On why we must inspire children to study technology

As part of their ongoing series on innovation, General Electric, together with The Economist Group, interviewed Singapore based technologist/educator Ayesha Khanna for her thoughts on why we must inspire children to study technology. Aysha believes that if Australia does not invest in STEM subjects then it will lose its competitive edge. This is based on the idea that future industries are being transformed and disrupted by technology and students will need both the technical skills and the creative inspiration to remain at the core of these changes.

Main points are:

• Silo-ed education: we currently teach education in silos – each subject is taught in isolation when, in the real world, there is massive crossover. The interview references examples of how people need design skills and basic engineering to create prototypes, then research skills to test products etc. This concept was raised recently as part of the Commonwealth Government review into the curriculum – how could we ensure teachers are skilled in their ability to use (for example) robotics to teach applied maths or science as a means to teach art (colour matching).
• Creativity: Aysha also raises the oft discussed concept of STEAM – adding Arts to the standard Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics grouping. The Arts element ensures that students don’t disappear down a technical rabbit hole. That they remain creative, open, inquisitive, exploratory – that the technical concepts they are developing are applied to real life situations. This is where the entrepreneurship element of digital literacy lives.

How to address the issue:

• Expose children to real life examples: whether its through careers fairs, office tours or mini-internships – students need to see a ‘day in the life’ of real careers. This helps ground the diversity and complexity of roles available to them through STEM (STEAM?) education fields.
• Ensure active use of technology: Aysha touches on the idea of active vs passive use of technology – something I have previously referred to as ‘making’ vs ‘using’ tech. Her thoughts are that technology is a wonderful thing as long as students are ‘active’ users – instead of using iPads for games/movies etc – load them full of apps that teach coding, drawing or are used for Khan Academy lessons.
• Gender imbalances: gender in STEM was also referenced. That there is still the latent belief that boys are more suited to these careers than girls. This seems to be a generational belief that is being passed down to young girls by their parents. There is no evidence to suggest that girls are any less competent than boys at what they do. Aysha’s recommendation is that parents/teachers just need to let go – allow girls to find their own ways of making technology instead of trying to enforce an history approach (the reference here is to allow girls to put tiaras on robots if they wish – I’m hesitant to mention it as that alone sounds pretty gendered to me).

This was a short article – but I thought it was worth publishing because a) it showed that companies like General Electric see STEM education as essential for Australia’s future, b) it added the concept of creativity to the standard discussion on STEM and c) it rephrased the ‘making’ vs ‘using’ discussion on technology as ‘active’ and ‘passive’.

On ICT Literacy in Australia (National Assessment Program)

Australia has an information and communication technology literacy assessment. Started in 2005 (run again in 2008 and 2011), the assessment looks at a student’s capabilities in Year 6 and Year 10 (approx age 12 and 16). In 2011 5,500 students per age category were chosen at random, representing 649 schools. The 2014 assessment will take place between October and November this year. The 2011 report is available here.

Background:

The assessment defines ICT literacy as: “the ability of individuals to use ICT appropriately to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, develop new understandings, and communicate with others in order to participate effectively in society” – the 2011 report pointedly notes “ICT literacy has not focused on programming but on computer use”. The assessment included seven main activities covering topics such as installing software, managing an anti virus, web based research on topics, creating a video about a topic, updating a wiki entry, working with collaborative software,  using email and organising an event using online tools.

The Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) has released a couple of statements over the years that give insight into their acceptable levels of ICT literacy (my emphasis and underlining):

When students leave school they should be “confident, creative and productive users of new technologies, particularly information and communication technologies, and understand the impact of those technologies on society”. – Adelaide Declaration on Australia’s National Goals for Schooling, 1999

Successful learners “have the essential skills in literacy and numeracy and are creative and productive users of technology, especially ICT, as a foundation for success in all learning areas”. – Goal 2, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, 2008

Assessment outcomes (2011): 

• 62% of Year 6 students reached or exceeded “proficient standard” (49% in 2005 and 57% in 2008)
• 65% of Year 10 students reached or exceeded “proficient standard” (61% in 2005)
• Children of parents working in “unskilled, manual and sales jobs” were less proficient than those in “senior manager and professional” jobs – Year 6 (50% v 79%) and Year 10 (57% v 78%) students
• Children of Indigenous parents were less proficient than those of non-Indigenous – Year 6 (31% v 64%) and Year 10 (36% v 66%)
• Regionally ACT is streaks ahead of the other states/territories in terms of student proficiency
• ACT, Victoria and NSW were generally more proficient than WA, Qld, Tasmania and NT
• Tasmania and Northern Territory were the only two regions to NOT show an increase in proficiency from 2005 to 2011
• Queensland showed the greatest proficiency difference between Year 6 (55%) and Year 10 (63%) students

Student perceptions of Using ICT:

Students indicated a high level of interest and enjoyment in using computers. Males recorded higher levels of interest than females and Year 6 students expressed greater interest in using ICT than Year 10 students. Year 6 and Year 10 students showed themselves confident that they could easily download music from the internet, upload files to a website and create a multi-media presentation (with sound, pictures, video). They were less confident about their ability to construct a web page or create a database. There were no differences between males and females in terms of confidence in using ICT, but there were significant differences between Year 6 and Year 10: Year 10 students expressed higher levels of confidence in using ICT than Year 6 students. [Excerpt]

Gender in ICT:

Females recorded higher levels of ICT Literacy than males. Even though female students expressed lower levels of interest and enjoyment than males in computing, they expressed similar levels of confidence in their ability to carry out ICT-based tasks without assistance. [Excerpt]

My thoughts:

You can see I have underlined the assessment’s emphasis on “using technology”. So much of what I do and what I read is about the need to shift mentalities away from ‘using’ and into ‘creating/making’. I see the purpose of measuring base level proficiency – particularly when there are circumstances where children of some families (unskilled labour) score between 20-30% less than those of whose parents are managers and professionals. In that context, it sounds like there are some base level needs that should be addressed before we start concentrating on  training up armies of computer scientists capable of creating a generation of high growth tech jobs for Australia’s future economy.

I wrote this post to raise a couple of points:

• Australia does have a digital literacy assessment that is tracking proficiency over time
• There are wide variations in proficiency based on geography, parental backgrounds and whether you are from a minority or marginalised group
• The current assessment focuses on basic use of technology to perform everyday tasks – not coding or more advanced computer science concepts
• … in the future, hopefully after the uptake of the new Digital Technologies Curriculum, it should start addressing these areas