World's best teachers call for end of exams
Some of the world's best teachers believe Queensland should overhaul the way students are examined.
Educators told a Brisbane conference students should be able to access the internet during exams while others want tests scrapped.
The professor who inspired Slumdog Millionaire by taking the internet to Indian slums now wants Australian students to be able to surf the web during exams.
"When the children who come out of school go into the real world, what will they be asked to do?” Sugata Mitra said.
“They'll be asked to solve problems. They'll be asked to use all the resources of the internet to do so."
Other teachers want tests abolished.
"A the moment, across Australia and western education in general, the focus is on test scores at the expense of genuine engagement and wellbeing," Teacher Dan Haesler said.
"We need to break the cycle because we can't expect to assess students in the same way that we assessed them 100 years ago,” Ray Fleming from Microsoft said.
The theories are being floated at the EduTech conference in Brisbane.
There are also calls for more educational videogames.
"Why is it that kids will fail, over and over and over and over again on a game, and keep on coming back for more?” Mr Haesler asked.
“Whereas they'll actually only fail once, twice, three times at most in maths and give up."
Mathew Peterson believes his speed maths app is proof - he's had 1.3 million downloads.
"Parents writing in and saying my kid has disappeared in their room for 2 hours just playing this one game - and that's fantastic," he said.
As more schools embrace technology, internet giant Google warns there's a trend for students to believe everything they read online.
"We need to make sure that they are using technology in the right way," Google’s Suan Yeo said.
3D printing in art class is becoming more popular.
"They go from not having used the app at all to be designing a thing that can be printed in 15 minutes," Roland Perry from Makers Empire said.
