Category Archives: impact of mobile technology on children’s education

Digitally Connected and Proficient at Three

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

Children born into digitally connected families will likely be digitally connected and proficient by the age of three, be operating in the state of being digital, and have adopted the natural mode of learning with the digital they will use throughout life.

The implications of this quite recent global development are potentially profound, but still largely unseen.

The new reality became increasingly apparent in researching the authors’ Digitally Connected Families (Lee and Broadie, 2018a) and readying A Guide for Digitally Connected Families (in press). In examining the digital education of the world’s young since 1993, in and outside the school walls, and analysing the key developments in the period, particularly within the pre-primary years the following pattern emerged.

What we now know is that the children will likely learn with the digital from the day they are born – if not before –  and mum and dad post the first photos and videos of the newborn to their friends and social networks.

The parents – indeed the family’s – every use of the touchscreen technology will be observed, internalised and mimicked by the child from that day on. In the same way children have always learned.

By the latter part of the first year of life the child will be trying to swipe on the family smartphones and tablets. By the latter part of the second year, and most assuredly by the third most children will be readily using all the main functions of the smartphones and tablet, will have begun taking control of their learning with the digital and using the laissez faire mode of learning with the digital (Chaudron, 2015), (Lee and Broadie, 2018).

By three the signs and research (Chaudron, 2015) suggest most of the world’s children in digitally connected families will be largely directing their own learning with the digital.

Moreover, they will naturally, though unwittingly, be operating in the state of being digital (Lee and Broadie, 2018b), having adopted a strong digital mindset, and grown and be using the core capabilities they have acquired in their natural informal learning with the digital (Lee and Broadie, 2018a).

As with much learning in the formative years of life the die is seemingly largely cast very early, well before the children start school.

By three they will likely have adopted for life an approach to learning with the digital almost diametrically opposite to that used in most schools.  While more research is required, particularly into the likely inherent aspects of being digital, ten plus years use of the touchscreen technology by the pre-primary globally, and a recognition of the children’s use of their inherent visual intelligence already provides an important insight into the pattern of learning.

As indicated in ‘Being Digital’ (Lee and Broadie, 2018b) in many respects the learning timeframe with the digital mirrors the young’s learning how to speak, and the educational importance of speech.

Tellingly both capabilities are largely in place before most governments play any formal role in the children’s education.

Unwittingly from birth the parents – and likely the brothers and sisters, and possibly the grandparents –  become the child’s first and prime digital ‘teachers’.

None of the family have any say in the appointment. Their every move with the digital in the child’s presence, astute or ill-judged, will – like many other aspects of learning – be observed and mimicked. All parents will have seen their mannerisms in using their mobile replayed.

The lesson for all digitally connected families – and not simply the parents – is that if they want their children to use the digital astutely in growing an apt and balanced holistic education the family must model the desired digital usage, the values it wants to grow, and as family agree on the ground rules that will be ‘taught’.  If the parents immerse themselves in their own kit – if they immediately respond to every ping and call, even in the middle of a meal – those are the values the child will likely mimic and learn.

The bit of being digital that is set in stone from age three is the absolute awareness that being connected aids their learning, and that connectedness is highly visual and aural, as well as being textual, and includes connection with people as well as information. They have probably also internalised that they can interact creatively with the digital environment and everything in it, to aid their learning.

Hence the comparison with learning to speak, in that it is messy, diverse, involves a lot of trial and error and has concepts built and rebuilt from a multitude of influences.

The potential for learning of kids that are digital is appreciably greater than for those of us who grew up pre-digital, with only our parents and limited friends to ask, verbally not visually.

It is a new global reality all families – and indeed educators – need to understand and address.

The corollary of this development is that children born into families not digitally connected – by circumstances or parent choice – will not be operating digitally by the age of three. They will likely show few of the attributes of being digital, until they normalise the 24/7/365 use of the digital.

To what extent the lag will place them at odds with their peers, will set them apart from their friends, and the children without will be disadvantaged in a digitally connected world we don’t know at this stage.

We can however appreciate why nearly all the digitally connected families of the world have chosen to give their children access to the digital technology from birth, and why today across the developed world in the region of 80% plus of pre-primary children (Chaudron, 2015), Johannsen, 2016) (Rideout, 2017) either own or have ready access to a tablet.

We can also understand how a three year old girl in a digitally connected family in Nairobi has in a $US22 smartphone the facility, with the support of her family. to fundamentally change that girl’s education and life.

Conclusion

The first and most important step for all – parents, older siblings, carers, grandparents, early childhood educators and researchers and governments – is to recognise the new normal, its significance and to openly discuss the myriad of implications that flow from this global societal shift.

Not least of those implications is what needs to be done with those families in the developed, underdeveloped and undeveloped world unable to afford digital connectivity for the newborn, and from what age?

Being Digital

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

 In 1995 Nicholas Negroponte wrote in his seminal work of ‘being digital’.

The book didn’t define what was meant by ‘being digital’, but simply exemplified what it was likely to mean.

Twenty plus years later, and the movement from an analogue to digital society and with more than half the world digitally connected we can go a long way to clarifying what is ‘being digital’, and to attest why the growth of this capability is critical to the life and education of world’s young, from birth onwards.

Over the last twenty plus years, but particularly the last ten society worldwide has largely unwittingly adapted it ways to accommodate the Digital Revolution and naturally evolved a mode of learning with the digital, from birth onwards (Lee and Broadie, 2018).

It is the state of being digital.

It is already core to the young’s learning worldwide outside the schools, on trend to grow in importance as the digital technologies evolve, becomes increasingly sophisticated and powerful, and digital ecosystems underpin virtually all areas of learning.

It is far more than digital proficiency. While dependent on that proficiency, it is a mindset, a mode of thinking, an expression of values, a set of ever rising expectations, an ability to draw on many connected elements, a way of learning and understanding how to learn, a taking charge of one’s own learning, being able to network, to accommodate accelerating change, to continually grow the capabilities and to use them 24/7/365, lifelong.

It is a suite of linked attributes that will naturally evolve in harmony with the evolving digital technologies, technological practises and changing social mores.

It is a suite that simultaneously draws upon and enhances the other areas of learning.

It is moreover a suite that while containing many common features is individualised, with each child in being digital having the capabilities needed to pursue their interests and passions.

It is most emphatically far more than a variant of handwriting or digital literacy.

It is a connected way of learning that is richer, higher order and more diverse, which can amplify all the non-digital learning interactions.

As the children within digitally connected families grow, mature, develop their cognitive, inter and intrapersonal abilities, become sexually aware, build relationships, socially network, operate at a higher order of thinking and continually attune their ways to the evolving technology so they will develop their own form of being digital – and will continue doing so, in subtly different ways, at the various stages of life.

