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Responses in reaction to the following statement
were assembled from a select group of 1,286 Internet stakeholders
in the fall 2004 Pew Internet & American Life "Experts Survey."
The survey allowed respondents to select from the choices "agree,"
"disagree" or "I challenge" the predictive
statement. Some respondents chose to expand on their answer
to this statement by accepting the invitation to write an explanation
of their position; many did not. Some respondents chose to indentify
themselves with their answer; many did not. We share some -
not all - of the responses here. Workplaces of respondents whose
reactions are listed below are attributed here only for the
purpose of indicating a level of internet expertise; the statements
reflect personal viewpoints and do not represent their companies'
or government agencies' policies or positions. Some answers
have been edited in order to share more respondents' replies.
Below is a selection of the many carefully considered responses
to the following statement:
Prediction on formal education
Enabled by information technologies, the pace of learning in
the next decade will increasingly be set by student choices.
In ten years, most students will spend at least part of their
“school days” in virtual classes, grouped online with others
who share their interests, mastery, and skills.
Compiled reactions from the 1,286
respondents:
57% of internet experts agreed
18 % disagreed
9 % challenged the prediction
17% did not respond
I expect that this will take longer than a decade, but it will
happen. Schools and colleges are enormously resistant to this
kind of change - more so than I would have predicted ten years
ago. As a result, traditional methods of learning will slowly
start to compete with the "upstarts," first, the "proprietary
colleges." Then, one or more of the older institutions will
get aggressive in this arena - and then an avalanche will occur.
At that point, we will truly move from "teaching" environments
to "learning" environments, where students have more control
over when, how, and with whom they learn. Master teachers will
copyright their courses and lectures, and multimedia versions
of those will become "best sellers." In the mid-term, this will
all lead to a "crisis" in higher education, as the old breaks
away and gives place to the new. The new will be better. -
Gary Bachula, Internet2
I've spent enough time worrying about distance education to
despair of this goal being met. Schools are awfully hidebound
institutions. So, although I'd like to think this prediction
will come true, I'm thinking the time scale is much longer -
perhaps 50 years rather than 10. - Susan Crawford, policy
analyst and fellow Center for Democracy & Technology and the
Yale Law School Information Society Project
Schools have already lost major share in the market for education.
Virtual classes are already happening - we'd better improve
their content. - Bob Metcalfe, Polaris Venture Partners
I agree, but am saddened to think that human interaction will
be decreased in this part of the growth and development process.
- Bill Booher, Council on Competitiveness
This is already happening, where on-line education is being
integrated with traditional educational programs. I like the
combination of educational approaches better than pitting in-person
and distance education against one another. I think that electronic
education is a wonderful supplement to more traditional educational
approaches. - Gary Kreps, George Mason University/National
Cancer Institute
In most respects, I see this as a boon to learning, an opportunity
for students from diverse backgrounds to share common experiences,
and a fertile field for creative teaching. I fear, however,
that these technologies will also enable parents who so choose
to circumscribe their children's educational and social environments
in ways that fail to prepare the children for diverse workplaces
and communities. - Lois C. Ambash, Metaforix Inc.
My students think that "library" is part of a web address, as in
"library.utoronto.ca" They go to the online library to read things, but
they miss out on serendipitous, mind-expanding browsing through book
shelves. If it isn't on the first page or two of Google, it doesn't
exist.
What will happen to the Library of Congress (or Dewey Decimal)
cataloguing
system if it is not used? - Barry Wellman, University of Toronto
There will be more choice, but education will still be in classrooms.
However, the nature of knowledge and authority are changing
rapidly. - David Weinberger, Evident Marketing Inc.
I do not now, and have never, witnessed successful benefits
in virtual classrooms. While the role of the teacher will change
from authority figure with all the information to one-on-one
educational coach, the one-teacher-one-student paradigm will
remain the most effective. - Moira Gunn, Tech Nation
I agree with the second part of this statement. I do NOT agree
with the first part concerning self-paced instruction, particularly
for U.S. high school and college students. There is only a limited
amount of time available to learn key skills that are essential
in later life. The number of those skills seems to be constantly
increasing even though the time spent in school is relatively
constant. I don't believe it's socially responsible to allow
high school students to take basket weaving as opposed to classes
that will allow them to read and write and do math at a high
school senior level. To do that will mostly condemn them to
a life of limited opportunities. The whole function of education
is to expand an individual's opportunities. Sometimes that means
students need to be encouraged to challenge themselves. If a
lot of students are given the choice, they would rather play.
