially biggest) impact on the lives of our students as learners and us as educators.

Your top three trends

Posted by Anthony Skip Basiel at Apr 10, 2012 09:01 AM
Hello Derek
Thanks for a good ICT discussion.
I see the eLearning convergence in this way:
1) web 1.0 - searching text and resources (e.g. Google)
2) web 2.0 - professional social media (e.g. Linked In) networked learning
3) Next Generation - searching social human resources. Find the people in your network to help solve the problem
(e.g. Google gWhiz (an in-house project) or YouTube search)

See more about this at my website:
http://abasiel.wordpress.com/
and
http://abasiel.wordpress.com/elearning-r-d/
and
http://abasiel.wordpress.com/psn/

Your top three trends

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 10, 2012 10:03 AM
Thanks for this Skip - your convergence thoughts are consistent with what I also understand is happening and very useful to think about in terms of the various trends introduced in this discussion. What you refer to as 'Next Generation' is what I interpret as the 'semantic web' that George Siemens and others speak of, and ties in nicely with lots of the thinking around the 'smart web' for instance.
Thanks for your links - good to see the work of Michael Moore and his transactional distance theory being used here - I refer to that often in the courses I run, an oldie but a goodie ;-)
I guess a key question for me is, do the three phases/stages you outline represent convergence, or are they actually indicative of genuine paradigm shifts in the way we think about and use the technologies available to us?

RE: Trends

Posted by Simone Singh at Apr 03, 2012 12:05 PM
Have read all about all ten trends, I feel they each are important in their own way and have a priority in different parts of the world.

Personalisation is a priority as each person is an individual and universal applications and plans will not suit all. The wider adoption of IEP’s and personalised learning will engage all individuals on a personal level. In the same way the Early Years education puts the child at the centre of learning and plans are created from the child’s interests, personalisation will be student initiated learning and pathways. Also, all communities are different and by personalising the learning space for the needs of the social and cultural environment of the community will engage all people in ways that were not possible before.

Data engagement is also a priority as with the increasing touch technologies that are coming out allow people to really feel engaged. People can type to talk to someone half way across the world, however they can now talk via video calling using Skype for free, also Facebook have now created video calling using Skype technologies creating a visual atmosphere. The touch screen phones, computers make the learner feel they are part of an active process rather than taking a passive back seat.

I think that ubiquitous learning is also a huge priority at the moment, the fact that learning exists everywhere, linked in time and regardless of place makes learning accessible for all. The use of tabs, pads and boards makes the learning move forward with new devices that are always coming out. This does not marginalise someone who has an old device as they can access the same learning using cloud services. However, if someone has an older operating system they may not be able to have the latest version of Microsoft Office as their system cannot support it. This may force them to buy a new computer and spend money that they may not have in order to ‘fit in’ or to work. I do think the fact that people always want the ‘latest’ technology is a way of capitalising markets. For example, apple are always bring out the ‘latest’ technology (i pad, i phone) and then 6 months later they make a few changes, re-market the product and society goes mad for it and there is a new ‘latest craze’. When probably, apple had the new technology ages ago and just holds it back in order to make money.

I agree that technology is an invisible servant that does not demand attention as technology is all around us whether people choose to use or engage with it. The use of i-pads in schools are a way of rapidly assessing and recording pupil progress as educators can swiftly move around tapping and highlighting efficiently. Children can become part of a wider community by accessing networks, cloud services, VLE’s through technology and the use of portable devices. Through cloud services, wireless networks and portable devices working individuals can work on a 3 hour train journey and time is not wasted. Through the internet information is shared across the world making small communities’ part of an entire network. However, Governments in China have controlled the use of the internet by banning social networking sites and You tube as they may be seen as suggestive or giving ‘ideas’ to its people.

However, I do believe attitudes need to change with the technology as there are people who are scared and reluctant to change, they may see it as a hassle or too much work. I think the children and young people of today are slowly changing those attitudes by supporting and aiding the adults in their lives through the technological changes we have experienced. For example, my father lives in Guyana and he has never used a computer in his life. The young people in his village have taught him how to use Skype so he can talk to us in England. Up until a year ago the village children had never seen a computer and already they have developed their knowledge and understanding of the world around them. I think people need to see and feel a purpose in technology in order to engage with it, they need to feel it benefits them or the learning in order to use it. ‘Traditional’ methods of the blackboard and chalk are effective ways of teaching for some people because they do not know different nor want to try different. However, if benefits are explained and purpose is felt then it has a real impact on learning.

