Envisioning the 2020 School

What's New

• Teachers Using Blogs
• ICT Teaching Units
• Wondering about Social Networking? There is a great article by Danah Boyd Social Network Sites: Public, Private or What? that explores this rapidly growing phenomenon.
• Emerging technologies evolving pedagogies, Conference, Melbourne - 15 June 2007

The Ed2020 Site

The Ed2020 Site has the following components:

• Envisioning the 2020 school - While somewhat in speculative territory, this section seeks to identify trends in schools and their use of technology. You may also be interested in what others have said.
• Annotated links to others' work in this area, including some of the best research and practice syntheses as foundations on which 2020 schools can build themselves.
• A set of issue papers covering the key aspects to this complex process and transition and which endeavour to integrate the available research and best practices. Written largely in 2000/01 these invite comments and additions, and are divided for convenience into the following components:
  • Educational foundations
  • Technology projections
  • Political and funding issues
  • Training & industrial relations issues UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Technological change and schools

Seen from a medium or long term perspective, several aspects of school education have been relatively stable in the past century - despite the amount of curriculum and welfare changes that teachers have had to cope with in recent years. For instance there has been little public debate about education funding and appropriate staff-student ratios, let alone about the basic teacher/ class/ classroom model used for most organised children's learning.

The pace of change in the workplace and in society generally has been accelerating and has included substantial structural reform driven by both economic and technological factors. Yet structural reform has only barely begun in schools. This is all the more problematic given the increasing calls on the schooling system to provide flexible life-long learners ready to work in new 21st century work environments.

Technological change, which has till now been creeping up on education, is ready to bring substantive change. Less certain is the impact of, and dominant drivers for, this change. There is a danger that technological change in schools will be overly influenced by short term expediency and cost saving rather than by grasping the educational opportunities it may offer.

Need help?

Do you need help planning a strategic technological path? Not only handling the technology but also the expecations of your school community, and more importantly the effective training and motivation of your staff?

Austega offers project and strategic management services to schools both to handle immediate implementation issues and also the longer term risks and challenges of technological change.

You may also be interested in the resources that that we offer via this website - check our Services to Schools or choose an option from the left hand navigation bar.

A technologically advanced school?

What constitutes a technologically advanced school? Is this best measured in terms of:

• number of students per PC (or Mac)?
• number of networked and internet connected PCs?
• the usage of the PCs?
• the amount of space given to technology in the marketing material?
• the proportion of the staff that feel comfortable using PCs for:
  • email?
  • web browsing?
  • recording marks and report comments?
  • communicating with colleagues, parents and the students themselves?
• the proportion of students who feel comfortable using PCs for:
  • email?
  • web browsing?
  • preparing assignments?
  • communicating with staff about their learning?
  • communicating with students with related interests but from other schools or countries?
• the proportion of teachers who have integrated information and communication technologies into their teaching practices?
• the proportion of learning that is undertaken utilising information and communication technologies?
• the number of teaching or learning activities that could not have occurred without the new information and communication technologies?
• the tailoring of the students' educational experiences that technology has enabled?
• the amount of learning that is achieved?

  Mmm... what do you think?