Recently, I took the opportunity this week to reconnect with Frances Valintine, founder of the Mindlab in Christchurch. I was keen to hear how her view of technology and innovation had changed since my last encounter with her two years ago. I was not disappointed and her words rang true and reinforced how we need to be rethinking what is possible.
Frances reiterated that technology should be used as a tool and not purely for consumption. It is a tool that allows for the creation of content and in developing the creativity. In schools, we need to be mindful that apps are great tools that allow our students to create content, but apps do not necessarily teach children to learn the skills that are required for the future.
In the past, looking to the future we had a linear view compared with what we now face which is an exponential future that is unpredictable. We are all challenged by this and we need to move to face the fast-changing world ahead of us. We often talk about “the future” as if its ahead of us but it’s here, right now!
We live in a Global world so we need to think globally, even though New Zealand is a small country and we only contribute a slither to the world’s economy. We can examine our economy at a micro level within our communities and in NZ, and at a macro level which looks at what’s happening in the world. Why is technology important to New Zealanders? It ranks the third highest in returns of our GDP behind our primary industries and tourism.
Take a look around, technology underpins all jobs today, tomorrow and in our future.
Frances reiterated that technology should be used as a tool and not purely for consumption. It is a tool that allows for the creation of content and in developing the creativity. In schools, we need to be mindful that apps are great tools that allow our students to create content, but apps do not necessarily teach children to learn the skills that are required for the future.
In the past, looking to the future we had a linear view compared with what we now face which is an exponential future that is unpredictable. We are all challenged by this and we need to move to face the fast-changing world ahead of us. We often talk about “the future” as if its ahead of us but it’s here, right now!
We live in a Global world so we need to think globally, even though New Zealand is a small country and we only contribute a slither to the world’s economy. We can examine our economy at a micro level within our communities and in NZ, and at a macro level which looks at what’s happening in the world. Why is technology important to New Zealanders? It ranks the third highest in returns of our GDP behind our primary industries and tourism.
Take a look around, technology underpins all jobs today, tomorrow and in our future.
We live in a data-rich world. Technology is augmented in almost every job and yes, there are jobs that are more efficiently being completed by robots. These jobs may be disappearing from the list of what our students might be applying for but there is also a new list of jobs titles that are being introduced to the job market. These new jobs may look like nothing we have ever envisaged in the past but the transference of skills to these new jobs will be essential for future job seekers. Are we as teachers upskilling our students to have the skill set that enables our girls to transfer their skills into these newly created jobs?
Imagine if you had no access to technology?
How would you check the weather? See the news?
Is NZ training people with the right skills as technology is underpinning every workspace? Is New Zealand lagging behind the rest of the world and has the change hit us yet?
The internet has meant that information is available to all globally and unfortunately, New Zealand has had a decline in productivity compared to other nations. Agritech in Israel is booming yet NZ has been slow to react. Think about it . . . Israel doesn’t have fertile land, yet they are ahead of NZ in adopting and developing in the agritech sector.
Our children under the age of 13 years are wired differently. They don’t know about the analogue world that existed when I was a child. Some will have never been into a bank, they may not even understand the function of a bank!
If the phone was ringing, wouldn’t you think that they would answer it? Not so . . . because how would they know who was calling?
These children, when put in a room to complete a task, will want to talk, to consult with each other, to problem solve, and they work quickly in short bit size chunks. They will often want to know why they have to complete a task in a specific way.
In the digital world there are many ways to get to the end outcome - as teachers should we continue to manipulate the learning journey to the achieve the end result or are we better to guide the learning depending on how which way the child takes?
How do our students communicate beyond the school gates? It’s not by the use of emails! Yet this modality of communication continues to be the primary platform for teachers and schools. There are a multitude of platforms that our younger population are using - Trello, Slack, Instagram, Snapchat, Facetime, Hubspot, Sharepoint etc., This begs the question then, why do we limit what we use for learning in schools?
Have you asked a primary school student about an iPod? They may correct you and think you mean iPad. iPods are old technology! What about cashless banks? This almost seems an oxymoron. Generation Z is the 19-year-old age group. They have an appreciation and can relate to the world I grew up in during the end of the 20th century. Frances described this group as having “a small rear vision mirror to look back through and a huge forward facing screen.”
Technology has positive benefits but it also can have negative benefits. The “Fortnite” online game is having a massive negative effect on children and young adults. There is now a leaderboard offering thousands of dollars as daily rewards. Credit Cards are being used to fund online rewards at $20/day or more. Children and young adults are sleep deprived.
Explaining to children why screen time should be limited is crucial. When online, you cannot unsee things you accidentally see on the internet. Taking precautions and setting up rules in our homes such as turning off the internet after a specific time, is to help children manage their device and to promote good sleep patterns.
Have you ever had a conversation with an artificial intelligent machine? Soul machine artificial intelligence technology (ai) is here.
Most children under 13 years are happy to engage with a human looking ai. New Zealand developed technology in this field has been developed to be emotive and to relate to humans. This augmentation of the robot into a human form has allowed for the learner to learn faster and to continue to learn beyond foundation knowledge and skills.
Are they substitute teachers? Possibly, but imagine going beyond the basics and learning more talking with a machine when the human teacher is unavailable?
So what? What is your “and/&”?
Frances challenges us to clarify what your “AND/&” might be.
Whatever we have learnt in the past is of value to us but
we now need to take all of this AND AUGMENT!
We need to be sharing resources rather than build spaces. ‘Social bump’ spaces are wifi places that anyone can congregate to work and learn. These are shared spaces that don’t have a specifically designated purpose. School is but a fraction of a young person’s learning. NCEA has now recognised this through micro-credentialing. What we learnt in the past may no longer be relevant so reinventing and being flexible and adaptive is what we need to empower in our girls. We live in a world where knowledge and information are readily available to us. We “Google” and “YouTube” if we need to find out how to do something.
A personal story Frances shared was about her own son who had a dream to fulfil a job that doesn’t currently exist. He sought chunks of knowledge to create his own credentials to be an expert in the internet of things in residential homes. This meant that he embarked on short courses to gain knowledge in architecture, building, and electrical engineering.
Learning a bit of information just in time for a specific purpose is what we face daily. The need for retaining information no longer elevates you over others. The ability to use the information and rethink what is possible is what is now considered more valuable.
Can we do better to prepare our girls for tomorrow?
Factfulness Hans Rosling - looks at the state of the world
Mindlabkids.com. Online learning activities for kids for at home and school