Prior to Covid, a key message that schools communicated to parents, students and the community is that technology is dangerous and unsafe for children. This message has become an ingrained part of school life, and this has been the entrenched approach schools have taken since the first desktop landed on a students’ desks. As parents we’ve all attended multiple cybersafety parent information nights over the years. It’s rare however that we have had the opportunity to attend an information night that focuses on the amazing ways technology can be used to enhance learning and school life. Or an information session that focused on both; one that presented a balanced view of technology.
Online safety will always be an important part of smart and healthy technology approaches, however as we’ve have seen from recent weeks, knowing how to use technology well for learning and work life is equally important now.
A single eyed focus on the dangers averts our attention away from developing insight and strategies that leverage the opportunities technology can provide us. It dismisses the understanding that like adults, students’ technology use is not just safe or unsafe. Technology use is not that simple anymore. There are many and multiplying complexities to how and why they use it. It also undermines the last few weeks where we have expected students and parents to trust in technology and the ways it can support learning.
Covid has enabled us to get a clearer glimpse of what the future we are preparing students for might actually be. Up until this point there has been a lot of guesswork. We have tended to focus on the new job types that technology will create. In broadening our lens, it’s clear that the culture and environment in which we will work and live is where significant change will occur. Technology is a central component of this and it affect all students. Turning back the clock to once again only focus on the dangers of technology cannot adequately prepare studnets for the future.
With major organisations announcing a permanent ‘working from home’ strategy, students will need to be able leverage technology to work and be productive for any future work space. We have learnt that this takes particular skills and mindsets. We have seen school exams cancelled and postponed because they run to a traditional format- like that used in the1900s. The disruption and knock on effect for university, work, professional learning has been detrimental. It requires rethinking how to meaningfully assess school learning in ways that align with our life in 2020.
Technology use is very different to what it was 20 years ago when it first became part of school life. its use is no longer the binary of safe use and unsafe use, and neither should the message that schools communicate about it. Technology use is threaded across work, learning and home life, and knowing how to manage this well will give any young person the edge. Online safety will always be important however its clear there are many other issues that need to be addressed if we are to prepare students for ‘their’ future.