Being digital as a low caste child in Mumbai, a Masai herder’s boy, a seven year old girl in Riyadh, a ten year old in outback Australia, an Inuit teen or a sixteen year old in Vancouver, Seoul, Sao Paulo or Edinburgh will in many ways be different. But that said all those young people will also have many common attributes, not least is being digitally connected and able to take charge of their learning with the digital lifelong – albeit in their respective cultures, outside the classroom.

The global variability, the continual evolution, and the individualised and highly integrated nature of being digital should quash any moves by education authorities to try and assess the capability, and particularly to try and compare student attainment nationally and internationally. But let us be clear and affirm that the billion plus digitally connected young have never had need for their being digital to be formally assessed (Lee and Broadie, 2018) and that it would be educationally invalid, inappropriate and unnecessary to do so.

Rather let’s recognise what being digital is, and appreciate that in many respects it mirrors the development, importance and the way schools handle children’s ability to speak.

They both grow naturally from birth onwards, if not earlier.

Both likely build on inherent capabilities. With speech those inherent capabilities have been obvious for thousands of years.  Being digital draws extensively, particularly with the very young, upon what has been for centuries a largely dormant visual intelligence (Strom and Strom, 2009) that was most obviously brought into play from 2007 and the release of the various touchscreen technologies. While employed increasingly from the 90’s the visuals controls of the iPhone were a game changer, allowing all the young, and not just the teens to readily use and learn with the technology (Lee and Broadie, 2018).

The visual cues on the touchscreen suddenly made it simple for those in the first year of life to mimic their parents and siblings use of the technology, and by the age of three to largely establish the approach to learning with the digital they would use lifelong. By three most children born into digitally connected families will have normalised the 24/7/365 use of the digital, to the extent its use is so natural as to be invisible.

Both are of critical educational importance in a digital economy, and need to underpin all learning.

Tellingly both have been naturally grown by the family, with government and its pre- schools and schools playing a limited or no part, except with children who have difficulties.

Tellingly – but invariably forgotten – in an era where the focus is on the basics and testing the young’s ability to speak has rarely been rarely formally assessed. The development has been left to the family.

The big difference between the two vital capabilities is that while the importance of speaking has been understood for literally thousands of years the educational centrality of being digital is a long way from being fully appreciated by most in authority.

Most governments and schools worldwide have over the last twenty to thirty years have tinkered with aspects of learning with the digital. They have focussed on some of the parts and never the totality of being digital. They have toyed with programming, web design, learning to use Office, cyber safety and more recently coding, but only ever within the school walls, always deciding which aspects of being digital are appropriate to be taught and assessed – and which should not.

It is difficult to find schools that have naturally grown Negroponte’s concept of being digital.

It is similarly difficult to find schools or education authorities who recognise being digital is a state of mind, with immediate access to an integrated suite of digitally based capabilities, coupled with the facility to use any of the capabilities and the understanding of how to learn when desired 24/7/365. They seem not to have grasped that the suite has evolved naturally, been individually shaped and can’t – like the facility to speak – be validly measured.

They most assuredly haven’t been formally recognised in their teaching, assessment or resourcing the young’s being digital outside the school walls, or the central role the digitally connected families of the world have played over the last twenty plus years (Lee and Broadie, 2018) in facilitating and supporting the growth of that development.

It is time this critical capability is seen, understood and accorded the kind of recognition given the ability to speak, and the educational, social, economic and logistical implications of being digital addressed as part of a wider contemporary education.

The latter we’ll tackle in a follow up article.

With the advantage of hindsight and historical analysis (Lee and Broadie, 2018) there might be value in pursuing the reading example further, accepting with being digital that the die will be largely cast by the age of three, that the young of the world will lifelong employ in their use of and learning with the digital the suite of attributes associated with being digital – regardless of what government of schools might desire – and leave the core digitally based education to the families.

It is a radical thought, with immense implications, but there is much to be said for formal education complementing and adding value to the work of the digitally connected families, and ceasing senselessly trying to compete with the families in growing the young’s ‘being digital’.

Conclusion

At this point in history ask any digitally aware parent or grandparent what they understand by ‘being digital’ and they’ll likely quickly grasp the concept, but initially only at a rudimentary level, and that it will likely be only when prompted will they appreciate the many linked universal elements and their significance.

The same folk will likely also pick up the reality that they – like the other 3.65 billion plus digitally connected of all ages are also ‘being digital’. While the strength will vary let’s remember there will be seventy year olds who have played a lead role in using and learning with the digital since the 1970’s who in their thinking and actions have long ‘being digital’.

The new but largely unrecognised reality is that in the twenty plus years since Negroponte postulated being digital the world’s digitally connected peoples have become so.

  • Lee, M and Broadie, R (2018) Digitally Connected Families. And the Digital Education of the World’s Young, 1993 – 2016, Armidale, Australia, Douglas and Brown – http://douglasandbrown.com/publications/
  • Negroponte, N (1995) Being Digital Sydney Hodder and Stoughton
  • Strom, P and Strom, R.D (2009) Adolescents in the Internet Age Charlotte, Information Age Publishing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Educational Implications of Natural Sustained Informal Learning with the Digital

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Mal Lee

The article posted yesterday on the young’s out of school learning with the digital raises all manner of questions, and potentially has many profound implications for the education and schooling of the young.

It addresses a series of global developments that have thus far rarely been discussed or even considered by educators.

In this brief post, I’d like to flag but a few, and bid folk think about the implications.

  1. Probably the most significant is thenatural sustained and informal nature of the learning with the digital. – albeit outside the schools

What the history of the last twenty plus year’s reveals is that a billion plus digitally connected young worldwide have of their own volition, in a completely laissez faire environment, naturally learned a suite of common capabilities. All emerged unplanned, unintended from the seeming chaos of the Digital Revolution.

Most schools, teachers and governments have played no part in that learning, and the digital connectivity of near on 60% of the world’s young.

Of note is that by as early as 1998 the Tapscott research had noted the natural informal learning at play in the emergence of the universal mores the young of the world had adopted in their use of the Net.

In 2004, a very good Futurelab study by Sefton-Green succinctly flagged the growing importance of the informal out of school learning with the digital – at a point before the full impact of the mobile and particularly the smartphone technology had kicked in.

In readying the Digitally Connected Families Roger Broadie and I identified as mentioned 28 common capabilities.

Depending how on how one does the clarification there could be 26 – there could be 30.

What was clear was that out of the seeming chaos had come order.

That challenged the concept that all learning had to be planned, structured and sequential – and taught by school teachers.

  1. Focus on learning how to learn. Of note in yesterday’s paper is that only about a quarter of the common capabilities had to do with the digital proficiency.

The rest had to do with how an empowered young, directing their own learning with the digital learned how to learn – to take charge of all their learning with the technology, and to position themselves to do so lifelong.

