As a mother of two K-12 grade kids, I know what role the current technology is playing in their lives when it comes to learning. This report provides a lot of data points to support implementation and use if digital tools and resources in classrooms. As the world has evolved and technology advanced in last few years, it does make sense to revisit the legacy teaching and learning environments and identify how the digital tools, resources and contents can be implemented to transform the learning environment to address the current challenges of new curriculum standards and preparing students well for succeeding in 21st century.
There is huge variety of available devices that has enabled anytime and anywhere learning, and report helps to know which ones are mostly liked by students, which ones they mostly use for which purpose and in what capacities. The report also helps to understand the students’ use of technology at home and in schools, in teacher-facilitated and self-directed learning environments. The report very well summarizes the key takeaways for blended and online learning environments that education administrator could use to implement digital resources and policies around them.
As we know the emphasis on STEM education and importance of science, technology, engineering, and math in preparing students for 21st century, the section around STEM learning environment covers a lot of details that schools administrators can use. It also talks about gender disparity in STEM career interest and provides valuable input into the learning lives of students immersed in STEM education on a day-to-day basis.
As there are challenges and concerns with any change, many school administrators have experienced challenges with implementation of technology and online learning environments, and this report helps them identify what might work the best in a particular school or district. For me, I learned a lot from this report that will help me introduce or pick the appropriate digital tool or resource for future classrooms and foster a great learning environment for students. For potential educators, like myself, the report helps to understand what kind of digital learning environments and digital learning approaches would yield into positive achievement results. As I know, and now confirmed by this report data, I would be sure to implement flipped class rooms, so that they can watch video and learn according to their own pace. Furthermore, I will give students more online tests and provide more collaborative opportunities via digital media. Additionally, implement mobile, blended, virtual, or STEM education in my future classrooms.
Though the report provides a lot of data points which could be valuable input to creating positive learning environments, I didn’t find data points around potential issues or concerns from implementation of digital tools. E.g. are students focused on learning when they are in the self-learning digital learning environment, what factors may cause harm or distractions in digital learning environments, do the entertainment apps cause distractions? Etc. Overall, the report provides a lot of information that supports a new kind of educational ecosystem and confirms that learning as a 24/7 process now and what we need to do to enable and empower the student-centric digital learning experiences for all students.
madematheasy2015 