Musings on Technology

This week we take a look at the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) five  Standards for Educational Leaders , and I reflect on how I can now - and in the future - use these in my school leadership practice.  1: Equity and Citizenship Advocate- Leaders use technology to increase equity, inclusion, and digital citizenship practices. Within the team that I lead, students in my school have skilled teachers who actively use technology to meet student learning needs. In particular, this applies to the delivery of an online, interactive social-emotional learning programme. Via informal observation I see that all teachers use technology to deliver this. Some barriers are confronted at times, often involving hardware or software problems. This practice can be enhanced by the implementation of a more formal evaluation system for the delivery of the programme, structured around the “Goldilocks zone” of the intersection of technological, pedagogica...

This week we take a wee look at personalised and adaptive learning. PL is a teaching method that endeavours to forge a journey of discovery tailored to each and every learner’s individual needs, pace of learning, and preferred learning style, with tech augmenting (but not defining) the method.   With PL, teachers gain a keener insight into each student’s needs and so can offer more individualised support and feedback. Students can make choices about their learning, which is a fantastic advantage and, of course, makes this the ultimate student-centred learning experience. AL is a technique that can be used to facilitate PL , often using data-driven systems to continually adapt learning material and provide personalised content in real time to meet a learner’s changing needs and abilities. Particular attention is paid to a learner’s prior knowledge. Available platforms provide rich data, not just quantitatively, but also with evaluations about a student’s learnin...