Who blames them for that? Unfortunately, a lot of students do
not see the downstream ramifications of increasing playtime
over work time. - Robert Lunn, FocalPoint Analytics/USC
Digital Future Project
There are some situations and uses of "virtual" classes. But,
of all these "predications," I feel safest in predicting that
the general educational setting will look very similar 10 years
from now. Tools will change (e.g., less time in traditional
library, more available online). But physical facilities, meeting
in classroom will remain predominant. - Benjamin M. Compaine,
editor of "The Digital Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a
Myth?"
Learners of all ages will have more tools at their disposal
and larger networks of people from which to learn - often without
time or place limitations. Lucky ones will even be in communities
or professions in which the traditional expectations for judging
quality will be liberated. Unfortunately for the rest of us,
a short ten years - even with the rapid growth of more market-responsive
for-profit enterprises - will not be long enough to really take
advantage of the new forms of learning enabled by the internet.
- Christine Geith, Michigan State University
Student and parental choice is enabled by increasing reliance
and adoption of the Internet. Without a doubt, formal education
will become more "customer-friendly" and responsive to student
expectations, beliefs, and desires. I do not foresee a future
where every student takes an online class - this is too linear
an assumption about how the Internet will affect education.
Rather, I see every face-to-face class supplemented with collaborative
online tools and resources. This blended model to delivering
education will challenge the prevailing views of distance education
today. There will always be virtual courses, and they will grow
in popularity, but they will never be a mainstream part of most
students' K-12 education. - Douglas Levin, policy analyst
for Cable in the Classroom
This will be increasingly true as the age of the student increases.
There will be relatively few virtual classes at the primary
level, and far more at the university and adult education levels.
- Jonathan Band, partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, a law
firm
I would like to believe this vision, and it could happen, but
pedagogically it seems unlikely. The Internet represents a completely
different style of learning. School children and college students
would have to learn to be independent, not dependent learners.
This requires a huge cultural change. Everything suggests in
the UK that the Government would like to rely on virtual teaching
because it might appear cheaper. In reality it will cost more
in staff and student time. I suspect that the Internet will
be a very helpful resource for education, which might represent
a sea-change in learning for a very limited number of students,
especially mature students who don't want to attend a campus.
- Nigel Jackson, Bournemouth University, UK
This might well happen, but it need not be a good thing. If
people are taught to hang out only with those of like interests,
mastery and skills, they will become less tolerant of diversity.
More medieval. - Peter Denning, Naval Postgraduate School,
Monterey, Calif.
The technology is there to achieve this; the resources and public
will is not. The obsession with standardized test scores is
in direct contradiction to allowing students to make their own
choices, and it's political suicide to suggest we abandon this
obsession. Lack of money and resources will also make it impossible
for many schools to take advantage of the technology. -
Rose Vines, freelance tech writer for Australian PC User and
Sydney Morning Herald
Kids will always be the most creative users of technology. The
current classroom setup is just another by-product of the assembly
line culture of the industrial revolution, with its neat rows
of desks facing the classroom leader (the teacher). - Jonathan
Peizer, Open Society Institute
As much as I endorse collaborative learning and student-to-student
interaction, I know that many of my colleagues see that as a
case of the blind leading the blind. For many, learning is really
about the absorption of content, not the making of meaning.
For that to change, we need a change in the culture of teaching
and learning, not just the technological means. And that will
happen slowly, not quickly. Perhaps that's not entirely a bad
thing. The student-as-consumer analogy is flawed: students often
learn, not because they want to, but because they are made to.
If learning becomes choice-driven, what's to prevent many from
making the choice to do less, learn less, tune out? - George
Otte, technology expert
Learning networks are already becoming a global business, driven
by the needs of the developing world. However, the pace of change
should not be exaggerated. Many of those attending virtual classes
will be sitting in groups in local learning centres, for social
and technical support, not in isolation. It will be mixed-mode
learning. - Philip Virgo, secretary general, EURIM - UK-based
Parliament Industry Group/also works with IMIS - UK-based profesional
body for management of information systems
I agree, although I don't necessarily think that this will help
with the develop of many skills young people need to succeed.
This type of learning is best applied later in the learning
process, once fundamental skills are well-established. -
Michelle Manafy, editor, Information Today Inc./Econtent magazine
and Intranets newsletter
We are pushing hard for the integration of computer and video
games into the classroom and think we are making some headway.
But schools are among those institutions in our society that
are most resistant to change, and your prediction above assumes
more radical changes than they are apt to accept. Much of the
online learning will continue to be part of the expansion of
the role of informal out-of-school learning in student's lives.
- Harry Jenkins, MIT Comparative Media Studies
Humans need to interact with other humans in person to learn.
