Opening Keynote: Navigating the Shifting Tides in of Change in Education
So that's all for me for now. I'm about to introduce Well, I'm not allowed to say our favorite executives because they're not allowed to have favorite executives at Instructure. But if I was allowed to have favorite executive, it would definitely be Melissa Global. So Melissa, she leads the customer experience teams here for us. She's a chief customer success officer. She's basically your voice at our executive.
She's got twenty five years experience in educational technology, working across a number of different companies, She's a world leader in EdTech. I'm very privileged to have you today. Please welcome, Melissa. Good morning, everyone. Good morning.
I see a lot of excited faces. This is great. It's such I'm I'm so honored and humbled to be here with you all. I hope today is a rich day of us learning from one another. And that you find, the joy that we all find in the work that we get to do in educational technology.
So I was hoping this morning to just spend a little bit of time setting the stage. Okay. Good. I'm clicking correctly. Just setting the stage for you as you think about the rest of the day, as we go into the conversations, the fireside chats, the, best practices shared with you and your peers, We thought we would set, the tone for what's going on around the world in educational technology.
Or really what are the trends that we're seeing that did a a lovely job setting setting the foundation of it's a different world now post pandemic. And what does that mean for us? What are the challenges that we're facing as educators? And how are we thinking and seeing about change in educational technology? And then I'll finish up with a few opportunities for us and how we can move forward together as a community, and then we'll transition into, like I said, deeper dive into many of the things that I'm gonna be sharing this morning. So as a frame, I'm gonna talk about six trends that we're seeing in global educational technology. And this really applies to higher education, basic education education really is a lifelong learning experience. In fact, we'll talk specifically about that in just a moment, but these trends are what we're seeing folks are reacting to, what we're seeing the ed tech space start to ask questions about and drive innovation.
So I'm gonna share six trends. Those six trends will include a couple focused on teaching and learning. They'll include a couple focused on the global economy and the changing state of the world, and then they'll also include a couple of trends on technology. So let's dig in. The first is the focus on learning, and this is where we should start.
This grounding foundation, learning, and the way we think about learning as educators, is what should drive all of the other innovation and change that we are facilitating as a community. So some of the things that are occurring and learning or the conversations that are having, we're having in this space. For a long time, we've talked about focusing on the student or having the student centered in that learning experience. In addition to some of the work I'd shared, I've taught now twenty five years, mostly online, which has been incredibly rewarding for me, but if we think about learning and I think about that history of teaching, you know, we've talked often about the student at the center, but this has really changed post pandemic. It's not even just an active learning experience, But it's really the student at the center of the entire journey of learning, or it's a focus on hold, the whole human, is what we're talking about.
And this is gonna be important as we get into topics like generative AI. This is gonna be important when we talk about health and wellness of learning. But this whole learner journey or this whole student has become the new discussion around having students at the center of the experience. And this becomes important, especially as we come back to education post pandemic, we come back to hybrid environments, face to face environments, new spaces where we're leveraging technology in a different way, this thinking of the student at the center of the entire experience, not just active learning in the classroom, but owning their journey becomes critical. And it does lay the foundation for a few other trends that I'll be sharing this morning, once again to hopefully shape how you think about the rest of your day.
The second learning trend that we're seeing, and this relates directly to that student at the center of their journey. If you think about this, now as learners, we're lifelong learners. And there's been conversations as well over the ten years about what is lifelong learning? How do we foster learners to be successful their whole life? How do we give students the skills to be personally aware and to contextualize their learning, whether it's informal, formal, part of an education experience, or just part of life. Will that as we think about students at the center of learning becomes important because students are now looking at their learning journey as more than just a traditional degree. There are lots of conversations globally happening around how do we recognize student learning as it happens.
How do we credential that? How do we acknowledge that path? And then how do we use those paths? In an effort to help the student feel more engaged and understand and and and create that learning context for them as they proceed through their journey. Well, fundamental to this is credentials, and thinking about alternative pathways, it's being able to present those credentials in things like passports or, learner mapping, you know, you could look at records, learner records, it's how do I represent what I've learned and how do I understand that what I've learned isn't just a culmination at an endpoint. And so this conversation's actually reshaping not just how we think about technology globally, but it's also shaping how do we think about what is a learning unit or what is a learner in relationship to their learning experiences? And more on this as we go through the day, I know there's a number of conversations around this. Well, these two foundational learning pieces, so if we think about learning as a whole student, that's this new focus on student at the center, and we think about that learner journey, that lifelong learner journey and acknowledging them, this is where we start to step into technology. And one of the key pieces in technology is how and where is a learner learning.
