Editorial: Technology curriculum is catching up with classroom practice

National MP and Minister of Education Nikki Kaye. Photo / Duncan Brown

Education Minister Nikki Kaye has announced a new school curriculum that involves teaching technology in years 1 to 10 and merging digital technology into everyday lessons.

The new curriculum will be in schools next year and become mandatory by 2020. The Government will put in an addition $24 million for the technology element.

The minister says it's not only enabling young people to use new technologies, but create technologies in future. The programme will include something called "computational thinking".

Some teachers might wince. Those who have banned phones from their classroom in an attempt to hold pupils' attention will have to embrace the digital devices and incorporate them in their teaching.

They can not have been surprised. The decision follows a government review of digital technology in education and its conclusions were pointing this way.

Every education expert recommends it.

A British professor educational technology, Sugata Mitra, told a conference in Auckland last month schools should allow pupils to take their smart phones even into examinations.

The exam questions should be asking why, not what, he said.

The answers to who, what, where and when can all be found on their phones, but "why" still requires some human thinking.

At least, so far it does. "Artificial intelligence" may be coming but mechanical reasoning is not the real thing.

If older teachers (and it is an ageing profession) are worried about the new curriculum, their pupils will not be.

This is the first change to the present curriculum since its introduction in 2007 and the pupils are probably wondering why it took so long. It is possibly the first curriculum change that is catching up with pupils rather than leading them to new pastures.

Teenagers, and children for that matter, master touch-screen technology instinctively.

Professor Mitra said he has seen children without previous access to a computer, sit down at a computer in a kiosk and teach themselves everything from "character mapping" to "DNA replication" without adult assistance. Just as well they needed no adult assistance.

One of the benefits of computers in schools is to ensure all pupils have some access to the technology of the future, especially those from households whose priorities have not included a home computer or a phone for every child.

For the vast majority of school pupils, though, the hours in the classroom are probably the only part of the day they are not on their phone.

Kaye acknowledged yesterday the digital curriculum could be controversial since there are already concerns about the time children spend online.

But if there is a problem it is outside school hours, when children should be getting more physical activity and socialising face to face.

A survey by the 20/20 Trust which promotes technology in schools has found 92 per cent are already using the internet for practising skills such as maths, 80 per cent are using it for research during class, 71 per cent are creating documents and 56 per cent creating multi-media work. So it seems the national curriculum is just catching up.