NEW developments in the application of technology in education will be shared at the upcoming EduVision 2014 conference by top-level speakers from Microsoft and Pearson College.

The conference, scheduled for March 17-20 at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort in Montego Bay, takes on added importance given that large tertiary institutions are increasing the use of technology to provide education.

“It has been proved that blended learning works best, and that people have to be motivated, that the teachers have to present in a different way, and this is one of the things we are working on why we consider this EduVision conference to be so important, because it really is a kind of a watershed, where we have to accelerate some of what we are doing, but we also have to indigenise it,” conference chair Maxine Henry-Wilson told the Jamaica Observer.

“The idea is that we create, we don’t just consume,” she said, adding that the presentations at the conference, now in its sixth year, will give “some amount of demonstration of what exists”.

Henry-Wilson, who is also commissioner/CEO of Jamaica Tertiary Education Commission (J-TEC), said that Pearson is now the world leader in the conversion of texts into e-books and e-documents.

“We’re also going to have a delegation from South Africa because they also have some of the challenges that we have, although some of their institutions are ahead of us,” Henry-Wilson added.

“It is going to be very important in terms of public information, sensitisation and some foresight — where we go from here,” she said.

Organisers of the conference say it “will explore thought-provoking ideas and global best practices focusing on the application of technology in education, training and development”.

Among the topics listed for discussion are ‘ICTs’, ‘Reinventing the Classroom’, ‘Special Education’, ‘Directions in Higher Education’ and ‘Quality Assurance and Assessments’.

Henry-Wilson explained that one of the mandates of J-TEC, which will be officially launched at the conference, is to work with institutions to transform them in terms of the future of tertiary education.

“One of the issues that arises all the time is: are we teaching people for the past, or are we preparing them for the future? And the tertiary institutions have had to grapple with that — what model are they working on, are they working in terms of the old industrial age… or are we moving towards the digital age?” she told the Observer.

“What that means is that the institutions themselves are looking at alternative modalities for delivery,” Henry-Wilson, a former education minister, explained.

“So the idea is that you have to transform the education system at the tertiary level. But it’s not getting up and writing new content; content is not necessarily the issue. The issue is the modality for delivery… new infrastructure,” she said as she pointed out that a number of large universities are now uploading their courses online for free.

“For them, content is no longer the issue. They are now into research and development to take the process forward, and so they can put their content online, but it has implications for Jamaica,” she said.

“If you can go and do a course, get a certificate of completion from Harvard, then what are we offering here that is comparable?”

She said that in a recent video conference with 15 tertiary institutions and the World Bank, the issue of putting the products that we have here in Jamaica on a platform was discussed.

“Because, as was said, they are in demand, but it’s a whole transformative process,” Henry-Wilson said and gave as an example of that transformation the idea of digitised dormitories where students access their lessons from their dormitories instead of going into a classroom.