So in what environment are our students learning? And globally and this is more of, I would say, more distant conversation that's happening, what's this going to look like in two, three, five years as we think about educational technology? The first two are here in happening. This is a lot of conversation globally, and it's what does the learning space look like? I don't know. Did anybody experiment with second life years ago, teaching in second life or yeah. Okay. I see one or two hands.
I did. That was an interesting experience. It never really stuck. And there was a lot of a lot of conversation, this was over ten years ago, around how do we recreate the learning experience that we're all having? In a virtual environment. Now I know this coupled with going back to school, face to face learning, creates an interesting, an interesting opportunity for us to think about how we combine both our physical world and our virtual worlds.
And what and where do we encourage what kind of learning as we combine those two together? So conversations around virtual reality and augmented reality. There's challenges with this, their device dependent, but conversations around that especially in specific disciplines. And if we think back to that lifelong learning, think about, more tech or practical or vocational disciplines, this virtual reality, augmented reality could really take hold. Could create an apprenticeship style experience. And then we're also globally having conversations around a metaverse could you actually have a virtual campus that parallels with your physical campus? And what and how are you managing that whole student learning journey that we talked about at the beginning in the combination of those two worlds.
So definitely a couple of years out, like I said, the first two around learning are much more present today, but things we should be thinking about as we're shaping what the next phase of educational technology looks like for us. The next one is is probably guessed, that we would have conversations around generative AI. And in Ryan's gonna be talking a little bit more about that just after me. But this idea of the physical and virtual merging together, This idea of student at the center of the learning and that learning being acknowledged in a lifelong learning path gives a lot of opportunities for generative AI to contribute to and help shape that learning environment that we're bringing students into. So like I said, I don't wanna get too much into what what Ryan's gonna share in a few minutes, but from a generative AI perspective, we're really seeing and having conversations not just about the potential or the risk, but how does how we think about how we leverage AI situate in the broader social context in which our students come to us in.
So larger questions around things like intellectual property, and privacy, and even bias are happening around the more tactical conversation of the role of generating AI in education. But once again, this just leads us to opportunities where we can think differently about how we create con content and context and how we bring learners in and coach learners through that lifelong learning journey using tools based on generative AI. Okay. So I'd I'd let you know there's gonna be about six of these that I wanted to talk through. We've talked about learning.
We've talked about technology. And generative AI leads us nicely into the broader social construct. This is where the global economy or how we're thinking about the work force in general plays a key role into how we think about the next step for us in educational technology. So from a global economy perspective, one of the key changes that's happening worldwide, and I know there have been there's been, policy here as well in the Philippines is focused on data and data regulations. This is largely about student privacy who owns the data.
Why do they own their data? And how do we protect learning that's happening in this online environment, even when we're coupling a physical environment and an online environment together. There's so much opportunity in data. There's so much opportunity for us to create much more personalized learning paths much more effective and just in time teaching experiences. But at the same time, we need to be thinking about how does the growing state of data regulations affect the work we do here? And whether it's legislation here in the Philippines, or whether it's legislation outside, especially as you have global students coming to the Philippines or your or your learners are engaging in opportunities with institutions around the world. This becomes more and more important and also more challenging as we think about how to shape the technology put that learner at the center and create these lifelong learning paths.
And the last one from a global perspective, and I think this one probably most near and dear to my heart. And one of the issues that we should be thinking about as we talk for the rest of the day around how do we very tactically, practically, and today think about our practices and change those practices so that they drive better student outcomes, we need to think about the how equitable those outcomes or those opportunities are. If the pandemic brought us anything, it definitely brought us new opportunities, but it also helped us understand in education how those new opportunities can create a broader divide among those that have access to them and those that don't. Whether it's access to specific technologies to bandwidth, whether it's even access to preparedness in how they're learning, This divide is real, and we have to think about that lifelong learning journey, that student at the center, our use of generative AI, our use of, new technologies like the Metiverse, and how do we ensure that together, they they create a truly equitable experience for all learners. Okay.
So those were the six to be thinking about. Hopefully, that helps frame the bigger picture as we dig in more deeply. But let's just talk really quickly about a few opportunities that we have in front of us, especially as collaborate as such a rich and talented community today. The first opportunity oh, there we go, is that we can continue to leverage the work that we've done. So if I can have a quick show of hands, how many folks have been using an LMS for at least ten years? Yeah.
