Reflecting on education in a rapidly changing world.
It would be an understatement to say the world is changing. For years to come, there will be opinions, analysis and conjecture about how a pandemic swept across the world and impacted the ways humanity existed. Bringing the scope into a narrower focus, there is an opportunity here to consider the changes through a lens of education.
While many countries have taken different approaches to schooling, Australia has insisted (at the time of writing) on keeping the doors open. While I would refrain from commenting on the politics of this decision, we can also consider the consequences for learning of this decision. Around the country there is an urgent rush for schools to prepare for online/distance/remote/alternative teaching models.
It seems that the rhetoric being used depends on who is saying it and what they are trying to say. It is important to note that online or distance learning should not operate in the same way as face to face learning. In a study of three high schools in the United States, it was found that meticulous planning for support of such a system was critical for its success.
An article from The Conversation notes that while the gap between the bush and city populations is slowly closing, it neglected to include statistics on Indigenous communities, ‘where the evidence suggests that internet access is usually very poor’4. We only recently heard from Indigenous Affairs Minister, Ken Wyatt, about how powerful education is for ‘further success in life’5. Though the comments were largely focused on increasing participation in the tertiary sector there must be an assumption this would trickle down into improving the outcomes of the high schooling system.
There is a disconnect between the inability to connect into digital technologies and the expectation that we can achieve educational outcomes by doing so. In these uncertain times, we must make certain we do not leave an entire group of peoples behind.
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References
1Garthwait, A. (2014). Pilot Program of Online Learning in Three Small High Schools: Considerations of Learning Styles. Electronic Journal of E-Learning, 12(4), 353-366.
2Milakovich, M., Wise, Jean-Marc, & Edward Elgar Publishing, publisher. (2019). Digital learning : The challenges of borderless education.
38146.0 – Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2016-17. (2020). Retrieved 26 March 2020, from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8146.0?OpenDocument
4Thomas, J., Wilson, C., & Park, S. (2018). Australia’s digital divide is not going away. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/australias-digital-divide-is-not-going-away-91834
5Hunter, F. (2020). ‘Focus on the successes’: Ken Wyatt says lessons to be learned in Indigenous education. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/focus-on-the-successes-ken-wyatt-says-lessons-to-be-learned-in-indigenous-education-20200306-p547l9.html
AITSL Standards: 2.6, 3.6, 4.5, 6.1,
The Remote Teacher 