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I believe that education worldwide is still in a transition period moving from text book to computers.....but how long will this transition take?
I always find it ironic that many of our classrooms today still require our students to sit in rows, focus to the front, and sit still. As soon as students leave the classroom they are immersed back into a multi-sensory world.
While many students sit down in the evening to do their homework…..it may consist of a combination of text messaging, doing research online while typing their paper either on their computer or in an online collaboration document, playing a multi-user online game and listening to music through a portable device or from their computer.
How is training/updating IT skills going to be addressed for new and existing teachers?
Teachers are overwhelmed with the demands of curriculum, pastoral care, supervision during lunch, evening events, etc.... Now we expect teachers to be technologists as well. Where are they going to get the understanding, skills and stories required to lead a net generation to a competent level of IT literacy?
Google talks about 'cloud computing' which is the "ability to access and work on files any time, anywhere, in the diffuse atmosphere of cyberspace." (Times Online) If you asked a teacher today what cloud computing was...how many would know? Educators need to be supported with these stories and knowledge so they can help students understand the "whys" of technology.
Statistics shows that there will not be enough IT workers available for the market - then I say it is time many IT companies (large and small) look around, find your nearest public school, walk through those doors and offer to help those teachers to connect and build the bridges and stories needed to educate the Net Generation. Many companies have made a huge commitment to education such as Adobe, Apple and Microsoft. But we need the local IT companies to help build a network of support for their neighbourhood schools.
Many teachers are struggling and trying to learn the technology along side the students as they do not have the time or support to do anything else. There needs to be a general level of IT literacy for all teachers and then IT specialists that are able to take students to a higher pathway.
School administration needs to understand the importance of ICT and not to use it as a "time table filler" for any teacher. ICT is not a "hobby program" and is a curriculum that needs to be taken seriously. In fact, there are many countries that are doing just that. They are spending millions of dollars to train and support their teachers and teacher specialists.
A life cycle for some new IT companies/ideas - birth to death - is presently around 18 months. What are we doing to ensure our students have the skills to evolve and reshape concepts....look for doors that are open when many close?
At the end of the day, those countries that are willing to take the time NOW to invest in their teachers in the K-13 sectors, are those countries that are going to be ready to be an IT powerhouse in several years.
There has been a lot in the news and research lately that questions how the education system is going to prepare students for the 21st century.
My question is how are we going to prepare existing and new teachers for the 21st century?
In universities across the world the number of students entering Education to become a teacher is going down. The number of teachers that are graduating as IT specialists is even less...sometimes in the single digits.
With the digital demands that exist now for our students and what is to come in the future....it greatly worries me that many graduating teachers have very, very basic digital literacy skills and understanding...sometimes at a primary student level.
A report just released by Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (reported from Docuticker) called: Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans, discusses 6 findings that came out of this research by Jonathan Rochkind, Amber Ott, John Immerwahr, John Doble and Jean Johnson. Download report [pdf]
The 6 findings were:
