Presenting an introduction to Ed Tech, looking at NEW, transformative and, possibly, disruptive education technologies.

1. Ed Tech:
transforming
education
Professor Marc-André Léger

2. In this presentation, we are looking at NEW,
transformative and, possibly, disruptive
education technologies.
Students
Teachers Technology

3. What is Ed Tech ?
 Education + Technology = Ed Tech
 Technology for, or used in, education
 Hardware, Software,
 Information System,
 Information Technology
 Designed to
 Enhance teacher-led learning
 Improve student outcomes.

4. National Science
Foundation report on
the future of
educational technology
 Personalizing education
 Assessing student learning
 Supporting social learning
 Diminishing boundaries
 Developing alternative
teaching strategies
 Enhancing the role
of stakeholders
 Addressing policy changes

5. Personalizing education
 a one-method fits all approach does not match up with a diverse population
and the potential of new technologies;
 finding in cognitive psychology and new technologies make it possible to create
effective learning activities to meet individual student needs and interests;

6. Assessing student learning
 Need for effective assessments of students and teachers,
 for accountability and promotion (summative)
 to improve learning and instruction (formative);
 The focus in assessment should be on improving learning, especially from a
perspective of life-long learning and literacy in the information age;
 Assessments should be seamless and ubiquitous, i.e. woven into learning
activities unobtrusively;
 Elaboration of evaluation metrics.

7. Supporting social learning
 Develop meaningful and collaborative
learning activities;
 Increase collaboration and the
challenges pertaining to digital media
literacy and traditional models.

8. Diminishing boundaries
 Traditional boundaries are changing and becoming blurred:
 between students and teachers,
 between and among personal abilities and types of learning,
 between formal and informal learning, and
 between learning and working.
 Need to recognize the significance of informal learning and different learner
abilities and interests.

9. Developing alternative teaching
modes and strategies
 The teacher is no longer the sole source of expertise
in classroom settings due to the widespread availability
of networked resources;
 Need to change instructional approaches and train teachers accordingly.
Cette photo par Auteur inconnu est soumise à la licence CC BY

10. Enhancing the role of stakeholders
 Stakeholders in education systems need to develop trust that those systems
are adequately preparing students for productive lives in 21st century society;
 Need to regularly consult with employers, parents, administrators, teachers
and students to ensure that all stakeholders have confidence that the
education system is working well;

11. Addressing policy changes
 The knowledge society requires flexibility on the part of an informed population;
 Educational inequities and the digital divide can challenge the stability of a society
and need to be addressed.

13. The dream
 Phase out certain in-class
duties to reduce costs.
 It aims at great efficiency
and effectiveness of
current practice.
 Technology acts as a
catalyzer and tool to
promote education.
 Promote technology as
a tool in education.
 Lead to better
outcomes for individual
students and the class as a
whole.
 Transform teaching with
technology
 Enhance
the teaching process
 Move the teacher role into
a facilitator role.
 Free up teachers from
trying to teach to
the average.
 Automate the assessment
of ability and adjustment
of difficulty
 Enhance
the learning process
 Help lower level
learners
 Keep the top learners
engaged
 Lead to better
outcomes for individual
students and the class
as a whole
For Schools For Teachers For Learners

14. Tech selection for teaching
A model for technology selection and application is needed that has the following
characteristics:
 it will work in a wide variety of learning contexts;
 it allows decisions to be taken at both a strategic, institution-wide level, and
at a tactical, instructional, level;
 it gives equal attention to educational and operational issues;
 it will identify critical differences between different media and technologies,
thus enabling an appropriate mix to be chosen for any given context;
 it is easily understood, pragmatic and cost-effective;
 it will accommodate new developments in technology.
https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-1-models-for-media-selection/

15. Bates’ SECTIONS model
 Students
 Ease of use
 Cost
 Teaching functions, including
pedagogical affordances of media
 Interaction
 Organizational issues
 Networking
 Security and privacy
https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-1-models-for-media-selection/

16. The reality: the legend of Icarus

17. Custom learning
experiences
 Learners like to have choices
 We do not all learn the same way

18. Digital credentials & Badges
Employers do not necessarily need 4-year degrees for real-work jobs.

19. Open education resources
 Shared material
 https://www.oercommons.org/
 https://openstax.org/
 OpenSource documentation
 YouTube

20. Cloud computing

21. Speech-to-text

22. Augmented reality
 Medicine and manufacturing-focused skill sets can expect to see AR being
increasingly used in context for training, as a learning technology:
 surgery planning and practice
 visualize data and workflow processes
 However, in other fields AR is an edtech solution looking for a problem.

23. Wireless
presentations

24. 5G
 campus Wi-Fi network is starting to groan under the strain of hundreds of
connected phones, tablets, laptops, and now (thanks to the Internet of
Things) watches, vending machines, toasters and so on.
 this increase in bandwidth and connectivity will open the door to more
reliable use of existing education technology, and fewer spinning beach balls
waiting for your learning management system to update.

25. Inclusion for learners with
physical and learning disabilities
 accessible or adaptive technologies to coursework
 Assessment technologies for learners with disabilities

26. Learning analytics
 Students: feedback on their own work and course contexts
 Faculty: engagement trends and course material effectiveness
 Faculty-Administrators: activities and outcomes in programs, departments, and curricula
 School Administrators: supporting decisions of broader oversight and investment
 Instructional Designers and Support Staff: impact and effectiveness of design choices

27. Predictive analytics
 Predicting the demand for a particular.
 Predict how many adjuncts will be required in what areas for what courses.
 Identifying what courses early on in a major are predictive of future success,
allowing the institution to alert a student that some remediation or additional
course work may be required if they are to improve the likelihood of doing
well.
 Identifying students at risk of dropping out based on, for example, their lack
of engagement with course materials or university life in general.
 Identifying students who are more likely to enroll, less likely to transfer and
what mix of incentives can bring about the best outcomes for student
enrollment.
 Determining donors’ giving potential to improve institutional fundraising.

28. Digital security and ransomware
 Stakeholders are far less interested in privacy protections than in other benefits.
 No one set of parameters defining student privacy exists.
 Ed Tech can collect everything on students from logins to student ID numbers.
 Selling an Ed Tech company may mean selling the student data collected.
 Schools demand big data to make instructional decisions, and yet hackers may
seek out personal student data for malevolent purposes.
 Schools refuse to give up apps proven to release student data to third-parties.
 School districts do not always read the user agreements thoroughly.
 New laws require absolute student data protection.