As technology continues to expand, we see its influence everywhere. It’s making our lives easier and its even translating to how teachers reach their students. We may remember the classroom as a room full of desks and a chalkboard, but that image is quickly evolving. Digital technology is quickly taking over where education on how to use the latest technology is taking root.
Schools exist to educate our kids and to prepare them for the real world. Of course, parents are the main educators in that role. But schools are on the front lines by providing proper curriculums and all the opportunities that come with it. That’s why libraries full of books are being converted into computer labs.
As a result of this shift, the amount of money schools are spending on educational technology is growing dramatically. In the next five years, schools are expected to expand their technology budgets by $341 billion. This doubles what they are spending currently. It’s certainly a lesson in preparing for the future, but things are growing so rapidly. We don’t even know what the future might look like.
“We’re asking young people what they want to be when they grow up, when maybe more than half of the job’s tasks and industries they may work in have not been invented yet,” says Heather McGowan, a future work strategist who helps to prepare people and organizations for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Technology Jobs Not Available Yet
The World Economic Forum released a study that found as many as 65% of the current children entering primary school will later take jobs that currently don’t exist. We see how technology is revolutionizing our lives, but it’s shifting how we work. More robots are taking over manufacturing jobs, but someone has to build and maintain the robots.
Because the entire world is shifting, so should our educational demands. Schools are having to focus more on looking at what each individual child wants to learn. Just simply passing on knowledge won’t be as big of a part of schooling.
“The foundational knowledge of the future is your own ability to learn and adapt, because if you don’t your career will come to a screeching halt after a couple of years,” she says.
One such teaching toy is a robot called Cubetto. Cubetto is made of wood and is the beginning step in teaching kids how robots work. They insert blocks into a connected base that have instructions on them. They can see how they are simply programming the robot to move based on the blocks they insert. It’s primitive compared to what they’ll need to learn later, but is a good first step.
Teaching them Younger
Children as young as three are using this robot to learn how to think critically and even how to code. “It’s a skill that you can apply to anything: you basically learn to think in a very logical and rational manner,” says Filippo Yacob, founder and CEO of Primo, the toy maker that developed Cubetto. “For us, it’s about making children future proof,” he adds.
“The danger is, if you don’t get these things right, that children are really being hampered in their learning and it’s undermining their efforts to progress academically,” says professor Peter Barrett who led the study.