RE: Trends

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 03, 2012 08:01 PM
Hi Simone
thanks for your very full and thoughtful response to kick off this discussion. You've highlighted some of they key trends here that I think are important too - in particular, the notion of ubiquity, providing any time, any place any device learning. For me I see lots of this occurring among schools students already - they are engaging in learning well beyond the time spent in classrooms, at home, in cafes, in libraries etc, but this fact hasn't yet been fully appreciated by the school system, which still organises instruction around the school timetable and time with a teacher. The use of an LMS can form a part of how this gap may be bridged, as discussed in our earlier hotseats.
I wonder what you and the rest of the participants think should or could be happening in our schools to make learning more ubiquitous? Is it a case of kids sitting at their desk with their mobile device instead of their exercise books? What could we be doing in terms of timetables, of thinking about subjects as the base for organising curriculum, of expectations in terms of seat time in classrooms etc.?

Top Trend

Posted by Hamish Scott-Brown at Apr 05, 2012 11:28 AM
Derek this is really great stuff and i particularly enjoyed reading the 'abstract' above and coming from the background that I did ie (working with Heppell in Ultralab from 1999) its really good to see this type of thinking being forged ahead - of course....the relationship with the now extinct Ultralab and CoreEd is visible and that's good for me to read.

Im going to pose simply words , one of which is well used and familiar term used by Heppell and fairly ingrained in my own personal way of thinking/teaching/working with technology.

DELIGHTFUL - Learning needs to be delightful - we always pretty much had that as our strapline at 'The lab' however unfortunately this was not always possible to follow though in the schools that were wanting to carry forward 'delightful learning' due to :
BUDGET CONSTRAINTS

Sadly if it were always possible to be leading delightful learning in all schools and learning establishments we'd have the bottomless pit of budget to assit support staff with resources that were technologically up to date for all learners and as technology advances ever faster that ability to engage the learners with new technology is pretty hard in most cases - Not all schools of course have this challenge and I would be interested to hear the views of those students and learners here on the MA course who come from schools abroad that may or may not be resourced to modern technology levels.

So summing up here I have two words as I said - one being the positive and constructive and the other being the negative and challenging


I particularly agree with your point 1 above ....which states :
"....Our students are growing up immersed in this technologically rich environment. It doesn't automatically mean they understand or can operate within it effectively. They need our guidance and support - and if we are ignorant or ill-prepared, we do them a disservice by effectively creating a 'digital divide' between their experience in school and their experience outside of school."

Top Trend

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 09, 2012 11:03 PM
Hi Hamish - good to hear from an ex "Ultranaut" - and thanks for your encouraging feedback.

I understand the issue of budget constraints as you've pointed out - certainly something that confronts us here in NZ every day. However, I'm not so sure that simply adding technology resources will provide any better educational outcomes (or learning delight for that matter) without the intentional and well planned/implemented pedagogical approaches that support this. In the NZ context I can cite several well resources schools that, IMHO, are squandering the privilege they have, while other, less well-resourced schools are achieving some outstanding successes with learners on the back of some innovative thinking and approaches by staff and communities.

In terms of the trends and futures thinking, I'd be interested to know what you and others on the courses might consider are are implications in terms of the costs to schools that you've raised here. Are we being too optimistic about the potential impact of these technologies? Should we be considering a more conservative approach? Or should we be counting more on these technologies coming into our schools and influencing learning in the pockets of our students?

Top Three Trends

Posted by Ayse Erenler at Apr 07, 2012 04:05 PM
In reading the topic for this discussion, took me a while to narrow down my three trends. However, I agree with Simone, all 10 trends presented hold their individual strength and impact. But I must say the 3D trend made me think of the time when I was given the opportunity to create a short animated film during the PGCE with Oscar Stringer. At the time I remembered thinking wouldn’t this be an exciting learning experience for young children. Attempting to relate this trend to my reception class, I believe 3D learning will be a great way of combining out of school and in school features, plus, the children will learn valuable skill, let alone take great enjoyment throughout. Also since a majority of children in my class are EAL, the visual aspect of animations, will support their learning and make it relevant and existing rather than pose as a barrier to accessing the curriculum. Furthermore in identifying the interests of my class, the majority have a shared interest of gaming (X-box, Nintendo’s, Play stations), thus this trend makes we wonder the learning that will take place in the future, if there were more 3D learning available (however perhaps this issue is only occurring at my school).

