Educating Gen Z in a digital world

Abstract

Keynote Address for ANZEA Conference, 16–19 July 2018, Waipuna Lodge, Auckland Frances Valintine is a “Futurist” thought-leader in emerging and disruptive technologies and has 20 years’ experience across business, technology, and education. In 2013, Frances founded The Mind Lab, a unique collaboration between a public education provider and a specialist education lab dedicated to digital literacy capability and contemporary practice in the teaching profession. In 2016, she launched Tech Futures Lab to navigate the new world of technology-enabled businesses. In 2018, Frances was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of her lifetime of contribution to education and technology. She has won a number of awards, including the New Zealand Flying Kiwi Award, a Sir Peter Blake Leader Award, the Westpac New Zealand Woman of Influence (Innovation), and the NEXT New Zealand Woman of the Year (Education). She has also been inducted into the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame. Frances was invited to keynote at the ANZEA Conference to share her insights on future prospects for Aotearoa New Zealand. She spoke about the need for our education system to be responsive to young people who have grown up as digital natives surrounded by technologies that open the world up to them. Conference participants shared that it was riveting to contemplate the responsiveness of evaluation to a data-rich and digitally defined world that young people took for granted.