Virtual learning is but one piece of the puzzle. - Joshua
Fouts, executive director, USC Center on Public Diplomacy
See earlier comments on radical changes. By 2014, an education
will certainly include some virtual courses, along with "classical"
courses. In addition, students will be able to go abroad or
engage in internships while remaining full-time students. So,
the variety of educational experience will be enhanced by use
of the Internet. - Stanley Chodorow, University of California
at San Diego/Council on Library and Information Resources
This will be only one of the changes education will suffer in
the next decade. However, such changes will be more visible
and widely implemented at the highest levels of education. The
younger are the students, the less people accept changes in
education policies. - Carlos Andrés Peña, scientific technical
leader, Novartis Pharma
Look at outside factors that could slow this down, such as opposition
by teacher's unions fearing loss of jobs. Counter that with
the value of accelerated learning (esp. where there are NOT
enough teachers or tools), access to remote skills and sources.
I'm not sure if the infrastructure (especially the last mile
or last few meters) will be sufficiently deployed by 2014. -
Gary Arlen, Arlen Communications
There will still be an important role for in-class education
and in-person activities in school. However, these will be enhanced
by the use of IT, and, outside of school, young people will
continue to develop new and different associations around the
globe through sharing of specific interests, skills etc. -
Ezra Miller, Ibex Consulting, Ottawa, Canada
The methods of formal education always lag far behind the possibilities
offered by technological advances. Currently, technology promises
the chance to tailor education curriculum to individual needs
of students. In ten years, we will see demonstrations of individualized
education applied on a small scale, but it will be several more
decades before pedagogy make full use of technology to maximize
the individual potential of each student. - Scott Moore,
Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation
The educational system will be among the most transformed by
nearly free availability of educational material and increasingly
sophisticated learning environments. - William Stewart,
LivingInternet.com
K-12 education is an amazingly conservative institution in the
U.S. (I'm not commenting on other countries here.) Local control,
even in an era of increased emphasis on federal standards, means
that change in school systems is incremental and irregular when
viewed from a national perspective. - Laura Breeden, Education
Development Center
But this does not guarantee excellence and may lead to a fair
degree of shallowness of education based on personal interests.
- Michael Dahan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Department
of Comparative Media, Israel
Do I want to be Plato and bemoan the loss of the great Greek
memory skills with the advent of literacy? Maybe. I've been
at the forefront of adopting these technologies in the classroom,
of trying to implement these ideals. Now I'm stepping back and
reconsidering. I'm finding a loss of higher levels of learning
(and disciplined learning) in these free-form online versions
of the ''open classroom'' experiment in physical classrooms
in the 1970s. I will always remain a champion of active learning,
of overthrowing the authoritarian classroom. But many, when
left to their own devices, ignoring even the guides on the side,
sandbagging in collaborative groups, gaming the system, are
lapsing into higher and higher levels of ignorance, to the point
where they have lost the critical thinking abilities to penetrate
the logical fallacies and leaps of politicians, to where they
fall prey to fascist manipulators of public opinion and become
part of an ignorant mob. This is dangerous for sustaining a
free society. How can it be that by challenging the authoritarian
nature of traditional classrooms, we leave our students more
vulnerable to authoritarian demagogues in other venues? Is this
the classic case of the Boomer Hippie parents raising kids who
rebel by becoming authoritarian goose-steppers? Perhaps too
much loosely structured learning creates a reversal... like
McLuhan's media reversals. - Christine Boese, cyberculture
researcher/CNN Headline News
Involvement, yes, but if by civic one means ''proximate or geographic
communities'' I do not think so. The internet acts as an intensifier
but does not per se create linkages or communities. - Paul
M.A. Baker, Georgia Centers for Advanced Communications Technology
In the U.S. at least, this simply can't be the case given the
timeframe listed. Reform to the educational system is like turning
a battleship. As is, schools are facing economic disparity,
a massive shortage in funding for teachers,let alone infrastructure/technology
improvements. Add to that the idea of changing an entire curriculum
delivery system; it just can't be done in that amount of time.
Furthermore, the education of the U.S. youth is stil falling
behind that of the rest of the world. Virtual classes would
serve nothing more than to further the advances of a few while
likely allowing the larger group to remain stagnant. While parents
and educators stress the need of more individual attention per
student, this ''virtual class room'' would seem to fly directly
in the face of that. - Cory Mettee, Computer Team Inc.
