Technology is a key driver in the development of society with a widespread uptake of advanced technologies across sectors and industries. Together with an accelerating pace of new technological developments, the need for technology-related skills – and especially digital skills – is growing quickly and turning education into a catch-up game to meet the needs of people and society.
There are at least two sides to the use of technology in education. Firstly, different areas of technology and their application as a part of teaching are growing, and the accelerating need for people with the necessary technological knowledge and skills have already created a significant skills gab across the workforce. Thus, in transforming education for a technology-driven society, we must address the need for tech related and digital skills. This is true both for advanced and highly-specialized skills and for more user-oriented skills. Secondly, the digital technologies have now reached a level where they have the capability to enhance and transform the processes of education and bring new didactic possibilities and ways of organising learning. Thus, the second key issue is how these technologies can enhance the learning experience and process, as part of our everyday life, which is already dominated by IT.
One might also argue, that a technology-driven society rests on our innovative capabilities in the sense that next generation technology and its application depends on 21. century C skills – Creativity, Communication, Collaboration. While clever use of AI to individualize training seems to be effective in terms of increasing the uptake of traditional skills, it might indeed be counterproductive to acquiring these C skills. Thus, this kind of learning program creates a very tightly controlled learnings experiences, that doesn’t invite the student to develop those C skills.[1] Thus, transforming education for a tech driven society should not only use technology in education, but should specifically fostering the development of C skills – not only for technological innovation, of course, but in order to meet the need for innovation capabilities in general across sectors of society.
Where do we come from?
Technology has been a part of education right from the prehistoric paintings to the technologies of writing, audio recording and film. What sets developments in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) apart in our time is that it’s now driven by digital systems that are interactive. Even so, research shows that the uptake of these new technologies has been slow in all levels of education. One of the reasons seems to be, that we are still struggling to incorporate the emerging new learning technologies in a way that actually enhances learning outcomes and contributes to efficient and effective education.
The first learning machines appeared in the 1930’s together with the idea of an industrial revolution in education, so the idea is by no means new. B. F. Skinner explored teaching machines again during the 50’s based on so called “programmed learning”, designed to assist correct learning, and already at that time he established some of the elements and themes of TEL. This included learning through technology, design of learning materials, individualized learning and the notion that technology would enhance rather than replace teaching by humans. The 60’s saw simple computer-assisted instruction systems that worked to some extent, but also clarified, that a deeper understanding of learning was needed. From the 70’s on research in artificial intelligence and education has worked on creating computer representations of conceptual knowledge with the dual aim of modelling human learning and developing computer based tutoring systems.[2]
Understanding learning
Throughout the same period, we have seen a growing and deeper understanding of learning, developing from a limited behaviouristic and positivist view of knowledge and instruction, and with a focus on stimuli and cognition, towards an understanding of the individual as a constructive agent of learning, recognizing the social and intersubjective nature of learning, and realizing the role of culture, spaces and technology in learning. Our understanding of human cognition, knowledge and learning has developed into a far more sophisticated concept, together with the emergence of new technologies. Rather than simply absorbing information, people are seen as active constructors of knowledge, co-created together through interaction and collaboration.
Practical relevance
With these developments, the field of TEL has matured into a substantial field of practical relevance with a sound theoretical foundation, and even though we might be a bit slow or reluctant and perhaps with good reason, there is an urgent need for turning possibilities into more widespread uptake.
Firstly we need to bridge the digital skills gab holding back people, businesses and the development of our society. This includes more general competences as laid out in “The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens” drawn up by the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission[3]. However, there are also important technologies more specific to industries and crafts that need to be dealt with. But before we get to that, someone has to teach these skills, thus supporting educators, promoting teaching as a profession and securing the professional development in the trainer program as a crucial part of the task. These aspects of technology are hardly a question of transforming education, but more a matter of incorporating digital skills and knowledge about new technologies in our educations.
The second aspect of technology in education is about exploring and utilizing the same technologies in order to enhance education. This includes a number of areas, such as adaptive learning, e-learning, learning through simulations, etc., that might have several potential benefits such as:
- Efficiency – existing processes might be carried out in a more cost-effective, time-effective or scalable manner.
- Enhancement – improving existing processes and outcomes.
- Transformation – positive change in existing processes or the introduction of new processes.
- The fostering of social inclusion and equality through the use of technology to democratise learning activities.
Technology as a facilitator of
lifelong learning and employability
With robots and algorithms already a reality and industry 4.0 a matter of implementation rather than a thing of the future, employees and employers now face the enormous task of figuring out how to cope with the transformations of jobs and livelihoods.
It is important to acknowledge that formal learning is not going to be enough, and neither will episodic “retraining” and “reskilling”. We, as employers, employees, educational institutions, unions and public-sector actors need to collaborate across sectors to create learning opportunities and to help people integrate learning opportunities in their daily lives. We need to make it possible for people to remain employable, relevant and capable, as society develops and transforms our jobs, business models and society itself, with a speed that has turned it into a high-risk society for many people.
The question is therefore, on a practical level, how interactive technologies can be used to enhance and support education and training, as well as non-formal and informal learning throughout life, in order to help people, improve and acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and competences to stay relevant, and at the same time fostering their personal development and robustness and promoting their participation in society.
Can we use Augmented Reality to integrate leaning in the working environment or use ICT to offer learning on demand without signing up to a course, and can we use Artificial Intelligence to make individualised learning experiences? Perhaps these technologies can make knowledge easier acquirable for people who struggle with the old learning and disseminations technologies such as texts and abstract lectures, separated from daily practices. Another interesting way to lower the barriers to learning, and create new opportunities for learning, might be game-based learning, allowing educators to create completely new spaces for learning. Again, the aim is not to replace existing teaching and learning, but rather to enhance the experience.
Exploring digital technologies in education might also lead to new ways of continued educations by universities, getting it much more intertwined with the daily work of managers, engineers, programmers, doctors, etc.? However, answering some of these questions and finding practical solutions to them presupposes that we take a realistic approach and stay clear of Inflated Expectations of hyped technologies. Perhaps the implementation of these new technologies in education has been slow for a reason.
[1]Duval, Erik 2013, https://lnkd.in/gK_nURp
[2]Pressey, 1933, cf. Duval, Erik, Mike Sharples and Rosamund Sutherland, Research Themes in Technology Enhanced Learning, in Duval, Erik, Mike Sharples and Rosamund Sutherland (Editors), Technology Enhanced Learning, Research Themes. Cham, Springer International Publishing, 2017, p.2.
[3]https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1315&langId=en
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