Digital culture and communications

Education.au recently held a seminar in Sydney with the theme, ‘What does 21st century teaching look like?” Technology providers including Telstra Adobe, Cisco and Microsoft presented their views on how 21st century learning would make an impact on parents, schools, children and the community. More interesting than the panel, however, was the Twitter backchannel on #edausem which revealed some scepticism in educators on the role of industry in education. Issues that were raised include whether industry products define how 21st century learning is delivered, whether educators are consulted in the development of tools and products, whether current tools are simply retrofitted to social practice, the relevance to local communities of ‘one-size-fits-all’ global tools, whether companies push their own products to meet their needs rather than solutions that will make a difference to the needs of the community. These all resonate to the point that 21st century learning should not be about technology, but about education. Danah Boyd presents a good case against technological determinism in education as does Castells (2004) in pointing out that “…technology can only yield its promise in the framework of cultural, organizational and institutional
transformations.”

So where then does the role of industry lie? Taking note of educators’ concerns, I would suggest industry's role lies in separating the delivery of 21st century learning solutions/products from their marketing targets, breaking down barriers to entry in the application of technology across local and remote communities, promoting/developing free, open source tools, making experts within the organization accessible to schools, engaging in conversations with educators/learners to gain a better understanding of their needs for future technological development.

Any other thoughts?

References:

CASTELLS, M. (2004) Informationalism, networks and the network society: a theoretical blueprint. IN CASTELLS, M. (Ed.) The network society: a cross-cultural perspective. Northampton, MA.