Yes, and in the next decade, that's probably more good than
bad. The field of elementary and secondary education has really
been unable or unwilling to make wholesale changes to its instruction
methodology, so it's good to start incorporating new ideas and
technology. While there are many who would blame the teachers'
unions for slowing the pace of progress here, we can see how
the rapid and thoughtless embrace of technology by others has
made them unable to now moderate its effects. We'll look back
on the upcoming decade and say that the educators got it right,
by painfully scrutinizing every incursion into their classrooms.
- Peter Eckart, Hull House Association
As more homes obtain high-speed connection capabilities and
lower income households obtain internet-capable computers, a
dramatic paradigm shift from the classroom towards allowing
masses of students to tap into top quality learning experiences
online will give a whole new meaning to ''home school." New
technologies will be further refined allowing automated grading,
homework will be tailored to appropriately challenge young learners
based on where they are as learners and what they are capable
of achieving rather than on the lowest common denominator in
an overcrowded classroom … Just as technical advances in the
manufacturing sector have drastically changed the role of the
factory workers and business owners, so too will internet technology
effect the educational infrastructure of teachers, administrators,
suppliers and governmental public education bureaucracies. -
Richard W. DeVries Jr., DeVries Strategic Services, St. Charles,
IL
And the following are from predictors who chose to
remain anonymous: [Workplaces of respondents whose reactions
are listed below include Microsoft, RAND, The Aspen Institute,
National Public Radio, Ventureramp, Sheridan Institute of Technology
and Applied Learning, Canada Institute for Information Technology,
University of Pennsylvania, Internet2, EPCOR, eHealth Institute,
The Center for American Progress, Princeton University, the
New America Foundation, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Stanford,
South East England Development Agency, USA Today, the Center
for Educational Technology, U.S. Census Bureau, University of
Glasgow, University of York, The Institute for the Future, University
of South Florida, Citigroup, the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication
System and others.]
This has been predicted for many years. It will increase, but
not reach "most students."
Education is increasingly moving online, particularly at the
university and post-graduate levels. In the next decade we will
also see more effective use of online technology in K-12.
Well, maybe. I heard similar predictions for about every communication
technology, e.g. cable TV or the French Minitel. There is some
evidence that a growing number of students are taking online
classes, but I can't tell you that this will be the case for
"most students."
It didn't work in the past with other technologies, it hasn't
worked with the Internet to date; in fact, distant education
was always considered a second best to being there - current
research supports these findings again with the Internet. ICTs
will be a resource, not a replacement.
The possibility will provide greater opportunity for a sizeable
minority, but active pursuit of knowledge by the majority, I
think not.
This will be especially true for growing numbers of adult learners.
Collaboration software is progressing rapidly and classrooms
are an ideal application for this technology.
Right direction, but it'll take longer to reach.
They already do ... much information is gleaned from Internet
sources well outside the classroom.
I hope not. This will have adverse effects on education, which
depends heavily upon face-to-face interaction between students
and teachers (and among students).
There will be a continued need for structured education.
Lack of money and a lack of commitment to this sort of goal
- and the inequity of funding in education, at least in the
U.S. - makes this unlikely.
Based on my experiences with teaching in virtual teams, students
will not take to "the mastery of their own education." Most
students today, in fact, don't much value learning, but only
the degree that they can put on their resume. Left to their
own devices most students would do significantly less academic
work.
The evidence of learning and of learnedness is to the contrary.
There is nothing about the medium that will lead this way and
more evidence that IT-in-education is a colossal failure.
Technology can only serve ends set by those who control it -
I see no reason to believe that educators will choose to use
the technology in this way, though it could have powerful results
if they did choose to do so.
This will occur to some extent. Experience indicates that the
time involved in producing quality virtual learning materials
is high. Furthermore, one hopes that the best scholars are producing
the learning materials as opposed people with IT prowess.
Let us hope this is our future. It cannot happen unless there
is the political will to make it happen. So far, the evidence
from the U.S. DOE and various state DOEs is dismal.
Not likely. Pace of change and innovation is slow. We are already
in the "third decade" of the so-called "computer revolution"
in education, yet there has been too little change in the majority
of American classroom. What will change, however, is the role
of the Web and Internet as a critical SUPPLEMENT to the activities
in the classroom, both K-12 and college.
Fortunately or unfortunately this will probably be the case.
On-line universities are already doing this; it is only a matter
of time before it shifts to primary and secondary education.
Unfortunately, such means of education, while excellent at the
purely pedantic level, simply do not foster the development
of social learning that exists in a more traditional environment.
This will take longer than 10 years. The
educational and digital divides are on parallel tracks. We are
headed for an argument between the cost of an education where
the student is physically present on campus and the cost of
a virtual education. A student who is charged the same rate
for both will not see the value in virtual classes. For the
virtual class to exist, there has to be a price point that makes
it worthwhile to give up the experience of being there in person.