And critically to do so in any area of learning they wish.

The great educational thinkers have long urged the development of this key capability but it is rarely tackled in schools.

The implications of this development alone are profound – particularly as the technology becomes more sophisticated.

  1. The third point relates to the sustained naturally evolving nature of the learningwith the digital.

In contrast to the schools there was in the learning no sense of a beginning or an ending, rather the sense that learning with the digital would be on-going, lifelong, naturally evolving and changing as the technology evolved.

Outside the school one is looking at a dynamic model – while that in the school is constant. Within the school seemingly there must always be a specified period for the learning – specified outcomes to be achieved and specified pass grade, after which one can say the learning has been done.

Telling with the out of school the only assessment is personal.

There is moreover an acceptance of the imperative of continually staying current lifelong.

  1. The fourth issue is the ability of schools to genuinely assist the learning with the digital.

The time has come to seriously ask can schools assist enhance the out of school learning with the digital – or might most hold it back?

Aside from the exceptional, most schools, even if they wanted to assist, would be unwilling to accept the five conditions critical to achieving digital normalization.

Schools that are of a mind to ban the kids gear will not be of a mind to assist the parents

And sadly, most schools as linear hierarchical Industrial Age organisations, tightly constrained by government lack the agility/the flexibility to remain abreast of the accelerating technological change – and to support kids operating at the cutting edge – even they were of a mind to do so!

 

As we move at pace to a totally digitally connected planet, with near every child from around age three normalizing the 24/7/365 use of the digital it is time to start discussing the likely implications – rather than opting to ban and totally abrogate the responsibility.

 

Natural Sustained Informal Learning with the Digital

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Outside the School Walls

Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

The last twenty plus years reveal how successful the young of the world and their digitally connected families have been in learning with the digital informally in a naturally sustained manner – albeit outside the school walls (Lee and Broadie, 2018).

Sadly, that learning, like the success of the digitally connected families has been largely unseen.

It is time it is. and its global and historic significance is recognised, and the vital learning built upon.

Most when thinking about the young’s learning with the digital focus on the technological proficiency of the billion plus digitally connected young.

That proficiency with the current personal technologies is critical to the young’s all pervasive use and learning with the digital. However, in the total scheme of things far more important is the young, with the support of their families naturally taking charge of their learning with the technology, learning how to learn of their volition and with others, and being able to naturally sustain the learning in whatever domain/s they wish, lifelong.

Remarkably the billion plus digitally connected young have in a completely laissez faire, seemingly chaotic world in their use and learning with the digital naturally grown a suite of remarkably common capabilities. None of them have been planned, but are a natural unintended flow on from the Digital Revolution and the digital empowerment of the young. We’ve identified twenty-eight (Lee and Broadie, in press). Time and research might identify a few more, or few less.

What is important is that three quarters of the capabilities relate to the young’s learning how to learn, and only a quarter with the digital proficiency.

All are capabilities the young learn very early, well before school age and then grow throughout life.

With each child taking charge of his/her learning with the digital, and pursuing their interests and passions in addition to the common capabilities each will also have their own special capabilities, some being of a very high order.

A telling and fundamental difference between the young’s learning with the digital in and outside the school walls is that while of the school learning is constant that outside is dynamic, and naturally evolving, lifelong.

It is a significant difference, that few have noted.

In the school teaching the experts determine what is to be learned, how, by when and how it will be assessed and reported upon at the course conclusion. There is very much a beginning and an ending, and with the final assessment the sense that the learning – or at least a segment of – is completed.

In contrast the learning with the digital outside the school is decided upon and directed by the learner, learning what is desired, when and how, with there being no obvious beginning or end to the learning.  It begins at birth and will likely continue to death, as the digital continues its evolution. The control and nature of the learning will evolve in harmony with the technological change, going a long way to ensuring the young naturally accommodate exponential change.

Digital proficiency

The digital proficiency of the young is probably best expressed in the reality that near 60%, soon to be 70% of the world’s young are digitally connected (Ericsson, 2016), (Futuresource, 2017) and have normalised the 24/7/365 use of the current personal technologies in most every facet of their lives and learning.

The proficiency has to do with what the young at various stages of life want to do with the digital in their daily lives now, rather than what the ‘experts’ believe should be mastered for future application.

While the level of proficiency will vary with age, interest, expertise and support the bottom line for the first time in human history over half the world’s young are digitally connected, on trend in not many years for virtually all to be connected, able to instantly access and work largely unfettered the learning and resources of the networked world.

It a stark new reality, with immense implications that most governments, bureaucrats and schools have yet to seemingly grasp.

As is the reality that the young of the world have learnt – and will forever on learn – what they want, not simply what those in authority desire.

Moreover, twenty plus years reveals the digitally connected young will continue to grow the capabilities they desire outside the school walls – regardless of what governments or schools believe is important.

In their learning, they have demonstrated from around age three their ability to readily work the core functionality of the current personal and family digital technologies (Chaudron, 2015) – the smartphones, tablets remote controls, digital peripherals, games consoles, digital and video cameras, digital TVs, PVRs, home entertainment systems and the increasingly integrated family ecosystem.

Well before they can read, or start school they have learned to navigate the networked world and use the apt medium to access the desired functions.

Moreover, they have learnt to use the various digital communications facilities, largely toll free, strongly favouring the latest video communication technologies.

Over the last twenty plus years they have also learnt to use the new media creatively in the pursuit of their passions, unbounded by the traditional ways, and once again to do so from a very early age.  You’ve undoubtedly observed the many diverse and creative ways your own children or grandchildren have used the technology.

Contrary to the views expressed by many politicians and older members of society the research affirms (Lenhart, et.al, 2013). (Lee and Broadie, in press) teens have for many years been tech-savvy. Invariably they – operating as they are at the cutting edge – understand the dangers well before their elders and the policy makers.  That said the very young, with still forming minds require family guidance, and in general terms are not cognitively ready to use the Net unsupervised until around ten (Strom and Strom, 2010).

Learning how to learn

In examining the learning with the digital outside the school walls over the last twenty plus years what stands out is the young’s ability to take charge of their learning, to do so from the outset, to direct and individualise that learning and to learn how to learn (Lee and Broadie, 2018).

And as indicated to do so in a naturally sustained manner lifelong.

With their strong digital mindset, and rising expectations the digital technology underpins all their learning.  Their first step is to use the digital and the connectivity, unlike many older folk who default to the traditional ways.

Allied is their ability to teach other folk, particularly those older to use the new technology, and naturally contribute to the family’s learning.

They very quickly – well before formal schooling – become self-learners, with that vital educational ability to shape their learning with the digital, underpinning all they do.

