"Preparing Children for roles that do not exist" By Teaching them how to "USE" technology

"Preparing Children for roles that do not exist"

(House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, 2016)

Digital Technology is part of our everyday lives from waking in the morning with the phone alarm, communication, organising, online banking, travel cards, payments, calculating, pretty much most parts of our life revolves around digital technology. 

It is agreed that 20-25yrs years ago the world was somewhat different to how it is today. Jobs are being cut due to the increase in digital technology, so to foresee the next 20 years would be almost impossible. According the House of commons science and technology committee, for children to prepare themselves they will require digital skills.

Technically speaking we as an economy, are building new devices to make life easier, simpler and faster; but surely that would mean we are  putting ourselves out of work, because digital technology is doing our jobs for us? Anderson Et al (2014) quoted that 48% of experts  " envision a future in which robots and digital agents have displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers—with many expressing concerns that this will lead to vast increases in income inequality, masses of people who are effectively unemployable, and breakdowns in the social order." (Anderson et al. 2014)

You only have to walk into the nearest supermarket to see less cashiers, increased self-service checkouts and an increase in online shopping statistics. (ONS.2019)

(ONS. 2019)

With online banking becoming the most popular source of banking there is no wonder that we are seeing multiple banks closing their branches. Barclays identified that customers very rarely visiting local branches and most banking is done online. As a result, Barclays closed hundreds on branches during 2015 - 2017, where over 19,000 jobs were lost world wide of which 9,000 were within the UK. 

(Barclays, 2019), (BBC News, 2019) 

Could it then be argued that the tech savvy individual with digital science knowledge and the knowledge to build new innovations similar to iPhones, mac books or simply ideas unheard of, (The Steve Jobs of our generation) will fit in well in the digital world, with roles to invent, manufacture or maintain such devices,  thus leaving a skill gap and lack of job opportunities for the not so tech savvy people.... (Anderson and smith, 2014), (Darvin, 2018).

So, what has Wales offered education to prepare children for the skillset needed for the digital knowledge-based roles, that industries demand so highly?

The Digital Competency Framework guidance (2018) states that the DCF will allow children to have the skillset to "USE" technology. (Welsh Government, 2018.pp2).

The DCF states that digital competency is not ICT (Information , commutations technology). Surely both come in hand with each other. While one is educating pupils on how to "USE" the other is not clearly stated. Upon looking through the ICT guidelines (2013), it is clear they have very similar objectives to  the DCF  in the aspect that most areas are based on USING technologies to process work. Here list of outcomes for both DCF (2018) and ICT where similarities have been highlighted.

ICT is a subject by its own right however is proposed to include cross curriculum in the sense that it involves numeracy and literacy, whereas the DCF has formed part of the new cross curriculum reform Successful Futures and is core to all subjects. I find it hard to understand how practitioners would find it easy to differentiate from the two and can see why there could be confusion or misinterpretation. 

Problems this may cause is that with DCF being enforced throughout all subject many teachers may not feel confident in using digital technology and may not have the skillset to incorporate DT into their class, also both ICT and DCT are promoting the use of technology  not the physical elements within computer science. Upon looking further into this I found that in 2015 the EAS Skills framework was published. This seemed more promising for the outlook of Digital technology within education. The EAS Skills framework identifies areas that are not addressed in the DCF or ICT but will form part of ICT lessons in secondary school. Having said that EAS level descriptors identify areas of learning for primary schools. It addresses digital coding which is probably the only exception to the paper, the remainder of the paper looks like the ICT framework only worded differently addressing communication, numeracy and citizenship and addressing areas of learning for using technology for example, sending emails, using instant messaging and how to use YouTube and other social platforms for data purposes. .  

It is fair to say that some adults in this present time lack skills to use some forms of digital technology, this was address by the house of commons - digital crisis and the DCF which identifies the need for training teachers in this field.  The reason for this could be because Digital tech wasn't part of their everyday life. Anyone in their late 30's would have already gone half of their life without certain forms of technology. It wasn't until the late 90's that mobiles such as Nokia and Motorola came out and they had no internet or WIFI. The Internet didn't come into homes until the late 1990, it was taught in schools at secondary level but was not compulsory after year 9 (based on personal experience) so any knowledge of DT at that time would be because you worked in an industry that was piloting it or you were lucky enough to have been one of the very few that had internet dial up in your home or access to a computer at school.  However, many children coming into their 20s have had a life of tech, which brings me to the question of why we are teaching them how to use technology,  when they pretty much are living it, surely the emphasis should be what is rightfully stated in the EAS skills framework 'programming', 'coding' and designing. This will help  to prepare children for "roles that do not exist". 