Personalised learning is another trend I believe is currently significant and can be implemented within Early Years and of course other ages of learning. As Simone has mentioned the significance of personalised learning within Early Years is important, and I have observed many successful lessons, where teachers have intended to personalise their students learning through using different ICT tools. E.g. using the voting tool available on MLE and the discussion forums where children can post their individual ideas on a topic and further their unique ideas from their peers input. This is also achieved in the Early years through parent input using the MLE, which again is a useful way of interacting with parents (the community) along with students.

Lastly I would like to add my own trend to this discussion VISION. In glimpsing at the different digital technology available, it is astonishing to think the rapid development of such tools. I was a student in secondary education 10 years ago and in comparing the tools available then with the tools available now, it is an existing time for students to be among so many different types of learning aids available including interactive whiteboards, MLE, ipads, social networks, podcasting and so on. I wait with eager to see the next stage of vision, wave of ICT tools that will follow soon with in and out of education.

Top Three Trends

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 09, 2012 11:28 PM
Thanks for your contribution, Ayse
I understand that it's a difficult task to try and limit the choice to three when all of these can be regarded as important - however, I do thank you for providing the illustrations you have around the development of 3D thinking and personalisation.
Your thoughts about 3D thinking in the context of your reception class is a useful provocation in terms of the impact of this trend and the way we ought to be thinking about accommodating it in our thinking/planning. I'd be interested in other people's thoughts here.

Regarding your idea of VISION as a trend - I'm not sure if I'd see it as a trend in the way that we're talking of trends here, however, I do strongly agree that there is a need for us to think about how critical it is for educators and educational leaders to be acting from a sense of vision and personal/shared belief with regards the adoption of technology, and not simply reacting in an ad hoc manner - lurching from 'new thing' to 'new thing'.

I wonder what thoughts others might have about this?

Top Three Trends

Posted by Ayse Erenler at Apr 12, 2012 02:44 PM
I was not sure if VISION was a trend, but in having the opportunity to read others thoughts on trends has been very useful. I particularly like Evelyne’s description for the trend open-ness, as I can relate to this trend. Learning through ICT has become the norm, and is easy, as it has created a mass of opportunity for those who were unable to access their learning without the use of ICT.

three trends

Posted by evelyne minatchy at Apr 11, 2012 05:14 PM
i think citizenship is an important trend for me as in our mordern world and society many people and especially students tend to forget what is right and wrong. If this allow to relearn these values in a 'virtual' way children would probably be more careful and knowing their rights and responsabilities. Sometimes children are not given any guidance because of too busy working parents and sometimes lack of faith and there is an increase in a lack of respect for what is important in life. they usually don't care about rules and boundaries and think that everything is allowed.

open-ness is another one that i think it's important because our western society responds really well to what is projected to it for example any latest gadget out we want to have it even if we don't need it but there is society, media and peer pressure to have it.Everything will depend on where we are in which part of the world. For example in the uk we are given a lot of educational opportunities with new technologies but sometimes some students don't appreciate how lucky there are to have all these new fancies gadgets that helped them learn. So they get bored quickly until the next technology takes over. I think sometimes that their brain get overwhelmed with all these and they cannot think properly. Myself i rarely count mentally i just reach for the calculator which is fast and accurate. This is the choice we are given. In some remote countries where there is no modern technologies they still have access to education but they learn what they need to learn, what is important for their survival. if they don't use money why would they need to learn to count it when all their transactions are made in different ways. I agree that teachers need to know more about the new technology available so they keep up with the students and don't look stupid and they are more 'proactive'.

Ubiquitous learning is really useful because we can use mobiles phone to check in online anywhere if we are on holiday and not being able to access a computer.This is what wireless technology allow us to do which is great. It is also brilliant to be able to communicate with people all over the world through webcam and social network. However at my school we had problem of connection when we needed to use the interactive board so now the school had gone back using phone plug for the internet in each room after being let down by the wireless network so many times. we are quite lucky that we could use both ways.

In conclusion i think all the trends are important.



three trends

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 12, 2012 01:36 AM
Hi Evelyne - thanks for being so bold as to identify the three that are important to you!
I'm encouraged that you've prioritised citizenship as being so important, and agree with your reasons. At a conference I've been attending recently a speaker noted how technology provides today's learners with the means to learn, but not the reason. For me this becomes an essential reason for us as teachers to place a high priority on engaging with our students to help them develop their understandings about citizenship.

Do you (or others in the group) have any good examples to share of programmes or even isolated lessons, that you think are successful in working with learners in this way?

