Preparing Students for the Future: 21st Century Skills and Technology in Education

·48 min·4 clips

MOOCs opened Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge-level learning to Fajah without an undergraduate degree.

1. Teachers Talkin' uses this episode to connect 21st-century skills, technology integration, and the future of work. 2. Dustin Tetreault and Ghazali Abdul-Wahhab host Fajah Akbar, who teaches English and educational technology in Indonesia and serves as the Indonesia ambassador for the International English Language Teachers Association. 3. The core question is whether education can move technology from a classroom add-on to a normal part of learning. 4. Fajah says many students in his context already have smartphones, laptops, and devices, but they mostly use them for social media and browsing. 5. He argues that schools still obsess over grades, semester exams, and subject coverage instead of preparing students for life after school. 6. Fajah says some young people and recent graduates sound "enough with education" and "enough with studying," which he reads as fatigue from conventional schooling. 7. Dustin counters with examples from a school where one-on-one support and a community culture make students want to come back. 8. Fajah points to SAMR and TPACK, but says technology still feels like "something special" rather than something embedded in learning. 9. He says true integration will arrive when teachers and students simply learn with technology instead of treating it as a bonus. 10. The discussion turns to post-pandemic changes in Indonesia, including Google Workspace for Education, Microsoft education tools, Google Classroom, LMS adoption, and bring-your-own-device assessment. 11. Fajah says teacher learning has expanded through MOOCs, self-paced courses, and communities on Facebook and LinkedIn. 12. When the hosts ask about generative AI, Fajah says the most common reaction among teachers is anxiety. 13. He says multiple-choice and recall-based tests are easy to bypass, which forces schools to redesign assessment. 14. Fajah also warns that social-media advice about making lesson plans, syllabuses, and rubrics in 30 seconds with Gemini can be misleading. 15. He says the missing piece is fundamentals: teachers and students need to understand what AI and smartphones are for before chasing the latest tool. 16. Using LMS platforms as an example, he says the core logic stays similar even when the interface changes from Google to Microsoft or a new product. 17. Fajah then argues that critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and communication should be built into every student. 18. He adds that job candidates may communicate well but still struggle with basic hard skills such as email or word processors. 19. The interview closes with Fajah's case for MOOCs and flexible credentials, with Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge all named as examples of wider access. 20. Fajah says he left university without an undergraduate degree, yet still published a paper, presented at conferences, earned a TESOL certificate, and built his career.

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