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How does one even begin to speculate what the future of EdTech will look like in 10 years, 5 years, or even next year? In my own 17-year experience working in Education I’m often dizzy with the pace of change occurring in my industry. Martin Weller echoed this in the final chapter of his book 25 Years of Ed Tech, describing how “education — perceived as slow, resistant to change, and old-fashioned — is seen as ripe for disruption, and ed tech is the means through which such change is realized.” (Weller, 2020, p. 170). Weller further described this disruption in his accompanying blog, identifying the Online Pivot in 2020, the rise of Microsoft Teams in 2021, AI-generated content in 2022, and the implosion of Twitter in 2023 (Weller, 2023) as providing further evidence of this disruption. The Educause 2021 report we reviewed this week further highlighted the importance transformation will play in the coming years of Ed Tech, predicting a greater focus on life-long learning, flexible learning, and fitting self-directed learning into small pockets of time in our busy lives (2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition, 2021). Not that we haven’t been encouraging this for years upon years in education, but the pace of change which was only heightened by a global pandemic and the Online Pivot has quickened this pace.
I remember a teacher once telling me that when you put yourself in uncomfortable positions, when you embrace new ideas or strategies, that is where true growth becomes. What about the changes in the Ed Tech landscape make you feel uncomfortable, and do you think you can lean into that discomfort in order to grow?
References
2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition. (2021, April 26). https://library.educause.edu/resources/2021/4/2021-educause-horizon-report-teaching-and-learning-edition
Weller, M. (2023). 25 Years of Ed Tech Blog. The Ed Techie. https://blog.edtechie.net/category/25yearsedtech/
Weller, M. (2020, February). 25 Years of Ed Tech. AU Press—Digital Publications. https://read.aupress.ca/projects/25-years-of-ed-tech
Well written Andrea. I’m inclined to agree that growth really only happens outside our comfort zone when faced with emotions like fear, uncertainty , or doubt and then overcoming them. However after since this class began, I’m not so confident about Weller’s assertion that EdTech will be the catalyst of change in education.. it seems like the whole EdTech industry is just out for a big payday and I wonder if it will be more of a societal shift that forces education to change where technology can allow for these changes to occur. In your experience, do you find that the catalyst of change has been innovative technology or simply a more effective way of doing the same thing?
Hi there Matt, sorry for the late reply but thank you! I think you have a very good observation that EdTech companies will often promise the world, that their technology itself is the answer to everyone’s learning problem, but it’s in fact the educators using the technology in innovative ways who are at the forefront of change. In the context of workplace learning, one statitistic I’m seeing frequently is the “half-life” of workplace skills is now an astonishing short 5 years, and technical skills being even shorter at 2 1/2 years (Malik, 2020). That’s a lot of re-training which needs to happen, unless we can equip younger and older students alike to be more resilient to this change and adapt to new technology quickly. Perhaps introducing them to a variety of educational tools is part of the solution? As I’m going to explore more in my paper, I’m not convinced that the forefront of change in education will be the tools themselves but rather the building of digital literacy skills and media literacy which have the possibility of revolutionizing education.
References
Malik, S. (2020, December 7). Skills Transformation For The 2021 Workplace. IBM Learning Blog. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/ibm-training/skills-transformation-2021-workplace/