Michael Horn, Executive Director, Education, Innosight Institute
Chalk-and-talk lectures aren't enough for the Xbox generation. Innovative technology improves teacher quality and student performance, individualizes education and engages students so they become lifelong learners, according to Ronald Packard and a panel of experts.
Nevertheless, the panelists said a lot of bad technology exists; as Bruce Friend said, it's just as easy to bore and disengage students online as it is in the classroom. Greg Gunn said a lot of technology that is time-consuming for teachers and lacks a clear instructional purpose has been shoveled into classrooms.
Friend said he's concerned because teachers often fail to use technology in transformational ways. Some schools with technology don't use it, he said, and many teachers are proud just to be using PowerPoint.
Teachers who embrace technology are replacing those who don′t, Friend said. Technology grows more sophisticated every year, and online content can easily be adapted to changes in science and technology. When Pluto was downgraded from a planet, K12 Inc.'s online materials reflected it the next day, Packard said.
Traditional education now is in many ways the same as in the 1920s when Firestone and Ford needed workers for factories, Friend said. Technology can help by developing 21st century tools that customize education to multiple learning needs. Gunn said trying to organize a classroom around individualized instruction approaches impossibility without technology, calling the challenge the "human genome project in education."
The panelists agreed that transformative technology requires a great deal of capital and needs to be brought to scale to justify the cost. Caprice Young said, "Technology-integrated learning is not about faster or even cheaper but better and different and much more customized to the next generation of kids." Friend said public-private partnerships are necessary to meet capital needs.
Global Conference 2013
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, philanthropist Bill Gates and Strive Masiyiwa of Econet Wireless discuss advancing prosperity in Africa.