Right? That's a big investment. Right? So there's quite a few in the room. Okay. That's a big investment. How do we leverage that use of an LMS How do we leverage the use of our technology decisions, things like zoom, things like, video repositories, How do we think about using those, but using those in the modern construct? So this leads us to the second opportunity we have.
Okay, face to face learning is back. We know that, particularly here in the Philippines. We know that students are coming back and need to come back. And we know from our experience over the last couple of years how important it is to have face to face learning, but how do we use those investments? How do we use everything we've learned over the last couple of years? And then most importantly, how do we use these opportunities like generative AI in front of us to create environments that are face to face and online rich and that are meaningful and drive those outcomes. So I have a little video to share, I think is a really great way to think about the future as we merge these two environments together, and we think about the learner at the center.
Clicked too many times. There we go. Oh, what's wrong, what's it like? What? Face to face college? There's a lot you can do as in. Isn't that scary? There's so much everything. Well, I know what to do.
Went to turn in my assignments, not to communicate with my teachers. Do I have to ask permission to go to the bathroom? Online school is the only school I know. One week, the transports. Right? Remember, I just took my quizzes online. Switching from face to face to online, then back again.
Heat up? How did you handle it? Because they had canvas on a very consistency in canvas. Exactly. You communicate with their professors the same way. Dubai, you've turned in your quizzes and assignments. Okay.
It's much easier to understand. The world is changing. But that doesn't mean the way you learn needs to. You're all wrong. There's one thing that's gonna be so different.
Mhmm. I think that video and your reaction to that video just, again, shows the inspiration and the opportunity that we have together today to not only think about how we're addressing the biggest challenges each day that face us as we transition to face to face again as we think about education and all the opportunities to leverage, but how do we craft the right kinds of environments that empower learning and that inspire and drive the outcomes we want to see in our students every single day. This is all about the intentionality of technology, and I hope that's what the conversation, the rest of the day for you, is focused on. How do we intentionally use technology in the best way possible so that again, we can create that not only an experience, but we can create opportunities that we'd never even fathomed for our students. And so with that, again, I wish you a lovely day in digging into best practices, digging into the future, how we all work together as a community, and how we respond to some of the larger global trends that are truly opportunities for us to change our practice and innovate in educational technology in the most meaningful ways.
And with that, I'm gonna pass it back over to Ed. Thank you so much for your time today. Yeah. So, I told you she was my I can't tell you she's my favorite, but she's my favorite. No, Melissa, thank you so much. She's fun all the way out here from, the States as well. As well as her next speaker, which is, Ryan.
She's got twenty five years experience in educational technology, working across a number of different companies, She's a world leader in EdTech. I'm very privileged to have you today. Please welcome, Melissa. Good morning, everyone. Good morning.
I see a lot of excited faces. This is great. It's such I'm I'm so honored and humbled to be here with you all. I hope today is a rich day of us learning from one another. And that you find, the joy that we all find in the work that we get to do in educational technology.
So I was hoping this morning to just spend a little bit of time setting the stage. Okay. Good. I'm clicking correctly. Just setting the stage for you as you think about the rest of the day, as we go into the conversations, the fireside chats, the, best practices shared with you and your peers, We thought we would set, the tone for what's going on around the world in educational technology.
Or really what are the trends that we're seeing that did a a lovely job setting setting the foundation of it's a different world now post pandemic. And what does that mean for us? What are the challenges that we're facing as educators? And how are we thinking and seeing about change in educational technology? And then I'll finish up with a few opportunities for us and how we can move forward together as a community, and then we'll transition into, like I said, deeper dive into many of the things that I'm gonna be sharing this morning. So as a frame, I'm gonna talk about six trends that we're seeing in global educational technology. And this really applies to higher education, basic education education really is a lifelong learning experience. In fact, we'll talk specifically about that in just a moment, but these trends are what we're seeing folks are reacting to, what we're seeing the ed tech space start to ask questions about and drive innovation.
So I'm gonna share six trends. Those six trends will include a couple focused on teaching and learning. They'll include a couple focused on the global economy and the changing state of the world, and then they'll also include a couple of trends on technology. So let's dig in. The first is the focus on learning, and this is where we should start.
This grounding foundation, learning, and the way we think about learning as educators, is what should drive all of the other innovation and change that we are facilitating as a community. So some of the things that are occurring and learning or the conversations that are having, we're having in this space. For a long time, we've talked about focusing on the student or having the student centered in that learning experience. In addition to some of the work I'd shared, I've taught now twenty five years, mostly online, which has been incredibly rewarding for me, but if we think about learning and I think about that history of teaching, you know, we've talked often about the student at the center, but this has really changed post pandemic. It's not even just an active learning experience, But it's really the student at the center of the entire journey of learning, or it's a focus on hold, the whole human, is what we're talking about.