From speaking to teachers on recent placement I asked how do they incorporate digital technology into their curriculum and I was not surprised at the responses, one teacher stating 'they teach me most of the time, I have no idea when it comes to technology'; following by saying I tick the boxes for numeracy and literacy and used iPads to produce the work 😕. she did however state that she enjoys using google classroom to access work and for the class to have chats and interact digitally. iPads and computers with office 365 are being used to create new social platforms between classes and teachers to discuss work, for online lessons, for sharing and submitting work to teachers and to have more access to teachers outside of school hours, and it’s evident that schools are promoting social platforms as a means of communication between teacher and pupils. (EAS - ICT Skills Framework, 2015). Based on the way schools currently use computers it can be argued that we are only mimicking hat children are already using outside of their school lives. 

In contrast to this research led by Cardiff met and Cardiff council identified many areas of which digital technology had an overall positive attitude from the teachers, pupils and parents, stating that parents were more engaged with children's learning when bringing home iPads, teachers were more engaged in developing their digital skills and the use of digital technology in the classroom enhanced the skillset for other core subjects.(Beauchamp and Hillier (2014) also identified previous research quoting " "the majority of pupils at the school now having iPads there has been a significant and very positive impact on learning together with further significant and still developing changes in pedagogy". This is assuming that most children own an iPad. These assumptions could create a digital divide, while children in a home full of digital technology may be exposed to it regularly and use DT with ease, others may not be so fortunate, creating a skills gap between pupils. (Darvin. 2018). Darvin (2018) identifies digital inequality depending on social class and identifies that  lack of accessibility may create different attitudes to digital technology being rolled out in school. 

Children perspective of Digital Technology in Welsh Schools. Click Link to view Video.  

The new curriculum rollout set for 2022 emphasises the importance for the future of Welsh pupils in a digital world; however, the British Education Suppliers Association (2014) identified the lack of accessibility of digital technology and WIFI access in welsh schools, due to funding was one of the lowest creating a digital divide. (BESA, 2014). With this being reported in 2014 this may not hold the same validity 5 years on, but funding has been identified as an area of concern when it comes to meeting targets set by the DCF. 

The DCF is new to the curriculum and its early days before seeing the impact to pupils digital skillset for future job prospects, having said that with technology being part of their everyday life it could be argued that the skills to 'USE' such devices comes natural, and more emphasis should be placed on the creative and technical aspects of digital technology in order to prepare pupils for roles that do not exist. 

 

References

Anderson, J. and smith, A. (2014). AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs. PEW Research Centre.

Barclays. (2019). UK branch closures. [online] Available at: https://home.barclays/citizenship/our-reporting-and-policy-positions/uk-branch-closures/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2019].

BBC News. (2019). Barclays to cut 19,000 jobs. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27321589 [Accessed 12 Mar. 2019].

Beauchamp, G. and Hillier, E. (2014). An Evaluation of iPad Implementation Across A Network of Primary Schools in Cardiff. Cardiff: School of Education. Cardiff Metropolitan University, pp.8-41.

BESA. (2014). Digital divide emerges as new research finds ‘poor’ pupil access to computers in half of all schools - BESA.

Darvin, R. (2018). Social Class and The Unequal Digital Literacies of Youth. Language and Literacy, 20(3), pp.26-45.

Donaldson, P. (2015). Successful Futures Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wale. Wales: Welsh Government.

EAS - ICT Skills Framework. (2015). South East Wales: Education Achievement Service.

Ons.gov.uk. (2019). Internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales (ratio) (%) - Office for National Statistics.

House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (2016). Digital skills crisis. Second report of session 2016-2017. London: House of Commons, pp.7-12, 24-30.

Welsh Assembly Government (2013). Information and communication technology in the National Curriculum for Wales. Cardiff: Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, pp.1-20.

Welsh Government (2018). Digital Competence Framework guidance. Cardiff: Education Wales.