New technologies are transforming the way educators approach curriculum design, how they approach the learning process, and even how they design their classrooms. Find out how your district can implement these technologies and ensure student success for years to come.

As more and more aspects of our everyday world come to be dependent on technology, it’s becoming increasingly incumbent on educators to instill in their pupils a familiarity with all forms of tech, both current and emergent, at an early age. To help students prepare themselves for an increasingly tech-based economy, teachers must not only become familiar with tech themselves, but be able to foster an enthusiasm for and familiarity with it in their students as well.

The most recent Horizon Report details some of the technologies that are most likely to change the course of primary education over the next five years: makerspaces, online learning, robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and wearable devices, to name a few. We’ve compiled a how-to guide to help you navigate the ins and outs of these revolutionary innovations so that you will be prepared to leverage them to more deeply align your instruction style with the reality that students face outside the classroom.

Make Every Space a Makerspace

In recent years, schools have initiated a significant ideological transition; where students were once viewed as passive consumers of instruction, they are increasingly being viewed as creators who must be actively involved in their own education. The Makerspace, a physical space where students can join together to work on self-driven creative and technological projects, is a product of this shift, and is already being adopted in many nations around the world.

While you might not be able to afford a set of 3D printers for middle school students to learn to use, budgetary limitations shouldn’t prohibit schools from incorporating the most important aspects of Makerspaces into their programs. It’s possible to infuse the concept of a Makerspace into existing classroom dynamics — for instance, science teachers should encourage students to make full use of laboratory apparatuses during class time. The change might be as simple as a move away from the traditional classroom setup (rows of desks and the teacher in front) toward arrangements that more strongly encourage group participation.

Instead of imagining the Makerspace as a walled-off section of school where students can “put on their creativity hats,” make an effort to transform all learning environments into Makerspaces by facilitating collaboration between students.

Remain Flexible in the Adoption of Online Learning

Another significant development in education and technology is the implementation of online learning, or web-based course offerings. Online education is often used as a way of engaging students at risk of dropping out, but it won’t reach its full potential until it’s embedded seamlessly into traditional learning experiences. Just as with Makerspaces, online courses should not be offered exclusively to certain groups of low- or high-performing students, or walled off to specific departments. Teachers of all generations and academic backgrounds should be trained in the use of web-based education tools, and encouraged to integrate these tools into the existing curricula.

Online course offerings are already fairly commonplace, and it’s reasonable to expect more widespread adoption before the year is out. Online education isn’t suitable for every teacher and student, however, so it’s important to remain flexible and adaptive during adoption — students must be able to determine, at least in part, how their education happens.

Plan for a Future of Robotics and AI

One pressing need that must be addressed by all primary education systems is that of coding literacy. Computer science has become one of the fastest-growing fields in the American economy, and for that reason, every student must learn at least the basics of coding — it has replaced Spanish as the most essential language for students to understand.

Although the Horizon Report forecasts that robotics and artificial intelligence won’t make their way into schools for at least another three to five years, it’s important to begin planning for their incorporation, and learning to code is the first step along that route. Schools should begin to hire and train staff who can teach students the rudiments of programming, and coding should also be integrated into other, related course offerings. From mathematics to architecture and engineering, it’s a discipline with no shortage of applications.

Test Out Wearables

It’s very easy to predict a potential academic issue with wearable technology; students today are discouraged from using smartphones during class, as they’re perceived by educators to be a distraction from academic work.

To work around this potential dilemma, a few pioneering schools have experimented with the use of fitness-focused wearables for physical education classes, where the devices can’t easily distract students. Although these experiments have been met with success, the use of wearables need not be restricted to the gymnasium — their ability to collect and organize extraordinary quantities of data presents a unique opportunity for schools to learn more about how learning happens. For instance, wearables of the future could track the amount of time students spend completing assignments or other academic tasks.

This technology might be five years (or more) away from being integrated into primary schools en masse, but it’s certainly worthwhile to investigate the many ways wearables could make their way into the classroom. Like many technologies, wearables may not be immediately useful to today’s educators, but creative thinking early on as to how they might be applied in the future could very soon pay off.