And this is gonna be important as we get into topics like generative AI. This is gonna be important when we talk about health and wellness of learning. But this whole learner journey or this whole student has become the new discussion around having students at the center of the experience. And this becomes important, especially as we come back to education post pandemic, we come back to hybrid environments, face to face environments, new spaces where we're leveraging technology in a different way, this thinking of the student at the center of the entire experience, not just active learning in the classroom, but owning their journey becomes critical. And it does lay the foundation for a few other trends that I'll be sharing this morning, once again to hopefully shape how you think about the rest of your day.
The second learning trend that we're seeing, and this relates directly to that student at the center of their journey. If you think about this, now as learners, we're lifelong learners. And there's been conversations as well over the ten years about what is lifelong learning? How do we foster learners to be successful their whole life? How do we give students the skills to be personally aware and to contextualize their learning, whether it's informal, formal, part of an education experience, or just part of life. Will that as we think about students at the center of learning becomes important because students are now looking at their learning journey as more than just a traditional degree. There are lots of conversations globally happening around how do we recognize student learning as it happens.
How do we credential that? How do we acknowledge that path? And then how do we use those paths? In an effort to help the student feel more engaged and understand and and and create that learning context for them as they proceed through their journey. Well, fundamental to this is credentials, and thinking about alternative pathways, it's being able to present those credentials in things like passports or, learner mapping, you know, you could look at records, learner records, it's how do I represent what I've learned and how do I understand that what I've learned isn't just a culmination at an endpoint. And so this conversation's actually reshaping not just how we think about technology globally, but it's also shaping how do we think about what is a learning unit or what is a learner in relationship to their learning experiences? And more on this as we go through the day, I know there's a number of conversations around this. Well, these two foundational learning pieces, so if we think about learning as a whole student, that's this new focus on student at the center, and we think about that learner journey, that lifelong learner journey and acknowledging them, this is where we start to step into technology. And one of the key pieces in technology is how and where is a learner learning.
So in what environment are our students learning? And globally and this is more of, I would say, more distant conversation that's happening, what's this going to look like in two, three, five years as we think about educational technology? The first two are here in happening. This is a lot of conversation globally, and it's what does the learning space look like? I don't know. Did anybody experiment with second life years ago, teaching in second life or yeah. Okay. I see one or two hands.
I did. That was an interesting experience. It never really stuck. And there was a lot of a lot of conversation, this was over ten years ago, around how do we recreate the learning experience that we're all having? In a virtual environment. Now I know this coupled with going back to school, face to face learning, creates an interesting, an interesting opportunity for us to think about how we combine both our physical world and our virtual worlds.
And what and where do we encourage what kind of learning as we combine those two together? So conversations around virtual reality and augmented reality. There's challenges with this, their device dependent, but conversations around that especially in specific disciplines. And if we think back to that lifelong learning, think about, more tech or practical or vocational disciplines, this virtual reality, augmented reality could really take hold. Could create an apprenticeship style experience. And then we're also globally having conversations around a metaverse could you actually have a virtual campus that parallels with your physical campus? And what and how are you managing that whole student learning journey that we talked about at the beginning in the combination of those two worlds.
So definitely a couple of years out, like I said, the first two around learning are much more present today, but things we should be thinking about as we're shaping what the next phase of educational technology looks like for us. The next one is is probably guessed, that we would have conversations around generative AI. And in Ryan's gonna be talking a little bit more about that just after me. But this idea of the physical and virtual merging together, This idea of student at the center of the learning and that learning being acknowledged in a lifelong learning path gives a lot of opportunities for generative AI to contribute to and help shape that learning environment that we're bringing students into. So like I said, I don't wanna get too much into what what Ryan's gonna share in a few minutes, but from a generative AI perspective, we're really seeing and having conversations not just about the potential or the risk, but how does how we think about how we leverage AI situate in the broader social context in which our students come to us in.
So larger questions around things like intellectual property, and privacy, and even bias are happening around the more tactical conversation of the role of generating AI in education. But once again, this just leads us to opportunities where we can think differently about how we create con content and context and how we bring learners in and coach learners through that lifelong learning journey using tools based on generative AI. Okay. So I'd I'd let you know there's gonna be about six of these that I wanted to talk through. We've talked about learning.
