Future focused Eduaction

What will the future hold?
This is a question that is always at the front of our minds as educators. The best things we can do is know as much as we can about the changes that are occurring in education and the world.

In New Zealand there are plan for future focused education and we as educators need to consider.
Some of these ideas of how the digital nature of these changes are outlined within the Towards Digital Fluency document published by the Ministry of Education.

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These educational ideas focus on supporting all learners to be at home in a digital world. 

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The document of the right is the education plan for 2025. This discusses learners choosing their path and connecting digitally. 

So what will a digital world look like in in the future. Today at our digital immersion day we discuss some of the new ideas in education. We talked about how fast the world is changing and the role that digital technologies play.

If I think back to my school the technology we used may have been computer that was very slow that we used for research or to create spreadsheets or type up stories. When I wanted to used the internet at home I had to use dial up and no one else could use the phone or internet. The first cell phone was a block had buttons you had to press multiple times.

BUT now you can program robots, enter a virtual relativity, be driven by a self driving car and so much more. Even with all these exciting things happening now the world continues to change and new things are entering our everyday lives all the time.

What will happen next?
We as teacher do not know exactly what the next 'Thing' will be however we do know that digital fluency will continue to be important. We can also know that jobs in technology are on the raise and that coding skills are value for our learners future.

As I think about my future as a teacher I think about how I will teach in a future focused way, always looking forward and staying current in my knowledge of the world, technology and teaching.

There is no point in teaching for the past when our learners will only see the future.

Reading Follow up

One of the big questions I started the year with was How do I engage the top readers in my class in meaningful follow up activities?

Having this in mind I started these groups with a learning focus of linking books to personal experiences. Last week these groups read the article Just one wheel, this article is all about children unicycling. After the children had read this article and answered some questions about the text I challenged them to have a go. So during one of our reading sessions we went outside and used what we had learnt from the text and videos we had watch to give unicycling a go.

It was awesome watching the children enjoying unicycling. It was Interesting watching them make connections to the text as they attempted unicycling. One thing I noticed was that none of the children attempted to let go of the fence. I wonder if this was because the article said well you are learning hold the fence.

I also gave unicycling a go check out my video. As you can see I let go of the fence.....




And fell off the unicycle.


Once they had given unicycling a go I asked them to video a reflection of the experience. They were given specific questions to answer. This proved to be more of a challenge for some students then others.

Have a look at the awesome video reflections from these amazing learners.

Marika
Levonah
Pisirina 
Zaeeda
AJ
Toby
Eden

Great work amazing learners.