Claire Amos

This post was originally written Education Review Series -  Sector Voices: the biggest challenge facing education There are a number of issues that come to mind when pondering this question; that society is changing so much faster than the schools who fail to keep up through a lack of infrastructure or lack of perceived need to transform or the the academic “tail” that so oft seems to serve as a political cat o' nine tails to flagellate New Zealand educators. However the one issue I actually see as our biggest challenge is our national models of assessment at both primary and secondary level. I believe it is now time to begin a nationwide discourse about how we might re-design national assessment in order to drive change in curriculum design in all NZ schools in order to improve outcomes for all. One of the biggest issues with national assessment is also one of the biggest bonuses - quite simply, national assessment is the ‘tail that wags the dog’ in education. What we me...

This post was originally written as part of a 'Thoughts on the future of EdTech' blog series on the Ed Personnel Blog . “The only constant is change.”   - Heraclitus There are two things that strike me when thinking about the future of EdTech. Firstly it’s the fact that we are quite simply incapable of “knowing” what EdTech might look like in the future and even what we “imagine” seems to be limited by what we already do. For instance, when educators are asked to predict the future of EdTech it concerns me that they often appear to be simply predicting current best practice becoming more widespread. Not exactly aspirational. Secondly, there is the fact that the EdTech itself is actually nowhere as interesting as the potential transformation of the wider pedagogical landscape that EdTech will make possible. “The future is unknowable but not unimaginable.” - Ludwig Lachman If I were to be safe in my thoughts on the future of EdTech I would focus on how EdTech ...