Trends, technology, teaching and learning: Reflections and perspectives

Current trends, or future trends that focus on education are wide and varied. Stopping to survey the educational landscape can be daunting.

Trends (or directions)

• How can all students be engaged in the learning process? It's more than merely "entertaining" them, it's more than keeping them "active" in the process. Is engagement something that can be designed?
• What role does or should technology have in engaging students? Can technology be used to reduce the "divide"?
• Given the desire to promote collaboration, is technology a natural vehicle for collaboration?
• With the "flattening" of skills (see Friedman's "The World is Flat"), and the new shift towards a global marketplace, education must change, but how?

Technology (instructional and/or educational)

• What technology promotes individual growth? Can technology provide equal opportunities for all learners?
  
• What technology promotes social growth? Who determines effective social growth? Is it technology itself that promotes the growth, or the integration and use of technology that assists growth?
  
• What technology enhances socialization? Does technology provide for equal growth and opportunity?
  

Teaching - generally, the act of teaching, the art of teaching

• How are the pedagogies of engagement impacted by technology? Can technology engage students better? more effectively?
  
• How are the pedagogies of inquiry impacted by technology? How should technology promote or enhance inquiry?
  
• What are the effective pedagogical uses of technology? If all technology can be used in teaching, are some more "pedagogically sound" than others?
  

Learning - the act or the process

• Shift from traditional learners to "new" learners.
  

How can we refocus on teaching and learning in the new technological age?

(See a SlideShare.net slideshow http://tinyurl.com/ypvhzt )

| View | Upload your own