Much has been written about the future workplace. What will it look like? What sort of jobs will there be? Will there still be a 9-5 office culture? Will automation mean fewer jobs?
The UK government has been quiet on education technology for many years, but the wait looks to be finally over. They’ve released a 48-page edtech strategy to “build a vibrant edtech sector” that drives efficiencies and improves educational outcomes.
We all know that teacher and senior leader workload reduction is top of the national agenda, but the real challenge is how to achieve this. One man who’s decided to face the issue head-on is Simon Hickton, Managing Director of Cornerstones – a primary curriculum provider used by 2000+ schools in the UK and internationally. A self-professed ‘doer’, former headteacher Simon was keen to create an innovative, easy-to-use curriculum tool that could help leaders and teachers design and implement a whole-school curriculum at the click of a few buttons.
Abu Dhabi, March 3 rd 2019: Under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, Bett Middle East & Africa (MEA) is back with a two-day education technology summit and expo in partnership with Abu Dhabi Department for Education and Knowledge (ADEK) and in collaboration with their Worldwide Partner Microsoft. The event will be held on 22 and 23rd of April 2019 and will be hosted at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center “ADNEC”. After a successful event last year which saw a 45% year on year growth of visitors, and more than 60 exhibitors and 150 speakers representing 36 countries, this year the theme of the event is ‘Building a successful change culture to meet the evolving needs of 21st-century citizens’.
A team of students at North Primary School from Colchester will be taking on the best young roboticists from around the world when they compete at the VEX Worlds in Kentucky, USA at the end of April. Their story starts back in the summer of 2016...
Augmented Reality is a new and upcoming technology which could have a big impact in education across the board in the coming years, and in the modern world children are using and becoming accustomed to technology at a much younger age. Technology is also influencing our lives at a much greater scale than ever before which is why it is important that the education sector keeps pace with this and prepares children for the world they will be inheriting in the future. The classroom must always try to reflect the world children are experiencing outside.
We all agree that education is the primary necessity of our society. Educated people invent new technologies to achieve more comfort in their daily routines, however, both are dependent on each other. I believe that literate people innovate more and more while technology helps to produce well-educated citizens.
Whilst we know that the skills associated with computational thinking are vital for today’s children to flourish in the 21st Century workplace, the practicalities of teaching coding during school hours can sometimes be perceived as a challenge. There is often a misconception that incorporating workshops and lessons that will instill the important skills associated with computational thinking will take a lot of work. But, with simple techniques, we know how easy this can actually be! Here are my top tips for breaking down barriers to coding and setting your pupils up with life-long skills...
Last year huge investment was made in the education industry, with almost two-thirds (64%) of education employees reporting investment in digital technologies. This, according to government statistics, equates to more than £900m.
A chatbot is an "artificial intelligence (AI) program that simulates interactive human conversation by using key pre-calculated user phrases and auditory or text-based signals" (technopedia.com). Businesses throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere are rapidly adopting chatbots to support their business. Vodafone, the well known phone company, has a chatbot to help people learn about which phone plans best fit their needs, for example. But what about using chatbots in educational settings?