In being empowered and trusted, and given the freedom to use the technology largely unfettered they soon learn what they want to learn, how and when, and vitally quickly identify when they need to improve that capability and how best to do so.  They very quickly, from the mid 90’s onwards, and from early life learned the art of improving the learning by themselves, with the aid of the technology or in collaboration with the family, peers and social network (Lee and Broadie, 2018). As the Pew research notes (Purcell, et.al, 2012) Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and the peers are called upon far more than any teacher.

And they don’t need to be tested!  Like all of us they reflect on their performance and when desired improved it.

In being free to use the digital as desired the young soon learn to use the technology and the Net to pursue their interests and passions, enhancing their learning in the area/s of interest, to an often very considerable extent (Ito, et.al, 2013). It matters not if it is pursuing an interest in contemporary music, astronomy, blogging, fashion design, apiary, drone piloting, professional gaming or coding apps. While kids have always had this freedom in their informal learning the parent’s provision of the technology overnight removed the traditional adult gatekeepers and allowed them to draw upon resources of the Net, the moment desired.

It moreover enabled them to decide the best approach to the learning. They – and not an adult – decide when to employ a discovery based, didactic or highly repetitive learning approach.

Similarly, each child chooses the digital tools they needed for the task at hand.

From the mid 90’s the adolescents and in time the very young – like all of us – soon learned the unwritten ways of the digital and online worlds, the parameters to work within, the universal mores to be observed and when they had crossed the boundaries.

Allied, in taking charge of the use of and learning with the digital the young from the 1990s have made extensive and increasing use of the connected world and human networking, it long being a natural, almost invisible part of their normalised use of the digital. Unwittingly, and initially unseen, the young increasingly build the number of contacts they can readily call upon for all manner of support when desired.

Very quickly the young abandoned the traditional academic boundaries used in the schools, and adopted a more integrated approach to learning, drawing on whatever areas of learning thought suitable (Lee and Broadie, in press).

Largely unseen the young also learned to make ever greater use of their visual intelligence in all they did.  This was particularly apparent in the two and three-year old children’s use of the touchscreen mobile technology (Chaubron, 2015), but it was – as you might have noted – apparent at all age levels and in the burgeoning use of video and images.

From the mid 2000’s the young increasingly grew the art of mobile learning, and using the resources in their hands, 24/7/365, just in time and in context. That preference for the mobile technologies is evidenced even when at home, where desktops in designated rooms gather dust. The young from very early in life don’t see the need to learn only in a physical place; unlike governments and schools that remain site fixated.

What should be stressed is that these are all vital educational capabilities in a rapidly evolving, uncertain and complex world, where it is essential to know how to learn with the digital, lifelong.

They might not feature in government education priorities but they are the vital generic capabilities the great educational thinkers have been arguing schools should develop for aeons.

Enhancing the learning

Over the last quarter of a century the young of the world have in historic terms learned to learn with the digital remarkably quickly and well, not only continually enhancing their digital proficiency but also their ability to take charge of their own learning with the technology.

However, the exponential digital evolution, with its increasingly powerful, sophisticated, integrated and complex technology and practises, and their global impact demands the world’s young continually enhance their capability.

Much will on current trends will continue to happen naturally. As the technology evolves so naturally will the requisite personal learning.

But there is the opportunity to lift the learning with the digital even higher, particularly now we better understand what has been learned and how.

The natural inclination is to look to schools to provide that enhancement.

Sadly, twenty plus years of history (Lee and Broadie, 2018) suggests aside from some exceptional schools that enhancement is not likely to come from them. Not only aren’t most of a mind to collaborate with the families, nor are culturally ready to embrace the five critical conditions required but all are still operating in linear, hierarchical Industrial Age organisations that lack the agility to accommodate accelerating change – even if governments allowed the schools to change.

Most lag so far behind where the young are at attitudinally and with the cutting-edge technologies all they would do is impede the young’s enhancement.

We accept that governments and most educators would not be of that view.

But the reality is that governments and schools that ban or markedly constrain the in-class use of the student’s mobile technologies and by default throw the responsibility to the family are not likely to provide any worthwhile assistance.

The enhancement most likely will come from the family building upon its better understanding the learning with the digital, its increasingly powerful digitally based ecosystem and it more deliberately growing the learning. It is its better understanding of how to learn, providing an increasingly sophisticated and powerful ecosystem, and as family more openly addressing the enhancement that will bring the improvement.

It will hopefully in time be the digitally connected families of the world shouting from the rooftops what they have achieved that will open society’s, government’s and school’s eyes to what has been achieved and what is possible.

Conclusion

The best learning practice with the digital has for years been evidenced in the digitally connected families of the world – and most assuredly not in its Industrial Age schools.

It is appreciated this view runs counter to the in-school and government thinking but it is time for educators and governments to look outside the school walls and recognise the natural sustained learning with the digital that has occurred, and is occurring daily, with most of the world’s young – outside the school.

With the digital it is imperative to examine what has happened, is happening and the major global trends, not simply at what governments want to happen.

In the natural, sustained learning with the digital most schools and governments have long been dealt out of the main game.

 

Parent Responsibility for Learning with the Digital

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Mal Lee

[ This is intended as a discussion starter for use with both the parents and the staff, addressing a core issue rarely discussed].

The moment you give your children the digital technology you are responsible for its use and your children’s learning with the digital.

Not the school, not government, nor the technology companies, the internet providers, siblings or grandparents, but you. All the others can, and should assist, but ultimately you are responsible – likely to an extent few have thought about.

Moreover, you’ll be responsible until adulthood.

Not only do the parents have the moral, legal and ultimately the educational responsibility, but twenty years of history and over a billion digitally connected young globally have demonstrated that the parents are far better placed than any other body to enhance their children’s learning with the digital.

It is time to recognise the responsibility shown by the parents of the digitally connected young, to laud their achievements and to acknowledge the educational leadership role they have played and must continue to play, from the beginning of their children’s lives.

But it is also time for society to build on their success and understand that it will be the young and their digitally connected families – and not the schools – that will increasingly lead the way in learning with the digital – regardless of what schools or governments desire.

Governments, and particularly the schools like to believe that they are charge, and that only they have the expertise to provide the desired digital education. Indeed, most governments would contend that in closely controlling the use of the digital in the schools they are complete control of the young’s digital education.

They are not. And have not been for twenty plus years (Lee and Broadie, in press).

They assume learning equates with schooling, and that learning with the digital only takes place in schools.  They don’t appear to understand that 80% plus of the young’s learning time annually is spent outside the school walls, that more than half the world’s young have successfully learned to use the current technologies outside the school walls or that increasingly pre-primary children will start school having already normalised the use of the digital – with no input from the schools or government.

