Week 7: Emerging Technologies
Education is ever-changing. It constantly moves, changes, and emerges. I was surprised that education was not on the Wikipedia page. I did see how this could help students choose career paths or degrees for the future. By seeing what is up and coming, the students can choose a pathway that will have jobs in the future. With the emerging technology, it's important to know how to best support students.
Prior to COVID-19, it was suggested that the Online Education Market would reach $350 billion globally by 2025. The onset of COVID-19 likely increased global earnings. According to Wing, we moved towards more streamable lessons, personalized learning, access to different resources, new ways of communication, and creative methods for delivering the lessons. Even though there was an increase to ensure our students learned, there were still issues with getting teachers trained and getting teachers comfortable with online teaching. Based on my anecdotal observations, which are also supported by Winter et al., older teachers had a more difficult time getting on board with technology; newer teachers were more adaptable because they use technology more frequently.
Even though students had to learn from home, one issue was the lack of technology and possible lack of parent support. Winter describes the difficulty with disadvantaged backgrounds of students. Gaby and I have also discussed this throughout the course. Another issue is the impact of parent support. When parents were shut down from work, they needed to stay at home with their children. However, this is not always feasible. One aspect of Meeker's presentation was the concept of providing on-demand work for parents so they could work around their child's school schedule. I posted on Twitter this article that shows the benefits of having child care for teachers. If we could have access to childcare on campus, teachers would be able to go to work and not have to take days off when child care falls through. High school students could earn credit while working in the child care centers as seen in this Edutopia article.
Carli, first, I want to say congratulations on the birth of your baby! I am so happy for you and your family!
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised not to find education on the Wikipedia page. However, some of the technologies listed in other industries do impact education. You make a good point that seeing the emerging technologies can help prepare students for future job pathways.
You raised such an important point about the difficulty with disadvantaged children trying to learn from home. This report by Human Rights Watch (2021) provides a crucial perspective on how educational progress for children around the world ended in 2020. It estimates that 90% of the world’s school-age children have had their education disrupted by the pandemic. The report highlighted that children who had their education disrupted and could not learn at the same pace as their peers need to catch up on what they missed. Online learning requires connectivity technologies to deliver education, and not all children or countries have those resources.
I tend to focus on higher ed, and I appreciate your K-12 perspective.
Megan
Human Rights Watch (2021, May 17). “Years don’t wait for them.” Increased inequalities in children's right to education due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/05/17/years-dont-wait-them/increased-inequalities-childrens-right-education-due-covid
Hi Megan,
DeleteThanks for your comments! I appreciate them. I also dabble in Higher Ed so I like to see your perspective too. It helps me with my side gig!
Last week, I had one-on-one check-ins with my college students. Prior to lockdown in Spring 2020, my class was hybrid. We would meet one week in person and one week online. During the lockdown, we had to switch to fully online. I thought it was important to check on them for their mental health. Since then, I started twice a semester one-on-one check-ins with me so I could just see how things were going. During this short experience, I could see the difficulty some of my college students had with connectivity and internet. If they were were having issues, then I know my middle schoolers were also struggling with it too!
Carli, when I am teaching asynch online I like to do one on one check ins as well. I do once a semester. I am impressed that you can fit two in! I find them time consuming but so incredibly valuable and worth the time! You must be busy--full time job, new baby and side hustle! I am sure excelling at all!
DeleteCarli,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post. You had mentioned that education was not on the Wikipedia page, but it have been there in disguise. Ferri et al. (2020) suggested that the use of technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, if improved for the future and made accessible, could improve student involvement, engagement, interaction, and inclusivity over time.
Ferri et al. (2020) also suggested that intelligent technology, such as artificial intelligence could play a role in pedagogical methodologies used by teachers.
If that's the case, then education was considered on the Wikipedia page but maybe not clearly. What do you think about Ferri et al.'s (2020) thoughts on how these emerging technologies could play a role in terms of what you offered in your blog post?
