Leaders in education and technologies met recently in Washington D.C. at The Atlantic’s third annual Technologies in Education Forum to discuss the use of technology in the classroom.
Panelists discussed the best ways to prepare students for STEM jobs (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and policy changes to increase the use of technology in education.
The Education Forum explored the use of technology in education for students of all ages. Speakers and panelists included Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Principal David Pinder of McKinley Technology High School and Leticia Barr, a columnist for Parents.com.
The discussion topics ranged from how to encourage math and science learning in the classroom to discussion about the spread of online courses in higher education.
According to Diverse Education, Richard Culatta, the director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, advocated the use of technology to transform the educational experience. He warned against schools viewing technology as nothing more than the digitization of conventional teaching methods.
In his panel discussion entitled “Reimagining Educational Opportunity: College and Workforce Preparation,” Culatta discussed the need for institutions of higher education to keep students on track to gain the technology skills they will need after graduation.
One of the panels at the Technologies in Education Forum focused on how to engage students with the use of technology-based games in the classroom. It included Lisa Guernsey, Director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation, and Justin Leites, the head of the game division at Amplify.
Leites argued that games must be voluntary and totally immersing for the student. Therefore, games are difficult to implement in the context of a traditional classroom, he said. The short amount of time in each class is not enough for total immersion of the student. He suggested that classrooms might need to be redesigned to allow for student immersion if games will ever be truly effective.
Leites also emphasized the value of engaging students with educational technology-based games outside of the classroom, saying that they can help students develop confidence in learning material from school so that they will have more to say during class-time discussions. He called games an “enormously powerful feedback mechanism” for students.
Some of the speakers were people involved in government and lobbyist groups dedicated to public policy changes. Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Jessica Rosenworcel was a speaker at the conference. Another panelist was John Bailey, the Executive Director of Digital Learning Now!, an organization focused on developing policy actions for lawmakers to increase the use of digital learning. Bailey said that the core struggle in using technology games in the classroom is designing games that are both educationally rich and fun at the same time.
The half-day event fit in a lot of discussions about how to make better use of technology in education, both inside and outside of the classroom. Various panels discussed the problem of how to better prepare students of all ages for careers in science and technology.
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