campusreview.com.au
ON CAMPUS
Beyond bells
and whistles
It’s not enough just to have all
the latest devices; educating
the workforce of the future
requires making sure educators
know how to get the most
out of all those tools.
By Mei Lin Low
A
question we consistently find education institutions asking
is, ‘What are the essential skills students of today will need
to succeed in their future workplace?’
Enabled by the widespread availability and rapid advances of
digital technology, it’s expected that the Workplace of the Future
will place new demands on its employees and create changes
to ways of working not seen since the industrial revolution. A
recent study by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand
suggests 60 per cent of Australian jobs are at risk of automation in
the next 20 years.
Our education models need to adapt to provide students with
the correct tools to thrive in this evolving environment. Also, in this
hyper-connected world, students now anticipate a highly engaging
interactive learning environment with advanced ICT capabilities in
place. That will reshape how we teach as well.
This is highlighted in the Education in 2025: Education
24
Technology Innovation Survey. Conducted amongst more than
700 education professionals across Australia and New Zealand, it
reveals that 40 per cent of educators believe parents and students
alike are demanding more mobile and remote access to services.
Many students are located outside urban centres, in regional and
remote areas, and many also juggle their study with a job. This
means, more and more, they need to be able to catch up by
accessing materials or watching a lecture while on the go.
With the help of streaming and recorded video lectures, online
collaboration tools and real-time instant messaging access to
lecturers and tutors, the boundaries of the traditional teaching
environment can be redesigned. These technologies allow higher
education institutions to deliver flexible, on-demand course
content to their students and truly tap into the notion of anytime,
anywhere, any device learning.
By having access to these tools every day, students learn how to
save time and work effectively, collaborate with peers no matter where
they are, and use different technologies side by side – all things that
will serve them well in their future workplaces.
But it is not enough just to have technologies in place; educators
need to know how to get the most out of them to truly prepare
students. In Australia and New Zealand, 51 per cent of education
professionals feel we are not maximising the potential of
technology to support meaningful learning in the classroom, with
27 per cent also convinced the main focus should be on improving
the quality of teacher learning.
We see it all too often: a university will have every bell and
whistle imaginable, yet barely scratch the surface of what they
could achieve with that vast array of technology. It’s for this reason,
training on everything needs to be implemented – from basic
functionality and how to use the products to engage with students,
to how administrators can employ them.
Continuous on the job training is even more important when we
consider how the role of in-person teachers will shift in the future.
It is expected this position will move towards that of a facilitator or
mentor, with self-directed learning, online learning consortiums,
thought leaders and industry experts from workplaces seen as the
most import for delivering educ