Top 3 trends

Posted by Jason Beckford at Apr 12, 2012 03:44 PM
I enjoyed reading about all the trends... my top 3 trends are
1. Citizenship
2. Virtual learning
3. think 3D

As the PSHE coordinator i believe citizenship is important to all students... as teachers we need to help children understand the importance of being a good citizen and show how rules help govern us and the role it plays in life... and not just the classroom.

I am a big fan of virtual learning as it gives teachers the opportunity to engage with children and parents outside of the classroom. For example, at my school each class has there own MLE page(frnoter room). On this page i am able to supply useful links, forums, homework etc. So for example the parents are aware that i put the homework on the site weekly, so they are able to monitor when their child is set homework and when it needs to be returned. Plus the MLE page acts as a link to parents who want to know what their child is doing at school.

3D is the new thing at the moment and i think it is an area that we need to embraced. The children really enjoy watching 3D movies etc and i'm really interested to see how this new techology evolves and how it will be used in the classroom(in the future of course).

Jason

Top Three Trends

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 13, 2012 01:07 AM
Great to hear from you Jason - interesting to see several of these trends appearing repeatedly - particularly citizenship ;-) (which, of course, becomes an important issue in the virtual world etc.)
The critical thing for me here is that the need for the development of digital citizenship is as important for staff as it is for students - we can't teach/model what we haven't experienced or been immersed in. Do you have any thoughts or examples of what can be done to improve the level of digital citizenship among teachers?

Impacts and consequences

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 13, 2012 01:15 AM
Thanks for all the great contributions to the thread on your top 3 trends - as we'd expect, the things we find important will depend on our own particular context, and thus there are some commonalities and differences.

Having explored the trends, let's spend the next part of the hotseat discussion thinking about the 'so what' side of things?

It's all very well being aware of these trends, but what may be the impact on our teaching, and what should we be doing to prepare ourselves and our students for this?

To start the conversation, what would be on your list of actions for teachers/schools to take in response to the opportunity/challenge that these trends represent? (you might find it helpful to focus on a particular trend).

Impacts and consequences

Posted by Beverleigh Bossman at Apr 16, 2012 08:21 AM
I enjoyed reading about all the trends but the one I believe that holds a huge importance is Citizenship. This is something that needs to implemented from an early age and should be a real focus point to child development.
Being an ICT teacher virtual learning plays a huge impact in lessons. It gives the opportunity for learning to take place inside and outside the classroom. Recently the school joined Fronter . This is a whole school approach that class work and Homework should be set on this. Students also have to upload Homework on fronter which allows teachers to see what students are not doing their homework. It also allows students that are absent to catch up with work which is extremely helpful

Impacts and consequences

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 16, 2012 07:43 PM
Hi Beverleigh - seems like citizenship has a high priority for many in the group. The key thing now is to find ways to commit to making it a focal point in our school programmes. While individual teachers may do excellent things to help the development of understandings in this area, true citizenship requires modelling and reinforcement across the whole school system, so that the attitudes, behaviours and dispositions are continually developed and strengthened. Thus - I agree with you that it needs to begin at an early age, and progress from there.

Final Comments

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at Apr 16, 2012 07:49 PM
Hi again everyone
seems like our third and final hotseat in this series is drawing to a close. I want to thank you all for your contributions and thoughtful responses to the challenge of thinking about these trends. It's not always easy to find time in our busy lives to think critically about the future, but it is an important thing to do, or else we'll end up constrained to continually repeat the patterns of the present and of the past, and thus end up not serving our students in the way they deserve or in the way that will best prepare them for their future (not our past!).

The big challenge now is to consider how you are going to act, based on the discussion we've had and your contribution to it.
- what can you change in your teaching to reflect the importance of the things you have identified as key trends?
- what things might you need to do some further reading/ research on?
- what things do you need to change or begin doing in your personal/professional life to reflect the importance of the things you've identified as key trends?
- what could you do in your teaching context to begin conversations that might change things at a whole school level?

Good luck with your deliberations - go and make change and empower your students!
Regards, Derek

Final Comments

Posted by Tarek Zoubir at Apr 17, 2012 12:37 PM
Thank you all for your contributions and I hope you enjoyed the hotseat.

This hotseat is now closed.

Please engage with the next hotseat on the Subject of Inclusive Learning in the Classroom: http://www.mdxpartnership.o[…]g-in-the-classroom-16-04-12

What impact does ICT have on inclusive learning? Just a thought :)
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