EdTech Impacters

"Things are moving fast, but they'll never move so slowly again!" I'm inclined to agree with Marianne Checkley, the newly appointed CEO of Camara Ireland. Joining three other female edtech impacters at Learning Tech Labs, Marianne informed us that the top five strategic technologies impacting education have shifted dramatically in recent years.

2016: Digital Assessment, Adaptive Learning, Exostructure, Enterprise Data Management, Social Learning.

2017: Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Digital Assessment, Adaptive Learning, Digital Ecosystems.

Why have these changes taken place? Well, Marianne highlights the claims of researchers that educational institutions are looking increasingly to technology and innovations from outside of the education sector to meet the educational, social, and economic demands of a diverse learner profile. Although this shift impacts educators, it is not without its challenges for learners too.

Amidst all of this accelerating change, how would you feel if you struggled to read the instructions on a bottle of aspirin? Caitriona Whelan, TEL Officer for NALA, stunned us with the results of the initial OECD International Adult Literacy Survey. This survey tested the knowledge and skill of respondents in recognizing basic vocabulary, evaluating the meaning of sentences and reading paragraph text.

In all the exhilaration of change, we can forget to target the basics. Elon Musk just sent his car to space (to be fair, I've watched every video I could find of the launch!), but the results concluded that 25% of Irish adults were at or below Level 1 in literacy skills. That's half a million people!

32,000. That's how many certifications have been provided by NALA in the process of tackling this literacy challenge in Ireland. With the digital changes in daily life as well as in education, literacy now not only encompasses reading and writing, it also includes technical and digital skills. Confidence is empowering! Take Caitriona's lead and teach your granny how to use technology, but be warned, you can expect to receive some suspect memes!

As an educator and lifelong learner, it is my opinion that, while certifications are one indicator of success, they should not be viewed in isolation. In fact, they can often be misleading. Progression, to further education or employment, should be a joint measure of success. Marianne supports the argument that success should not only be determined by certification, but also by progression to further education or employment.

Such progression requires a modern approach to teaching and learning. iScoil aims to provide an alternative path to learning, accreditation, and progression for young people. They do this by creating adaptive content through a bank of data in a self-perpetuating model. Macro analysis is an important factor in the overall development of the learning design and the model as a whole. Data integration is the second stage. The desired result is the progression to employment or returning to school. This return to education is particularly pertinent to the 13 to 16-year-old age students that iScoil work with.

Why is it pertinent? Caitriona highlighted a study that suggests that half of our prisoners are people who have dropped out of school before Junior Cert. Echoing Caitriona, Marianne noted that 50% of people in Irish prisons left school before age 15. A quarter has never attended secondary school. Marianne stated that early school leavers are 4 times more likely to be unemployed. They are six times more likely to live in poverty. This stacked disadvantage reduces the chances they have to learn and escape this cycle.

The educational success mentioned above is affected by a spectrum of variables. Pedagogical well-being (Pyhältö, Soini & Pietarinen, 2010) is increasing the recognition of the need to combine emotional, health and education contexts to contribute to education reform. Well-being is a key factor and should be taken seriously when initially analyzing students in learning environments. Derek O'Kelly and his Winning Minds movement are leading the charge in this area with a person-centered approach.

Talking about person-centredness, Angelisa Zepra, the leader of the Migrant Access Programme at New Communities Partnership, represents over 100 migrant groups in Ireland. Her entire focus is on how the people in these groups face many barriers to education as asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees. Angelisa encouraged those of us who have edtech ideas or startups to visit the direct provision centers. We can support the improvement of pedagogical well-being. She claims that people are eager to learn while they sit and wait! Angelisa also urged us to continue the development of courses and training that meet the specific needs of migrants and refugees.

One woman being proactive in making changes is Ciara McGuane, the founder of Rathú and holder of County Winner of Best Business Idea 2018 - Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur. Ciara, an advocate of Twitter chat #edchatie, stated that we should aim to bring out the best in teachers and young people. She aims to do this by providing high-quality professional development, effective support and making a positive impact on. Whilst Ciara accepted that there is some debate around the learning pyramid, her case study shows that the implemented methodology of the pyramid had a positive impact on student achievement.

On a night of figures, Ciara gave us one final one to ponder. 54 million. That's how many teachers we have globally. 65 million. That's the deficit of teachers globally. Can you be part of the solution? Join us in our efforts in enabling kids or eager adults to continuously improve.

“When the heart speaks the mind finds it indecent to object” - Milan Kundera

All of these figures point to some key points to take from our event. One size doesn’t fit all - students are humans, not numbers! We have the responsibility. Make the changes.

See you all at our Neuroscience and Design in Education in Udemy on 14th March!