Globally governments and most schools have long demonstrated little or no understanding of learning with the digital in a Digital Revolution that is daily transforming the ways of the world (Lee and Broadie, 2017) (Lee and Broadie, in press). They mostly opted to stay with the traditional ways, within insular hierarchically controlled Industrial Age organisations, where teachers teach and assess year in and year out much the same as when you were young. There has invariably been no place in those schools for the children’s digital technologies or that learned with the digital outside the school walls. Indeed, France in late 2017 decided to ban mobiles in all its schools.

Not surprisingly the schools were very early dealt out of the digital education play, likely to remain so.

The ability of schools, even the most visionary, to match the learning with the digital provided outside the school walls, is impossible. Schools as public institutions controlled by government, bureaucrats, resourcing, working conditions, legislation, law, accountability requirements, inflexible organizational structures and history can never respond to the accelerating digital evolution and transformation in the same way as the highly agile digitally connected families of the world. Even if governments wanted its schools to change, or indeed to collaborate with the families.

In a world where the young are digitally connected 24/7/365 and expect to use their personally configured mobile technologies to learn in context the moment desired, anywhere, anytime, at speed, and largely unfettered they are not going to find that opportunity in most schools. Rather they will find themselves distrusted and disempowered, with the limited learning time tightly controlled, their every use of the digital supervised, connectivity restricted, their use of their personal technologies likely banned and the facility to direct their own learning with the digital denied – all supposedly for their protection and well-being.

The history of learning with the digital over the last quarter of a century has seen the schools each year lag ever further behind the out of school use, struggling – or not even attempting – to handle the accelerating pace of digital evolution.

As the research (Friedman, 2016), (Deloitte, 2017), and common sense will attest only the young within highly agile and supportive digitally connected families can hope to accommodate the current exponential digital evolution. All organisations, even the digital masters are now struggling to keep pace with fifty plus years of exponential change.

Over the last twenty plus years the young of the world have been to the fore with virtually every technological development – and are on trend to continue to be so – in large because of the support of their parents and digitally connected families.

What parents need to do now is to appreciate the role they have played, consider how they can better play that role and why it must be the parents of the digitally connected young who take ultimate responsibility for their children’s learning with the digital.

The Impact of the Unintended on the Digital Education of the World’s Young, 1993 – 2016

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

The history of the digital education of the world’s young over the last twenty plus years reveals the natural unintended, unplanned enhancement has been far greater, and far more effective than the planned.

The emergence of the digitally connected family, the global adoption of the laissez faire model of digital education, the historic change in the nature of youth, and youth education, the very young’s embrace of touch screen technology, the global move to 24/7/365 mobile learning and the facility for the illiterate young to use the networked world were all a natural consequence of the Digital Revolution.

The same natural unintended flow on was evidenced throughout society.

None of the developments were planned.

All evolved naturally, unintended and cost governments nothing.

In contrast, all the planned, highly resourced tightly controlled efforts by the governments and schools of the world to enhance the young’s digital education had miniscule impact (Lee and Broadie, in press). None of the hyped national ICT or digital technology plans, or the plethora of politically motivated roll outs of the latest technology or the billions spent on those initiatives go close to matching the enhancement brought by the unintended.

That said the success of the unintended was markedly aided by astute individuals, singly, in families and organisations who understood how to shape the megatrends to advantage, and the shortcomings of the totally planned was amplified by governments and schools that believed they were in total control, and didn’t need to address the megatrends or change.

The prevalence of the unintended, the naturally evolving, is a new reality, a major variable that needs to be better understood by all associated with the education of the world’s young. While the focus here is on the megatrends, the Digital Revolution has impacted every facet of the lives of the world’s peoples, fundamentally changing the way all ages and organisations go about their daily business. That now begins with the opening of the apps, and not the newspaper. Not even schools can escape that impact.

In examining the digital education provided worldwide in the period 1993 – 2016, in and outside the schools it was those that simultaneously saw the megatrends, recognised the importance of going digital, had the agency and the leadership that succeeded in shaping the evolving megatrends to advantage. This was evidenced in the digitally connected families of the world, those exceptional schools that normalised the use of the digital and the digital masters, in business (Westerman, et.al, 2014).  They recognised the importance of the digital underpinning all, of identifying and using the megatrends, of operating as self-regulating units and playing a lead role in shaping the desired future (Katzenbach and Khan, 2009), (Helbing, 2014), (Kane, et.al, 2017), (Lee and Broadie, 2017).

Kane in commenting upon the 2017 MIT Sloan study of digital transformation observed:

The need for transformation won’t abate, even if you successfully transform. It involves ongoing scanning of the environment to recognize evolving trends, continual experimentation to determine how to effectively respond to those trends, and then propagating successful experiments across the company (Kane, 2017).

All understood the imperative of continually identifying, building upon and shaping the evolving megatrends, the necessity of continually adapting operations and accommodating the unintended in one’s planning, and the importance of simultaneously accommodating planned linear enhancement and unintended non-linear developments (Thorpe, 1998) (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015). All moreover appreciated that most operations, particularly in organisations like schools and businesses, do have to be carefully planned, managed and measured, but that there are a growing number related to the megatrends that don’t and shouldn’t, and that it requires an astute leadership to get the balance right and to optimize the desired unintended benefits.

The businesses of the world particularly recognised the imperative of getting that balance right, and very real danger of disregarding or resisting the megatrends. All were very aware of what Solis referred to as Digital Darwinism,

…….the phenomenon when technology and society evolve faster than an organization can adapt. (Solis, 2014)

Over the last twenty plus years, as we detail in our forthcoming book on the Digitally Connected Family, most governments and schools did not see – or opt to see – the megatrends, placed limited importance on the digital operational mode, saw no need to distribute their unilateral control of the digital education or to lead the way in shaping a mode of schooling for an exponentially evolving digital and socially networked society. As far back as the early 80’s Naisbitt wrote in Megatrends of the need for the likes of schools to look to:

a network model of organisation and communication, which has its roots in in the natural, egalitarian, and spontaneous formation of groups of like-minded people (Naisbitt, 1984, p217).

Most chose instead to do what they had done for aeons, provide what they believed was best for the young, within the physical place called school, using a highly structured linear education where every aspect was meticulously planned and controlled.  They believed they could, with the help of the experts, could provide the desired digital education within the walls of the traditional hierarchical Industrial Age organisation.

Tellingly from the outset of the Digital Revolution until today they implicitly believed they could control, and if needs be resist the global megatrends, and decide which aspects should be banned and prevented from disrupting the teaching.  This was particularly evidenced in their choice of ‘appropriate’ technologies, the banning of all others and their rejection of the Mobile Revolution. In 2016, judging from the inordinate level of control imposed externally and internally on most teachers use of the digital (Lee and Broadie, in press), the governments of the world likely believed they had total control of the young’s digital education.

Ironically, they lost control the twenty plus years ago. They were slow to, or did not, understand, that 80% plus of the young’s learning time annually was and is spent outside the school walls.  While they unilaterally controlled the artificial world behind the school walls they had long been dealt out of the main game.

