STATE OF EDTECH 2019
What’s Edtech’s Next More? That depends on understanding where it’s at right now!
REPORT PREVIEW | by Mark Gura
Summing up and
taking stock of where we’re at, at the end of one year and readying
ourselves to take on the coming one; it’s a ritual, a strategy, a
gathering of energy in preparation for taking new next steps.
After
all, it’s a rapidly changing landscape that we educators now tread and
we understand that those steps need to be well planted and wisely
chosen—and they depend on having observed and interpreted well what’s
now in the rearview mirror.
One
pitfall for today’s watchers and strategists to be wary of is a
condition that might best be described as “20/20 Education Myopia” or,
seeing clearly what’s happening in schools, but only that
less-than-total portion of it that the viewer’s narrow range of vision
easily takes in. It’s a common condition because one can only see what’s
in front of one’s eyes.
But
what if that there’s more out there beyond that slice of the map whose
boundaries are defined by one’s own experiences and orbit?
In the Universe of Education
Apparent
or not, the universe of education is so vast that we all live and work
in a silo of some sort. Teachers whose classrooms feature one to one
access to tablets may be aware of a very different set of practices and
possibilities than those whose engagement of students is centered on a
single interactive whiteboard.
Fueling
instruction with traditional texts supplemented with episodic tech use
may have a very different understanding of edtech than those who’ve
substituted fully interactive cloud-based content series; and those who
have students creating their own content, a far different understanding
of what’s possible and important as well.
Growth,
though, often depends on seeing beyond what one experiences at the
moment, on envisioning other, next-level possibilities.
Needing a Map
The
down side to this is that there are things going on, lessons being
learned, discoveries being made and integrated into the lives of people
with similar needs and goals that we are unaware of and that might be of
great benefit.
Robotics
integrated into math class, Virtual Reality simulations used to bring
the physics of sub atomic particles to life, students creating code for
original games to share with peers; no school is aware of it all and
what it all means, although the very things that might support it best
may be in full implementation in a neighboring town.
Even
those whose job is to explore on the behalf of those fully busy with
students need a map to decide on where to look—and why.
Separate Realities, Connected Ecosystem
Importantly,
those silo-like slices of reality that we inhabit are actually
connected, even if the connections are unseen and unknown; in the
aggregate our separate realities form a vast ecosystem in which things
influence one another.
It
may be debatable whether or not the flapping of the proverbial
butterfly’s wings causes a hurricane in a place far away and at later
time.
However, over the years we have seen simple, but brilliant breakthrough ideas of practice deeply impact the entire field.
A
few that come to mind are the Web Quest, Project Based Learning, the
Flipped Classroom, Universal Design for Learning, the Chrome Book (and
its long line of low cost, one laptop per child progenitors), the
Classroom Blog—these were all small scale efforts with potential that
eventually were broadly adopted.
One
can see them as a list of individual, worthwhile items that may
contribute to making the classroom experience a little better or one can
see them as interrelated, all contributing to an improved instructional
reality that offers the potential for a fully transformed variety of
learning.
Knowing
the pieces, seeing how they relate to one another and fit together, and
above all, see the significance of each and of the whole, that real
understanding of 21st Century Education.
A Meteor-Shower of New Ideas
On
the other hand, it is also true that we are living and teaching and
learning in an absolute meteor shower of new ideas, resources and
practices.
And
so many of them, while traveling at high velocity burn brightly, if
only for a short while, screaming for our attention; bright blips on a
radar screen over full with bright blips.
Developing a filter for what’s important and what history will prove only looked briefly to be important—that’s also crucial.
The
reflections shared above were running in the strongly in the background
as I worked on the 2019 edition of EdTech Digest’s annual State of
EdTech Report.
—
Mark
Gura is a contributing editor for EdTech Digest and author of Getting
Started With LEGO Robotics (ISTE). He is a co-author of State of EdTech 2018: The Minds Behind What’s Now and What’s Next.
He taught at New York City public schools in East Harlem for two
decades. He spent five years as a curriculum developer for the central
office and was eventually tapped to be the New York City Department of
Education’s director of the Office of Instructional Technology,
assisting over 1,700 schools serving 1.1 million students in America’s
largest school system.
