"The only way to be totally free is through education" - Jose Marti

Our last week in EDU 210 focused on the road ahead: where is education going, and how can we, as teachers, prepare ourselves for life in the increasingly digital classroom?

 

According to an article by Poh et al. (2010) children's brains flatline in the classroom. The brainwave activity while at home studying, in labs, even during sleep sees more spikes than classroom time. How can we engage students more during the long hours they are at school?

 

The NMC Horizon Report (2015) looks at the direction education is heading on a five-year scale. The research team for the Report lists 6 upcoming trends, 6 challenges of implementation, and 6 developments in technology that will shape the way we educate children in the near future:

TRENDS:​

Increasing use of blended learning

Rise of STEAM learning

Increasing use of collaborative leanring approaches

Shift from students as consumers to creators

Rethinking how schools work

Shift to deeper learning approaches

CHALLENGES:

Creating authentic learning opportunities

Integrating technology in teacher education

Personalizing learning

Rethinking the roles of teachers

Scaling teaching innovations

Teaching complex thinking

DEVELOPMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY:

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Makerspaces

3D Printing

Adaptive learning technologies

Digital badges

Wearable tehnology

 

For Module 12, we were asked to look back on our work in previous modules and reflect on our learning. I elected to review my use of my PLN, twitter, and how I have grown (or stagnated) through my resource network. I chose to use the presentation tool Prezi in order to expose myself to a new program that I can use in my future classroom. You can see my Prezi about my twitter journey by way of the embedded presentation, below, or you can view the presentation directly on the Prezi website by clicking here.