The young of the world and their families have long taken control of the digital education from near the beginning of the children’s life onwards (Chaubron, 2015) (Lee and Broadie, 2017c).  From the 90’s all within the digitally connected families of the world naturally adopted the laissez faire model of digital model of digital education, using it unwittingly everyday 24/7/365, continually enhancing their capability. It is a new global norm that goes hand in hand with the ubiquitous use of the personal mobile technology.

The other new but now long established norm is that all worldwide, from two to three years onwards, will for the rest of their lives take charge of their own digital education, learning how to use what they want, when they want (Chaubron, 2015). It will, on the experience of the last twenty plus years, be a highly individualised digital education, where each person shapes the evolving technology as desired.

The only way governments and schools can, twenty plus years on, effectively impact the digital education of the world’s young is to recognise the global use of the laissez faire model, and work to complement and enhance that model.

The Implications.

The implications that flow from the natural evolution and the unintended on the digital education of the world’s young are profound and on trend to grow. As the exponential nature of Moore’s Law kicks in, so the unintended impact of the Digital Revolution will accelerate and widen (Helbing, 2014).

The implications for the governments, education authorities, schools and education researchers of the world are particularly profound. Any who have worked in education, and particularly educational administration and research, will be aware of the belief by those in government, the bureaucracy and school leadership that all operations must be planned, documented, reported upon, evaluated and quantified, with nothing left to chance. Allied was the premise that all change had to be linear in nature and controlled. There was – and is today – no place for natural evolution, unintended benefits or non-linear development. Any who have readied a grant’s, innovation or a research bid will be aware of the mindset, the detail required and the underpinning idea that every outcome can and must be identified.

There was also the assumption that the school was a unique stand-alone, gated community unaffected by the wider digital and socially networked world.

The global impact of the unintended and natural evolution has shattered that convenient illusion.

While mention has been made in previous articles on the natural evolution of the digitally connected family (Lee and Broadie, 2017a), the laissez faire model of digital education (Lee and Broadie, 2017 b) and the pre-primary digital normalisation (Lee and Broadie, 2017 c) it bears reflecting on another very recent unplanned development, that is already on trend to be another game changer. Largely unnoticed in the developed world all the main mail and messaging services have in the last couple of years taken advantage of the developments in artificial intelligence, voice recognition and video compression to provide a simple to operate multi-modal communications facility. One can dictate a note with 95% accuracy (Google, 2017), send a text, audio or video, with a couple clicks. All these facilities are available on $US22 smartphone in Nairobi.

Overnight the illiterate or semi-illiterate young of India, China, Africa and the Americas found themselves able to use their verbal and visual intelligence to communicate with the networked world, using YouTube and the like, without having to use text or the keyboard. They suddenly had in a $US22 smartphone an educational tool that took them into a digital world that would enhance their education, literacy and life chances – regardless of schools or government.

 Conclusion

Over the last twenty plus years the young and the digitally connected families of the world have taken the lead in the digital education of the young, and indeed the wider family, having normalised the whole of family use of the digital for at least a decade (Lee and Broadie, in press) and being part of the of the 3.4 billion plus (ITU, 2016) connected peoples of the world using the digital every day.

Critically they have done it so naturally, successfully, efficiently, at no cost to government, without any grand plan.

Schools and governments have played little or no part in that natural unintended evolution.

As we argue in the Digitally Connected Family, governments and schools could play a significant role in enhancing the digital capability of the world’s young and go some way to redressing the shortcomings of the laissez faire model, but it will require a major rethink on the part of government and its educators.

They will need to acknowledge the natural unintended evolution, recognise they can only ever shape the megatrends, acknowledge they are part of a networked society and appreciate that if schools continue as stand- alone insular institutions they will continue to be dealt out of the play.

 

  • Kane, G.C ‘Digital Transformation’ Is a Misnomer’ (2017)  MIT Sloan Review August 7 2017
  • Kane, G.C, Palmer, D, Phillips, A.N, Kiron, D and Buckley, N. “Achieving Digital Maturity” MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte University Press, July 2017 – https://dupress.deloitte.com/dup-us-en/focus/digital-maturity/digital-mindset-mit-smr-report.html
  • Katzenbach, J.R and Khan, Z (2006) ‘Mobilizing Emotions for Performance: Making th4 Most of Infdormal Organisations.’ In Hesselbeinm, F and Goldsmith, M (eds) (2009) The Organization of the Future 2 San Francisco Jossey-Bass
  • Naisbitt, J (1984) Megatrends London Futura
  • Solis, B, Lieb, R and Szymanski, J (2014) The 2014 State of Digital Transformation Altimeter
  • Westerman, G, Bonnett, D and McAfee, A (2014) Leading Digital. Turning Technology into Business Transformation, Boston, Harvard Business Review Press

 

 

 

 

 

The Global Leadership of Digitally Connected Families

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

In addition to taking prime responsibility for the 24/7/365 digital education of the world’s young the digitally connected families over the last two decades unwittingly took an increasingly greater lead role in the provision of that education.

Critically – and largely unseen- they took that lead worldwide. What we have witnessed over the last twenty plus years – and see today worldwide – is a naturally evolving phenomenon, over which governments and education authorities had held no sway.

In examining the past 20 plus years it soon became obvious that the digitally connected families had – and continue to have – significant advantages over formal schooling in providing the desired rapidly evolving 24/7/365 digital education.

Since the advent of the WWW an empowered young, with the support of their families, have played a lead role in the out of school digital education. Over time they have naturally accommodated the accelerating digital evolution and transformation, while the schools struggled.  The young, with time to explore and a strong desire to share, are often ahead of their parents in the use of digital connectivity. And considerably ahead of their teachers.

With the advantage of hindsight, it is easy to see why, and why even the most visionary and well led of schools took so many years to achieve digital normalisation. The reasons lie in the organisational arrangements, the educational model used and the attitude adopted.

Organisationally the established schools of the world continued to use the tightly controlled, inflexible linear and hierarchical structures that emerged in the Industrial Age, while the digitally connected families employed a highly agile model, able to evolve naturally at pace.

Helbing in commenting on the Digital Revolution reiterated the inability of all manner of bureaucracies to accommodate rapid, uncertain change and the importance of moving to the use of highly agile self-regulating units.

In a rapidly changing world, which is hard to predict and plan, we must create feedback loops that enable systems to flexibly adapt in real time to local conditions and needs (Helbing, 2014).

The shift globally to greater school autonomy was a step in that direction but in examining the plethora of controls imposed by governments and their bureaucrats – controls over the likes of working conditions, the allocation and use of funds, school times, purchasing, imposed digital systems, reconciliation of accounts, treatment of students, the curriculum and the mode and time of assessment it was apparent that ‘autonomy’ was limited.

