Educational Trends

I have written about the use of technology in classrooms since the mid-1990s. Looking back over some of the topics that interested me, it seems that some topics that were emphasized at one time and would still be equally as valuable now seldom show up in what I would describe as the “online discussion”. Two examples that I would place in this category would be a) project-based learning and b) the classroom use of digital probes.

I have been thinking about how the observation that such trends exist might be demonstrated. I remember years ago that Google made data available about the frequency of search terms and I looked to see if I could still find such data. Google still offers what it calls Google Trends.

My exploration involved the following: a) science of reading, b) project-based learning, c) computer literacy, and d) classroom AI. A direct comparison among search goals is difficult because some issues are likely to be searched using a consistent phrase and others with a variety of terms. I think Google recognizes this challenge and differentiates search term from search topic. However, with the topics I wanted to investigate both term and topic were not always available and a consistent approach would not work. I decided that focusing on relative trends would be more meaningful than comparing relative frequency at a point in time. I have no idea if this is true or not.

This graph compares data from 2004 through the present. The blue line represents “project-based learning”, the red line “science of reading”, the yellow line “computer literacy”, and the green line “classroom AI”. Again, the trends rather than the relative frequency seem most useful because of the confounds I have already mentioned. The Science of Reading and Classroom AI (red and green) have shown recent increases in interest. Computer literacy (much more general than something such as learning to program) and project-based learning have shown declines (blue line, yellow line).

This tool would seem interesting to explore within a classroom setting. What trends might interest students?