We've talked about technology. And generative AI leads us nicely into the broader social construct. This is where the global economy or how we're thinking about the work force in general plays a key role into how we think about the next step for us in educational technology. So from a global economy perspective, one of the key changes that's happening worldwide, and I know there have been there's been, policy here as well in the Philippines is focused on data and data regulations. This is largely about student privacy who owns the data.
Why do they own their data? And how do we protect learning that's happening in this online environment, even when we're coupling a physical environment and an online environment together. There's so much opportunity in data. There's so much opportunity for us to create much more personalized learning paths much more effective and just in time teaching experiences. But at the same time, we need to be thinking about how does the growing state of data regulations affect the work we do here? And whether it's legislation here in the Philippines, or whether it's legislation outside, especially as you have global students coming to the Philippines or your or your learners are engaging in opportunities with institutions around the world. This becomes more and more important and also more challenging as we think about how to shape the technology put that learner at the center and create these lifelong learning paths.
And the last one from a global perspective, and I think this one probably most near and dear to my heart. And one of the issues that we should be thinking about as we talk for the rest of the day around how do we very tactically, practically, and today think about our practices and change those practices so that they drive better student outcomes, we need to think about the how equitable those outcomes or those opportunities are. If the pandemic brought us anything, it definitely brought us new opportunities, but it also helped us understand in education how those new opportunities can create a broader divide among those that have access to them and those that don't. Whether it's access to specific technologies to bandwidth, whether it's even access to preparedness in how they're learning, This divide is real, and we have to think about that lifelong learning journey, that student at the center, our use of generative AI, our use of, new technologies like the Metiverse, and how do we ensure that together, they they create a truly equitable experience for all learners. Okay.
So those were the six to be thinking about. Hopefully, that helps frame the bigger picture as we dig in more deeply. But let's just talk really quickly about a few opportunities that we have in front of us, especially as collaborate as such a rich and talented community today. The first opportunity oh, there we go, is that we can continue to leverage the work that we've done. So if I can have a quick show of hands, how many folks have been using an LMS for at least ten years? Yeah.
Right? That's a big investment. Right? So there's quite a few in the room. Okay. That's a big investment. How do we leverage that use of an LMS How do we leverage the use of our technology decisions, things like zoom, things like, video repositories, How do we think about using those, but using those in the modern construct? So this leads us to the second opportunity we have.
Okay, face to face learning is back. We know that, particularly here in the Philippines. We know that students are coming back and need to come back. And we know from our experience over the last couple of years how important it is to have face to face learning, but how do we use those investments? How do we use everything we've learned over the last couple of years? And then most importantly, how do we use these opportunities like generative AI in front of us to create environments that are face to face and online rich and that are meaningful and drive those outcomes. So I have a little video to share, I think is a really great way to think about the future as we merge these two environments together, and we think about the learner at the center.
Clicked too many times. There we go. Oh, what's wrong, what's it like? What? Face to face college? There's a lot you can do as in. Isn't that scary? There's so much everything. Well, I know what to do.
Went to turn in my assignments, not to communicate with my teachers. Do I have to ask permission to go to the bathroom? Online school is the only school I know. One week, the transports. Right? Remember, I just took my quizzes online. Switching from face to face to online, then back again.
Heat up? How did you handle it? Because they had canvas on a very consistency in canvas. Exactly. You communicate with their professors the same way. Dubai, you've turned in your quizzes and assignments. Okay.
It's much easier to understand. The world is changing. But that doesn't mean the way you learn needs to. You're all wrong. There's one thing that's gonna be so different.
Mhmm. I think that video and your reaction to that video just, again, shows the inspiration and the opportunity that we have together today to not only think about how we're addressing the biggest challenges each day that face us as we transition to face to face again as we think about education and all the opportunities to leverage, but how do we craft the right kinds of environments that empower learning and that inspire and drive the outcomes we want to see in our students every single day. This is all about the intentionality of technology, and I hope that's what the conversation, the rest of the day for you, is focused on. How do we intentionally use technology in the best way possible so that again, we can create that not only an experience, but we can create opportunities that we'd never even fathomed for our students. And so with that, again, I wish you a lovely day in digging into best practices, digging into the future, how we all work together as a community, and how we respond to some of the larger global trends that are truly opportunities for us to change our practice and innovate in educational technology in the most meaningful ways.
And with that, I'm gonna pass it back over to Ed. Thank you so much for your time today. Yeah. So, I told you she was my I can't tell you she's my favorite, but she's my favorite. No, Melissa, thank you so much. She's fun all the way out here from, the States as well. As well as her next speaker, which is, Ryan.