In contrast the digitally connected homes of the world, operating as small self-regulating units, within a laissez faire environment with their own resources, and responsible for their own children had no such constraints. They could instantly acquire the technologies they wanted and use them as they wished. Quietly over time they have taken advantage of the dynamic highly fluid nature of their situation to quietly create increasingly integrated and powerful digital ecosystems.

The teaching model employed by schools was – and continues to be – highly structured and controlled. It was throughout the period insular in nature, inward looking and fixated on the physical place called school. Education in the use of digital devices was invariably taught within class groups as a discrete subject. The schools followed a set, linear curriculum where the class teacher directed the teaching and student assessment, accommodating all manner of external controls and management checks.

In contrast the digital education model outside the school was completely laissez faire, freewheeling, seemingly chaotic, invariably non-linear, done ‘just in time’, undertaken anytime, anywhere, invariably in context.  It was wholly individualised, directed by the learner’s desires, with she/her deciding where to turn if support was needed.  That said the nature of the teaching and learning adopted was remarkably similar worldwide. It very soon became the new universal normal for the young.

Importantly the self-directed learning with the digital was highly appealing to the young, exciting, intrinsically motivating, with no need for any assessment other than by oneself and through recognition by their peers.

Significantly throughout the period – even though in hindsight they did very well – many parents continually looked for support and direction, and to collaborate with the schools. In the first half of the period this reflected the lack of digital understanding and in the second when the increasingly sophisticated converging technology took the learning to a continually higher plane.

Parents struggled to find that support.

In 2002 Pew Internet studied the digital disconnect between the schools and the homes, noting

Students are frustrated and increasingly dissatisfied by the digital disconnect they are experiencing at school (Pew Internet, 2002).

The genuine collaboration didn’t begin until the late 2000s when the first schools moved to a digital operational mode and recognised its educational sense.  As Lee and Ward (2013) observe, it would appear the home – school collaboration will not occur until schools have gone digital and are ready attitudinally.

The work of the digitally mature schools globally from around 2010 – 2012 demonstrated that schools could with the right principal and mindset play a lead role in the 24/7/365 education of the young – if they are of a mind to recognise and build upon the out of school learning, and genuinely collaborate with their digitally connected families. They had the educational expertise desired by most families, and the ability in a 24/7/365 setting to take the young’s working knowledge of the digital to a significantly higher level.

But it all came down to attitude.

The young and the parents of the world have shown from the advent of the Web – like the visionary school leaders – the importance they attach to their children’s digital learning.

Most governments and school don’t.

Despite the fine sounding rhetoric about the digital the priorities of developed nations are expressed in their basic skills tests.  The priorities expected of principals invariably relate to the perceived basics like PISA score performance and most assuredly not an appropriate holistic education for an evolving digital and socially networked world.

While there are ‘maverick’ digitally mature schools globally pursuing the latter in 2017 they are still rare.

Disturbingly not only are most schools unable to accommodate exponential digital evolution and change, but most – along with their governments – are not interested in so doing.  Even when schools have developed approaches to the use of digital that empower young people and which listen to how they learn best in the digital world, these approaches can atrophy and disappear when leadership changes. This suggests that the ways most teachers perceive their accountability are so strongly linked to traditional industry-age schooling that this can rapidly outweigh the benefits they see of digitally empowering the young, as soon as the school leaders cease to make this a priority.

A telling reality is that a quarter of a century after the advent of the WWW and decades of societal digital transformation globally, digital education performance in schools is still being assessed by paper based exams.

Little is the wonder that the digitally connected homes of the world are taking an increasing lead the 24/7/365 digital education of the young.  Tellingly the 2011 Project Tomorrow report (Project Tomorrow, 2011) noted that while the digitally empowered parents wanted to collaborate with the schools if the schools chose not to the parents would take the lead,

That is what is happening globally, largely unseen. As the strength of the young’s capability to use digital grows, and as industry-age schooling continues to produce only meagre advances in the learning of the young, the stage is being set for a breakdown in parents’ belief in how well their children’s schools are preparing them for life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digitally Connected Families

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Mal Lee and Roger Broadie

(This is the first of four short blogs on the work we are currently undertaking on the impact of the digitally connected families of the world on the 24/7/365 digital education of the young, in the period 1993 – 2016.  For years the focus has been on the schools. We are strongly suggesting the world needs to better understand the lead, and highly laudatory roles of the young and their families, and their 20 plus years use of a highly successful laissez faire learning model.)

The digitally connected families of the world over the last two decades have played a remarkably successful, yet largely unseen, role in enabling their children to secure an ever evolving 24/7/365 digital education.

In researching a forthcoming publication on the impact of personal mobile technologies on the digital education of the world’s young, since the advent of the WWW the role of the family rapidly became clear. It is the young with their families outside the school walls that have primarily provided the requisite digital tools and education – not the schools.

In 2016 3.4 billion plus people (ITU, 2016) – half the world’s population – accessed the networked world.

Well over a billion were likely young people.

Few had learned to use that current, mainly mobile, digital technology in schools. Rather that understanding had been acquired in the developed, developing and underdeveloped worlds with the monies and support of the children’s families.

It is time the world – and particularly the parents, the young themselves, educators, policy makers and governments – recognised, and built upon that remarkable achievement.

Critically it is also time to understand that those families employed – unwittingly but naturally – a laisse faire model of learning and teaching fundamentally different to the traditional highly controlled, structured and sequential school approach. Vitally they have used an approach appropriate for a rapidly evolving digital and socially networked world. Schools in comparison are still very largely using an educational model from the Industrial Age.

The education in using digital devices from the outset occurred outside the school walls. For the parents this happened in a completely laisse faire, market driven, naturally evolving environment where government had no voice and provided no support. For the young it enabled learning from incidental opportunistic moments to in some cases very focused and intense self-driven learning. It was the young with the monies and support of their families who took control of the learning. Critically it was parents who believed in the educational importance of the digital for their children who funded the technology, and empowered and supported their children’s largely unfettered use.

It is – as most are aware – an informal education, largely self – directed, highly individualised where the learning is invariably non-linear, seemingly chaotic, dynamic, undertaken in context and just in time. It is an approach the young found highly appealing, exciting, relevant and intrinsically motivating. From 1993, the advent of the WWW the learning started to take place 24/7/365, and by the early 2000s the evolving technology allowed it to happen anywhere, anytime.

Ironically from the outset the role of the young and the family was bolstered by the schools’ insularity, their worldwide retreat to behind their cyber walls and their purported desire to protect the children from the dangers of the Net.  The young and their families were left by default to fend for themselves in that 80% of learning time available annually outside the school walls.

