Too many times the discussion about the role of EdTech in schools circles around irrelevant matters: are teachers still needed in the future or should we limit screen time in schools.
Digitalisation has improved processes in all industries and the same transformation has started in the education sector. Instead of seeing threats, we should focus on developing the best practices for using EdTech and that way improve learning efficacy.
Sometimes teachers find themselves in a situation where their dreams don’t match the classroom reality. A music teacher for example, would like to encourage students to be creative and compose their own songs – but actually, very few students are able to play instruments. In such cases, teachers are left with little options, and they end up playing piano while pupils are singing.
For students it would be more motivational to be able to express themselves in music lessons the same way as they do with arts and crafts – creating their own original pieces.
At Education Alliance Finland, we often get to evaluate educational solutions for learning programming.
There are several reasons for this: The digital world is created by programming, so it is natural to teach programming in digital environment. Programming languages are systematic and logical, so it is easy to create problems, which have easily identifiable right and wrong answers. Coding skills and computational thinking are also among the most desired 21st century skills and part of many new curricula, which creates demand for teaching resources.