Restructuring of educational systems in the digital age from a co‐evolutionary perspective

Abstract

There have been repeated calls for restructuring of schooling to take advantage of information and communication technologies (ICT). This article recognizes an increasing range of radical restructuring resulting from the co-evolution of education and digital technologies in school systems and related activity in the global ecosystem. Research of previously innovative schools that did not sustain their innovative strategies with ICT has also helped to clarify relevant factors including the importance of leadership. Davis' co-evolutionary framework is illustrated with case studies of sustained transformation enabled by blended and online learning in New Zealand and the USA. Transformations include decoupling of the roles of a class teacher, plus decoupling of the services provided by a single school into provision by networked organizations, including a virtual school and web-based services. The diversity of transformed educational ecosystems is linked to local and regional variations in culture and conditions. The article concludes that teachers in a range of roles will remain the keystone species of K-12 education also in the 21st century and recommends that this co-evolutionary framework is applied globally to increase equitable provision.

School-level predictors for the use of ICT in schools and students’ CIL in international comparison

“…As far as the similarities are concerned, the self-efficacy of teaching staff with regard to ICT was identified as a very important supporting factor in all four education systems. This confirms earlier research which identifies teachers as a keystone species (Davis et al 2013) when it comes to the integration of ICT in schools as well as the apparent importance of teachers' own perceptions of their competences (Drossel et al 2016) on both the individual and the collective level (i.e. among the entire teaching staff in a school).…”

“…In this regard, the school itself is particularly relevant (e.g. Davis et al 2013;Eickelmann et al 2016;Hatlevik et al 2014;Petko et al 2015Petko et al , 2016Tondeur et al 2008).…”

Teachers’ participation in professional development concerning the implementation of new technologies in class: a latent class analysis of teachers and the relationship with the use of computers, ICT self-efficacy and emphasis on teaching ICT skills

“…also Davis et al 2013). The continuous creation and exchange of information in a globalized world have come to affect almost all spheres of an individual's life, making the related skills indispensable for contemporary education (Fraillon et al 2014, p. 3).…”

Smart, Digitally Enhanced Learning Ecosystems: Bottlenecks to Sustainability in Georgia

“…Teaching and learning do not take place in the closed systems and behavior needs the time to be evolved in response to the changing environments [7]. Taking into account the rapidly evolving technology and dynamically changing environment we posit, that schools' functioning on an organizational level as well as their relation to the external environment are important variables to study schools' digital transformation.…”

“…It entails the shift in education to provide learners with new knowledge and skills [6]. There have been repeated calls to restructure the schools to take advantage of technologies [4,7]. Though, effective integration is still missing in the school context [3,8].…”