Education Systems of Europe Book

Shift to the Future- Rethinking Learning with New Technologies in Education was written by Nicola Yelland who is a Professor of Education in the School of Education at Victoria University, in Melbourne, Australia. Yelland’s research has focused on young children’s learning in technological contexts. She is currently working on exploring the role of new technologies in curricula and ways to engage children in schools.

Yelland’s book Shift to the Future focuses on how school learning can mobilize new technologies for enhanced educational opportunities and outcomes. Her book is broken up into seven chapters that describe topics such as; what is expected from education?, how we can prepare for new technologies in education, critical thinking lessons, assessments, and new contexts for learning.

A theme that is found throughout the book is 21st Century Skills (collaboration and teamwork, creativity and imagination, critical thinking, and problem solving). The author explains that in preparing our children to live meaningful lives, education should be about providing contexts in which students are able to acquire and practice new skills in ways that help them utilize already existing ideas in order to generate new knowledge, (Yelland, 2007). It is very important for students to learn and master 21st Century Skills because those are skills that will be transferred over in life, especially to their area of employment.

Shift to the Future also provides great examples of what it takes to revitalize a school. It is important that education should be more than just “covering stuff” and doing activities that involve constant repetition. For example, students should not have to study a sound or a number for a week and fill in mindless worksheets in order to have a record of a fact that it has been “covered” (Yelland, 2007). It was interesting to read this because many teachers practice this routine on a daily basis. Considering all of the technology available to learn, I think that students, especially in the early years would benefit from learning online apps, group learning, and/or without worksheets.

This book is easy to read and it does a great job at detailing technology lessons. One thing that I really enjoyed from this book was that it had scripts, scenarios, and lots of pictures of student work and actual students working through the lessons. There was a division lesson that I practiced with my struggling students. I copied the lesson exactly as it was in the book and asked the students to share the goldfish (in the picture) equally and record the findings. Students understood the concept, used manipulatives, worked with a partner, were able to speak off of their visual/graphic organizer, and typed their findings.

Shift to the Future is definitely a go-to book for ideas and resources on how to implement new technology in lessons. The book provides over 15 websites that can be used either at school or at home as new ways of learning. Some of those resources focus on using technology in math, some in health projects, and other resources in language arts. Some resources explained how to use certain websites, how to create and publish group projects (Yelland, 2007). Another useful fact is that this book provides resources from other places outside of the U.S. For example, Australia, China, and Mexico. This book is a must read!