From within formal classrooms to educational games after school, technology is widely used in teaching and learning around the world. When used appropriately, technology has the power to support teachers and engage students, providing tools to create and evaluate activities previously considered out of reach.
At the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution, we are studying innovations that can rapidly improve education progress, including innovations that use education technology. If the education sector stays on its current trajectory, by 2030 half of all children and young people around the world will lack basic secondary-level skills needed to thrive. To change this dire prediction, we must make rapid, non-linear progress, or what CUE calls leapfrogging.
Technology can help education leapfrog in a number of ways. It can provide individualized learning by tracking progress and personalizing activities to serve heterogeneous classrooms. It can support playful learning through approaches such as games. Technology allows students to collaborate and engage with peers in different parts of the world, and it offers platforms for data collection and analysis that lead to improvements in the broader education system.