10 top Covid-19 articles (education) - lessons for the future from National Institute of Digital Learning

 NZ has had another incidence of community Covid-19 :( reminding all of us to be vigilant and prepared for any eventuality, including the need for educational insitutes to move back to 'distance learning'. At the moment, the one community case is geographically confined to Northland, so the South Island is in the clear for the moment (whew), but we must not be complacent and ensure plans are in place for a smooth transition. This is especially so, after the rushed shift last year.

The National Institue of Digital Learning based at the University of Dublin in Ireland, has provided a good resource, summarising their 10 top articles from the education research sector, on Covid-19 experiences and initiatives.

Not all the articles featured are open access, but the blog provides good summaries/overviews of each article.

The prevalent themes are the importance of leadership, across the sector and institutions, to ensure there are planned and supported responses. The rushed, ad hoc 'emergency remote teaching' needs to be replaced by planned development of online learning. Leaderships is also required NOW to ensure issues of digital equity and literacy and addressed, BEFORE the need to draw on these two challenges. Without access to hardware and infrastructure capable of running the platforms selected for distance learning and the literacies required to engage with online learning, all aspects of learning are terminated before they can even begin :( The preparation of educators is also featured in this article (open access). 

Of note is this article (open access) warning of the rush to put in place 'educational technology solutions' when 'non-digital' solutions may actually be just as relevant, engaging and/or effective. This is especially the case with practice-based learning, which is challenging to provide for through online learning. 

Looks like an interesting week ahead as NZ reactions to the community spread evolves.

Learn Tech Asia - Interview with Dr. Soon Joo Gog -

 Caught up with various postings on LinkedIn last week and found the link to an interview with Dr. Soon Joo Gog, Chief Futurist, Skills Officer and Research Officer at SkillsFuture in Singapore. I first met up with Soon Joo when she was Director of the Institute of Adult Learning and since then, have kept in touch and met up off and on when I have been in the region.

She has always provided a pragmatic but scholarly perspective, on the impact of the 4th Industrial revolution/Industry 4.0, on work and learning.

In this video on an interview conducted by Learn Tech Asia, she shares her learning on 'purposeful learning'. The site archives the whole interview, but also excerpts on 'how does technology help learning', 'how can skills gaps be avoided', 'how adult education institutions change' and 'can upskilling and reskilling fix unemployment'. A good overview and summary of how one country, deals with the challenges within the constrains and opportunities of their social, economic and political affordances.

The Learn Tech Asia site itself is also a useful resource on Asian innovation in the learning technologies area. For example, LMSs like zilearn,  developed to be sympathetic to the needs of Asian institutes of learning and learners. The CEO of Kydon group who developed zilearn, provides an opinion piece on the top 10 skills for tomorrow's jobs. 

Plans for 2021

 

After the challenges of last year, this is written with some trepidation!

Internationally, the pandemic continues, causing many of the world’s population to be living constrained lives. Here in NZ life is more or less normal, apart from the closed borders. International travel will be expensive and challenging for the foreseeable future. The advent of COVID-19 vaccines will hopefully help a return to ‘normality’. The roll out of vaccines in NZ will be mid-2021.

Apart from the pandemic, there is also the consolidation of Te Pukenga as the management team ‘beds-down’ and many of the initiatives, now in planning, actually become reality. All the various ITPs and ITOs will cease to exist end of the year. Te Pukenga becomes the one employer and the main provider of NZ VET from the beginning or 2022. It will be the 35^th largest tertiary institution in the world.

Meanwhile, another year begins and there is a need to sort out plans for the year.

There are several items to work through:

-         -  Programme development work continues with several programmes to shepherd through the programme documentation process and then supported as first semester’s courses begin. I am working on two degrees – Bachelor of Social work and Bachelor of Design and several other smaller programmes, including the Diploma in Agricultural Management (Level 5).

-         -  I will need to bring together some sort of collaborative project – possibly in the area of flexible learning for apprenticeships – with the other ITPs and Transitional ITOs that are now part of Te Pukenga.

-         - There is a need to work on at least one journal article for publication into 2022!

-        -  I hope to bring together an edited book, recording the contemporary VET landscape in NZ before all the ITPs and ITOs become Te Pukenga.

-          -  I need to get to grips with the co-editorship role for the International Journal of Training Research.

-          -  At present, I have a paper for presentation at the annual FLANZ conference in April. I may put in a paper for either AVETRA or NCVER no-frills if these are offered online. There will no doubt be many opportunities to attend various other relevant conference online as well.

-          - I am also going to work on a draft for another book focused on learning design for VET. There seems to be a large gap in this area! But book will not be published until 2023/2024, thereabouts.

So lots on my plate, but having a plan is always a good first step.