Thanks Carli,
Vivian
References
Ferri, F., Grifoni, P., & Guzzo, T. (2020). Online Learning and Emergency Remote Teaching: Opportunities and Challenges in Emergency Situations. Societies, 10(4), 86. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc10040086
Interesting post, Carli. The pandemic certainly brought to the surface issues of students working from home with parents also working from home ... and a perhaps unrealistic expectation that parents would be there to support the students.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the Ferri et al. study that Vivian noted above. It struck me that it resembled many qualitative dissertations! The results were based on a purposeful sample of 15 experts who were interviewed, and then their results applied to a case study. While I could agree with some of the challenges noted, one should not (in my opinion) read too much in to one study.
I do like the idea of partnerships between schools, students, and day care providers. If education is evolving ... perhaps day care needs to as well!
Carli, Many congratulations on your new baby! I found your comment about online teacher useful to many industries. I am part of an aerospace company where we used to have in-person classes and have moved to a virtual forum. Many of us are instructors but are not steeped in education so we didn't know what to do better, different in the online environment. So, I used articles such as this one from UNICEF outlining how teachers can be more engaging for the student (https://www.unicef.org/vietnam/stories/tips-ensure-effective-online-learning-during-covid-19). It described 10-15 minute modules a maximum time for instruction then turn to interactive methods. We are trying to do that at work with online polls and using questions answered in chat by all the participants. This along with the interactive breakout rooms where we go around the room asking each person for input seems to work well. Even though, I find I am really done with zoom/teams after about 2 hours max. I feel for the children in virtual school!
ReplyDeleteHi!
DeleteThanks for your post. I felt there was a steep learning curve to teaching online. Since I'm on leave but still at the college, I switched to asynchronous classes. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, even though I've been teaching hybrid course since 2017 and I've been fully online since March 2020. I always continued with synchronous classes, which I think is easier.
I like the idea of 10 - 15 minutes before doing something interactive. Battacharya (https://hubskills.com/online-course-video-to-be-6-12-minutes/) suggests a video lesson shoudl be 6 - 12 minutes to capture the attention of students. I realized that if I record my lessons, they are no more than 15 minutes; however, in class, they take up to an hour! I know that's because of the pauses I include in the lessons and breaks/your turns/etc. Knowing that videos should be shorter, it makes me think... were my lessons too long? Are block classes not as impactful as shorter 45 minute classes? That's something to explore for another day, but something to think about.
Hi Carli,
ReplyDeleteI hope you and the baby are doing well! The article you referenced from Verywellfamily shows that 14 percent of teachers leave their jobs due to pregnancy and family issues! This is a significant percentage. Providing child care onsite would be very helpful for working parents.The pandemic seems to have exacerbated the problem for women in all fields as women have left the workforce in far greater numbers than men (Gogoi, 2020). Mothers and fathers, but often mothers had to stay home when students were learning from home. Now that many schools are back in-person, what do teachers who are parents do if their child gets COVID or gets exposed to COVID? There are only so many sick days they are entitled to.
Gogoi, P. (2020, October 28). Stuck-At-Home Moms: The Pandemic's Devastating Toll On Women. npr. https://www.npr.org/2020/10/28/928253674/stuck-at-home-moms-the-pandemics-devastating-toll-on-women
Hi Gaby!
DeleteFor teachers, we would have to use our own personal/sick leave, unless the teacher is also exposed to COVID. Then, we have a COVID leave. So, not only would the teacher need to provide lesson plans, but they would also need to use their own leave time. This happened to my friend this year where her daughter was exposed at day care. Luckily, our principal tries to work with us and will allow us to work from home, if possible. Unfortunately, if you exhaust all your days, then you have to use Leave Without Pay.
Since there is no maternity leave in Hawaii (I'm currently using my sick days), I knew I would have to leave days available in case my daughter got sick or needed a check up, etc. It's a weird system, in my opinion.