Access and Diversity
Education
Preparing youth for the future
Stream Leaders: Derek Wenmoth and Douglas Harre
OVERVIEW
The use of ICTs in education has been a priority in New Zealand during the last two decades, but progress has been uneven. While the internet has rapidly transformed business, markets, and customers, education has been a little slower to respond. Researchers are only beginning to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the Internet in the classroom. However, even at this early stage, there is emerging evidence that the Internet provides a variety of valuable benefits to education.
In the early stages of adoption, ICTs were regarded in much the same way as text books and other education resources – owned by the school which in turn controlled access and use. But that is changing, with access to ICTs and the internet now being regarded as an integral part of learning for all students, indeed, it has become declared a basic human right by the UN. The national roll-out of broadband, changes to teacher education programmes and moves towards accommodating student-owned devices and student created content in schools and universities all happening in response to this pressure. Then there are the students who are adopting and using the technology at a much greater rate than schools can hope to keep up with. For the first time in history our students are more comfortable with and literate about the adoption of an innovation in society than their teachers.
The sessions in this stream are designed to provoke conversation and ideas about how we can respond to and support these changes at a ‘whole of system’ level.
THURSDAY
Changing nature of education provision
Facilitator: Derek Wenmoth
In the networked age, our education institutions must shift from the existing paradigm of operating in relative isolation (even competition) to being more collaborative and working as a node on the education network. Virtual learning services are expanding internationally, with the development of virtual schools in many countries.
In this session we’ll consider the following:
- How might virtual and blended learning opportunities be an effective way of providing access for those who may not otherwise be able to participate.
- Is education becoming more ‘open’ in terms of the way we think about content used for learning?
- What will be the characteristics of a networked institution, enabled by ultrafast broadband connectivity on things like governance, leadership, programme offerings?
Building a national education network (NEN)
Facilitator: Douglas Harre
The development of a dedicated education network, that harnesses the power of broadband technology to deliver educational content and services is a priority for New Zealand and in most developed countries.
This session will aim to address the following:
- What are the infrastructural needs of such a network and who is responsible for their provision from end-to-end?
- How can we harness our unique expertise to enable a safe, secure, collaborative and creative learning experience for learners, teachers and parents at all levels of our education system?
- What are the policy issues that may need to be addressed, particularly around emerging areas such as cloud computing, shared services, quality assurance and equity of access?
Ref: http://wiki.karen.net.nz/index.php/National_Education_Network_Trial_Extension
(forum)
Teaching the Teachers
Facilitator: Derek Wenmoth
Working in an environment that is increasingly enabled by the use of digital technologies, together with the opportunities afforded by the high speed connectivity of Ultra Fast Broadband presents some significant challenges for teachers, and raises significant concerns about the provision of professional development for teachers. Both the scale of change required and the pace at which is needs to happen mean that traditional approaches may no longer be appropriate. Any approach adopted must cater to the needs of the entire teaching profession, and it has to be a continuing process – and the impact must be effective immediately.
In this session we’ll consider the following:
- What contributions can ICT make to the changing roles of pupils and teachers in schools?
- What new kinds of skills do teachers need for working effectively with these new tools and environments?
- Which conditions must be in place if staff development is to be successful for making and impact on practice?
- In what ways can the change required be accelerated?
- Which school conditions are important if the effective use of ICTs is to succeed?
The ‘data’ explosion
Facilitator: Douglas Harre
We are witnessing an unprecedented ‘explosion’ of data in the world – including education – with information accumulating in electronic databases everywhere. This poses challenges about its usefulness and about how we may store, manage and derive meaning from it.
In this session we’ll consider the following:
- Educational institutions, like businesses, are facing huge challenges in terms of data storage and management, including issues such as data backup and disaster recovery etc. What solutions should we be considering?
- Visual data analysis blends highly advanced computational methods with sophisticated graphics engines to tap the extraordinary ability of humans to see patterns and structure in even the most complex visual presentations. What are the implications for education institutions?
- Open data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data be freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. Many countries around the world are now making all of their government data openly available for people to download and manipulate to derive meaning, discover new patterns etc. What can education institutions learn form this?
Ubiquity in Learning
Facilitator: Derek Wenmoth
Among users of all ages there is a clear shift towards computing ‘anywhere, anytime with any device’ – where access is not confined to a particular time and place, and not dependent on using a particular device. There are three key enablers of this:
In this session we’ll consider the following:
- Learners are increasingly expecting access via wireless networks in schools and learning settings. What are the implications for our education settings regarding the provision of wireless networks?
- What provision should we be making for the range of devices now available, most of which are student owned — smart phones, netbooks, laptops, and a wide range of other devices access the Internet.
- Cloud computing in all its forms offers wide-ranging benefits for education in the form of software and hardware management, data-driven research, and flexibility of resources. How should we be planning to accommodate this?
Education Stream Sponsor
