St Margaret's involvement in Tech Week - Christchurch

Aimie and Paul Sibson, CEOs of Linc-Ed, hosted a brilliant presentation for National Tech Week at the Vodafone Xone. Aimie who has been a former St Margaret's College teacher opened the session and started to unpack the significance of technology in education.

This led into our lovely year 10 student, Hattie Compton-Moen, who shared her passion for technology.  She spoke of how her involvement in technology was influencing her future and how she has used these skills to help her in her learn. It is clear that there have been significant mentor’s who have helped shape Hattie's thirst for technology in developing her "geekness".  The guest presenter, Henry Lane agreed that being a ‘geek’ was something that we should be proud to showcase.  

Henry challenged the audience by asking, “what is reality?”  Virtual reality immerses us in a world that is digitally generated compared with augmented reality where hologram-like visual structures appear in your current environment.  Both platforms could provide learners with an experience that can enhance and deepen learning. VR is not only be a form of entertainment, but it can also be a strong support of learning.  For example: VR programmes have been developed to teach and measure the efficiency of spray painting a panel.  Using the virtual reality platform, prospective employees can be assessed on their skills of spray painting.  The data recorded through the VR programme can produce specific figures on how much paint is overlapped, how much paint is wasted, how much this would cost the business, and it also measure the technique used.  

How we learn in the 21st century continues to change rapidly.   Learning is happening everywhere and at any time. We are in an environment we change is in evitable and it is moving into an extremely fast rate. Throughout time we have adapted to technological change.   Before the car we had horses, before Netflix we had video tapes. Today, digital technology is growing at an exponential rate. We are subject to continued and constant change.  The integration of technology seems a frightening concept but already we augment our vision by using glasses, our hearts with pacemakers, hearing with aids and wheelchairs to make us more mobile.  The next wave being developed are contact lens to take photos with a blink.

Knowing exactly what the end point looks like is no longer a necessity.  Asking why and working collaborative to discover together the answer or solution is my new mantra. My role is the teacher is to provide opportunities to my students so that they may develop skills to cope with the immense amount of data. Content no longer needs to be driving our curriculum. My vision is to provide students with the opportunity to develop skills to filter information and efficiently apply this knowledge.

The future of education may seem scary but it’s also exciting. No longer can we predict confidently what is around the next corner. What we can be assured off is that we are all subject to huge change. How we react to the pressures of change will influence our ability to adapt.

Augmented and virtual reality is here and it is being embedded our lives. Henry started by asking the question of what is reality? Is it something that we can touch ? is it something that we are influenced by? Can we truly answer this question?

We wish to thank Linc-ed and Vodafone Xone for hosting this event and we have relished in the opportunity to share our story and be part of promoting technology in education particularly for girls.