“What do you want your job to be when you grow up?” Your answer to this question when you were growing up probably didn’t quite match up to what your job is now… as a matter of fact, there’s a chance your job title didn’t even exist when you were growing up. From 1997-2012 alone, jobs in the technology sector grew by over 180%. In today’s technology and innovation-focused economy, it’s easy to see that current jobs are changing. For example, community engagement managers or other PR careers have changed over time into social media managers.
So, how do we prepare students for jobs that don’t even exist yet? Well, we know that we’re well into the digital age, and most of the new jobs that have been created have revolved around STEM or STEAM fields. According to the US Department of Commerce, STEM job growth has been expanding at 3 times the rate of other career fields. We need to give students more opportunities for digital learning in the classroom to make learning and working with technology a regular part of students’ lives. Plus, students are already using most of this tech in their daily life, so it makes sense that students will be more engaged when their curriculum includes technology.
For example, when students are creating and designing their own mobile apps with MAD-learn, they’re truly engaged in the content that they’re creating. These students are getting prepared for the app development career fields, from app graphic design to IT! Teaching our students to be the creators of their own technology instead of simply the consumers of it gives them the power to not only prepare for their future career path, but be the owners of their career path.
It might be a cliché, but it’s true- change is the only thing that is constant. When students are exposed to technology at school, they’ll be ready to use whatever new technology their jobs will use in the future. Who knows, maybe they’ll discover a new career path along the way!