Michael G. Sheppard identifies five emerging education trends for 2017. Please visit MichaelGSheppard.com to learn more about important events and trends in education.

1. EMERGING
EDUCATION
TRENDS
FOR
2 0 1 7
5
M I C H A E L G . S H E P P A R D

2. CODING IN THE CLA SSROOM
While there is an increase in careers that require coding, there is still a
marked lack of coding in public schools K-12. There have been efforts to
change this for a while, but 2017 might finally be the year that we see this
transformation begin to unfold.
Computer science is one of the top hiring college majors and leads to
extremely lucrative jobs, so by including computer science into high schools
and even earlier education, we are setting children up for success in the
digital world.

3. WEA RA BLE TECHNOLOGY
When it comes to the STEM disciplines, wearable technology can play an
instrumental role in providing students with a hands-on education. Wearable
technology helps with a number of design and engineering challenges that
students of STEM disciplines often face. Wearables can also provide the
educators with a number of benefits.
They can record point-of-view lessons or ping students’ locations during a
field trip. Overall, wearables provide teachers and students alike with the
ability to better engage and communicate.

4. THE INTERNET OF THINGS
We can’t talk about wearables without mentioning the larger system they are
a part of, the Internet of Things. Throughout 2016, there was a lot of
exploration as to how IoT technology could be used in education.
Some classrooms experimented with gesture-based controls that fed data to
Internet-connected devices. The interaction of devices truly has the power to
make classrooms a more integrative environment, and 2017 just might be the
year that this happens.

5. DIGITA L TEXTBOOKS
Just as the articles we like to read appear on digital screens, children’s
textbooks are doing so with more and more frequency. A growing number of
schools that are switching to one to one digital learning environment, so
there’s not denying an increase in digital material. Students will have a more
updated way to learn, and their backpacks won’t be as heavy either.

6. ONLINE LEA RNING
The number of students who are taking online courses is rapidly increasing.
Undergrad students at small colleges and community colleges are more likely
to turn to these alternatives than their traditional classroom counterparts.
While there has been in the past a perceived disparity between the quality of
distance education and that of in-person education, schools will most likely
put more effort into finding quality faculty and materials for online
instruction given the increase in popularity.

7. With technology making its way into education, there is a wealth of potential
for the future. By using technology to teach students, we can better prepare
them for careers in the digital word, and perhaps we can get through to more
students who learn in different ways than the traditional teaching methods.

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