Disturbingly today many, if not most schools still work behind those walls not recognising, supporting or building upon the out of school digital learning and education. The schools that are notable exceptions to this are engaging with families and supporting the children’s independent learning because of their own drive to do so, often battling education authority regulations and systems.

Free of the constraints of formal schooling and government, the young and their families took charge of the digital education, continually growing their capability as the technology grew in power and sophistication.  Internet uptake figures globally reveal the families of the young led the way (Lee and Winzenried, 2009). In 1999 a comprehensive study of the use of computers in Australian schools concluded:

The majority of the students who have the basic skills developed them at home (Meredyth, et.al, 1999, pxvii).

That was happening naturally and largely unseen globally.

As the young evolved their digital capability and facility to readily use of all manner of current technologies so too did their parents, as evermore used the technology in their work and came to rely on the increasingly sophisticated mobile technology.

In 2008 Pew Internet released a study entitled ‘The Networked Family’ (Pew Internet, 2008) which noted the US had reached the evolutionary stage where the new norm was for all within the family, the parents and the children to base their lives around the everyday use of the digital. They were working within a digital and socially networked mindset, normalising the use of all manner of digital technologies in every facet of their lives.

….this survey finds that couples use their phones to connect and coordinate their lives, especially if they have children at home. American spouses often go their separate ways during the day, but remain connected by cell phones and to some extent by internet communications. When they return home, they often have shared moments of exploration and entertainment on the internet (Pew Internet, 2008).

The Pew findings, coming as they did around the time of the release of the iPhone in 2007, correspond with our own which saw in the period 2007 – 2009 those families becoming the norm across the developed and increasingly the developing world.

The authors and the 50 plus eminent observers interviewed in our research, have concerns about the title ‘networked family’ conscious of the ambiguity that comes with the physical networking of organisations and homes.

The strong preference is for the term ‘digitally connected families’, aware that it is the all-pervasive connectedness provided by the digital that has allowed both the nuclear and extended family to employ the technology in all facets of their lives.

Digitally connected families are those where the parents and children use the evolving suite of digital technologies naturally in every desired facet of their lives, that employ a digital mindset and which have – or nearly have-  normalised the use of the digital.

A key facet of the digital mindset (Bhaduri and Fischer,2015) is its acceptance of the rapidly evolving nature of the technology, and the transformation it has and will continue to occasion. This is widening the gap between the young’s experience of learning in and out of school

They created a home environment where the new norm was for all the family – the children, parents or increasingly the grandparents – to naturally, almost unwittingly contribute to the on-going digital learning. How often does one hear – dad, you can do it easier this way?

In the decade after the release of the iPhone and the touchscreen technology the educational capability and leadership of the digitally connected families grew at pace. As the parents normalised the use of the digital, became more digitally empowered and embraced the mobile and app revolutions, the Net Generation parents’ children entered school and the families of the developing and underdeveloped world employed the technology in ways unbounded by Western educational traditions so the gap between the digital education provided in and out of the schools grew ever wider – with most schools lagging ever further behind the societal norm.

The capability of the digitally connected families of the world has been exemplified in the last 3-4 years as the pre-primary children from two to three years of age have embraced the mobile touch screen technology. As the 2015 European Commission study (Chaubron, 2015) of eleven European nations attests the families of the young have very successfully guided their children’s learning with the technology.  They have, like the other digitally connected families of the world led the teaching, well before most schools and decision makers understood that the pre-primary children of the developed and increasingly the developing world would enter formal schooling having normalised the use of the digital.

We are not suggesting for a moment that everything is perfect with the 24/7/365 education provided by the digitally connected families of the world.  There is a substantial gap between families in their ability support their children’s astute application of the digital.  As Ito and her colleagues (2013) attest in a laissez faire environment, like that of many schools, the educationally advantaged continue to be advantaged and the disadvantaged possibly further disadvantaged.

Rather the desire in this short post it is to

  • highlight the importance of recognising their immense achievement of digitally connected families
  • flag their use of a dynamic, freewheeling learning and teaching model which has successfully educated the world’s young in the use of the current technology, at no cost to governments
  • highlight the ease with which the model has accommodated rapid digital evolution and transformation – at a time when most schools struggled and remain in a state of evolutionary equilibrium
  • begin the thinking on the implications of this historically important development.

In the next post, we’ll address more fully the digital leadership of the digitally connected families and the opportunities that flow.

Bibliography

The impact of personal mobile technologies on the 24/7/365 education of the world’s young, 1993 – 2017

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The digital leadership of the young and their homes

An invitation to reflect

Roger Broadie and Mal Lee are researching a monograph on ‘The impact of personal mobile technologies on the 24/7/365 education of the world’s young, 1993 – 2017’. We hope this will provide a foundation for further work on how government, schools and families can best support children’s learning in a connected world.

It will explore the impact of the evolving personal technologies since the release of Mosaic in 1993 on the young of the world, both in and outside the school walls, the changes in technology and technological practises that influenced usage, and the role played by the young, their families and the school.

Importantly it will address the evolving scene globally, and not simply that in the developed nations.

Moreover it will examine the nature of the digital education acquired in the 80% of annual learning time available to the young outside the school over the last twenty plus years, as well as that acquired within the classroom.

Twenty plus years since the advent of the WWW the world is watching the operation and impact of two distinct digital education modes – the out of school laissez faire mode that has successfully educated the young of the world in the use of the rapidly evolving technology at no cost to government and the formal, in school tightly controlled mode that annually costs governments billions of dollars – with questionable dividends.

We suggest it is time to pause, reflect and decide on the way forward.

Bear in mind around 3.4 billion people globally (ITU, 2016) daily successfully use the networked world, with few having being taught by teachers.

The research will explore these kind of big ideas, that

  • the nature of youth, and youth education changed historically with the advent of the Web and the facility accorded the young to access the information of the networked world directly and not through adult filters

 

  • the young and their families, operating in a laissez faire, seemingly chaotic world – and not formal schooling – have led the 24/7/365 digital education of the young for the past twenty plus years, and are track to play even greater leadership role

 

  • the digitally connected family became the norm in the developed world, around 2007 – 2008, with those families likely increasingly taking charge of their children’s 24/7/365 digital education.

 

  • most children in the developed, and evermore in the developing world will start school having normalised the use of the digital.

 

  • While cell/smartphones are integral to 24/7/365 lives and learning of the world’s teens scant or no use was made of that capability in most schools, with the few that are succeeding being largely ignored by governments in policy setting and the accountability measures for all schools.

To assist our efforts we are planning to interview a cross section of eminent educators globally who have observed, experienced, researched and/or commented upon the digital education of the young in and out of schools over the last two decades.

If you – or your colleagues – would like to reflect on the past twenty plus years with Roger or Mal we would love to hear from you.

Simply email Mal at mallee@mac.com and we’ll set up a Skype interview when convenient.