Schools and education are of immense political importance, particularly for the upcoming election, both in the European union and for Sweden. The Pisa surveys show disappointing results for Sweden, and the Swedish Committee for Digitisation has analyzed IT education in the school sector and developed concrete proposals to provide the Swedish government with a basis for future educational policy making. This development also has a great impact on how higher education will need to evolve. Technology, in many ways, changes the playing field for education and life long learning, and thus the pedagogy and leadership upon which our education is based also needs to change. This talk discusses the current view of education and life long learning and brings provocative ideas to the table concerning the future of ICT in Education.
There has been a lot of excitement recently about how new technologies can transform learning. MOOCs, the internet of education and flipped classrooms are the latest hotly debated ways of changing how students learn in the modern world. At the same time, a diversity of innovative learning apps has been developed for tabletops, tablets and phones, supporting new forms of learning – mobile, collaborative and situated. New electronic toolkits and programming environments are also emerging intended to introduce new generations to coding and computation in creative and engaging ways – that go way beyond Logo. Never before has there been so much opportunity and buzz to make learning accessible, immersive, interactive, exciting, provocative and enjoyable. To realize the true potential of these latest technological developments, however, requires designing interfaces and apps to not only match learner’s needs but also to encourage collaboration, mindful engagement, conversational skills and the art of reflection.