Role of Technology in 21st Century Education System

In an email this morning Mark Treadwell alerted me to the release of this document from the US (PDF download here). The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills are leadership organizations that have come together on this national imperative with a unified vision, agenda and action principles for stakeholders. Together, they represent dozens of leading U.S. companies and organizations, six leadership states, education technology directors in all 50 states, 85,000 education technology professionals and 3.2 million educators throughout the country.

They assert that It’s time to focus on what students need to learn–and on how to create a 21st century education system that delivers results. In a digital world, no organization can achieve results without incorporating technology into every aspect of its everyday practices. It’s time for schools to maximize the impact of technology as well.

The document is a relatively short, easily digestible read, with plenty of summarised points and useful diagrams. It provides another timely piece of contextual reading to accompany the new curriculum document released yesterday. Its content reflects a lot of what has been emerging from many quarters of the debate in NZ (the Knowledge Wave, Digital Summit etc), and provides some compelling arguments for the pivotal role of technology in our future education system.

This will be a useful backgrounder also for the NZ Secondary Futures project when they come to examine their fifth and final theme on the Role of Technology.