From about 2002-2014 I was regularly on the rubber chicken dinner circuit speaking about technology. From blogs, and wikis, to personal devices in classrooms, to the use of social media in schools – technology discussions were front and centre everywhere. You couldn’t go to an education conference without someone talking about innovation and technology – like they were one thing. All eyes were on how the emerging web tools were forever changing teaching and learning.
And like with most trends in education, our hyper attention moved on. Look today and you can’t find a conference that is not about equity and diversity. This is not a criticism of this previous time or today. Our schools and our system both lead and reflect our world around us, and topics of social justice are front and centre right now in our world.
Now part of the reason for this shift in attention is that technology was no longer seen as something separate from learning. Just looking at the last two years, we see how Zoom, Google Workspace, Teams and a suite of digital tools have become common for everyone. It was a novelty three years ago for students to have a video conversation with other students, and now it is just another day.
There is a bit of a sense that we have now embraced technology in schools so we are “done”. This is a huge misread on the world around us.
To think because technology is no longer at the front of as many discussions as it was earlier this century that somehow technology has stopped changing, morphing and evolving would be a major mistake. The speed of the digital changes in our world around us are, if anything, accelerating.
I wrote recently about NFTs and crypto currencies and their potential impact on our schools. And this is just a small example of how the digital landscape around us will likely have a major impact on not just the “what” of school, but also the “when”, “where” and “how” of school. It is hard to imagine the increasing use of wearable technologies, the coming normalcy of driverless cars, higher quality virtual reality experiences, and a boom in 3D printing around us will not impact how we operate schools and structure learning for students. My West Vancouver colleague Sean Nosek gave a primer of what this might be in his recent post on school in the metaverse.
We have a habit to get narrowly focused in education, and lose the interconnections. We need to think about the important equity and diversity work, the still foundational skills of literacy and numeracy, the ever changing digital landscape and many other big rocks in education as one conversation and not siloed discussions that can only be focused on one at a time.
For the person that told me “educational technology is so 2010”, I think you are missing the plot. I appreciate the challenge, in a world when we just wish some things would stay the same for a bit and we could catch up, technology is not a willing partner.
We might not be debating if Facebook has a role in our schools, or if iPads are appropriate for primary aged students, but the amazing shifts in the tools that will impact our lives and our work continue.
Our schools have always reflected the world around them and as educators we have helped make sense of that world for students. No matter what we wish, we will continue to help bring our teacher values to the ever changing digital landscape.
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