If that does not happen, the virtual classroom will be a tactic
in a learning portfolio; it will not be the centerpiece.
I would like to see the above scenario, but having been a professor
for 10 years, mainstream education is very slow getting off
the mark. Much of this change will come outside of school.
This is already beginning to take place, although generally
not in the public school system that is bent on getting their
school a good rating on the next assessment test.
Student behavior depends on change overtaking the educational
bureaucracy. In other words, our human technology, i.e., how
we agree to teach children, has to change before the kind of
change you are talking about can come true in the classroom.
Students already are learning tremendous amounts virtually,
outside of the classroom, much of which is perhaps not what
teachers would have them learn.
Increasingly the technology will be there to permit this, but
educational institutions are very slow to change, and the result
is that we still will make relatively little use of the capability
except in certain niche areas.
Harvard and other major universities are not likely to go virtual.
In fact, being on campus will become a thing of status. Online
learning and virtual learning will allow more individuals to
go to college, but it will take decades if not centuries for
online learning to gain the same status as classroom learning.
I see enhanced classrooms and dorm rooms ... but not a radical
change in how learning occurs.
This will be true for a number of students but not most. Education
will never move that fast.
Yes, but not in 10 years from now - today! This is already unfolding.
Technologies for online learning are being brought in to the
formerly offline classes. More formal aspects of learning (and
thus also of teaching) will also extend out of the classroom
and class time to fill the week. Indeed, this is already here.
When it comes to changing pedagogy, a decade is nothing. We
will go on as we are for at least fifty years before things
change significantly for most people. Some early users will
do some changing in the next decade - but not many.
The traditional role of teacher will be diminished as students
find peers and other authority figures from which learning can
be done. The down side of this is that traditional training
for teachers will be inadequate to deal with this kind of classroom,
or how to exploit this kind of learning/teaching dynamic. Only
a small portion of "school time" will be devoted to this learning
environment, as it has traditionally been viewed as "extra curricular."
Little value can be placed on the knowledge and skills attained
with this learning becasue there exist no standardized measure
of what students learn and apply outside the traditional classroom.
There is potential for growth within the area of formal education,
but little initiative or consensus on how to implement it.
There are limits on the efficacy of student-directed learning
and I think they have already been discovered. The second statement
seems more plausible.
Already happening. One of our local education authorities has
deconstructed the curriculum in some of its schools and school
kids pace themselves, using notebook PCs. The educational experience
will be much more diverse and there will be a general upskilling.
For disadvantaged groups, including those discriminated against,
such as young black boys, the impact will be very positive.
The educational model will evolve to lifelong learning over
degree institutions.
Rather than "freeing" students, the technology will be used
to make mass education cheaper. For a small proportion, technology
is a dynamic extension of an enriched educational process. But
for many, it is simply a more efficient and economical way to
deal with a burdensomely large student population with far too
many needs.
Students will continue to require face-to-face mentoring. Part
of school is social development. Graduate work will be almost
entirely virtual.
I'm not sure, and this is pretty much where I spend most of
my professional time. The instructional apparatus is very tenacious
in protecting itself. And the K-12 teacher scaling issue is
deadlocked (i.e., we can't reduce the student-teacher ratio
much). I think it'll take another decade for the instructional
population to turn over.
Learning is VERY difficult to do online. There would have to
be very rapid change and development of the educational sphere
for this to happen in next ten years. A lot of schools still
don't integrate information tech into their physical infrastructure
or curriculum.
They might want to do that, but our crumbling educational system
is a sluggish, bureaucratic morass that cannot figure out how
to budget for anything let alone innovate.
I believe the millennium generation will interact and socialise
in radically different ways - this will have a major impact
on the experience of education.
The need for formally sanctioned learning means traditional
methods - and the power of professionals rather than students
- will dominate. However, students will spend more of their
study time outside of class in such virtual fora and very little
in libraries or reading printed materials.
I am an educator. I regularly develop and teach online and partly
online courses, and am fully convinced of their relevance and
utility in some situations. But I do not believe that they will
displace regular classes and real-time face-to-face interaction
with teachers as a preferred mode of learning, especially in
some content areas.
The trend toward directing learning according to student choices
long predates the modern IT. What the Internet changes is opportunities
for students to learn from people at a distance. The ''teachers''
in question may be other students, but may also include role
models, mentors, and teachers elsewhere.
Even if we limit ourselves to the U.S., we're simply too far
away from a society where ''most students'' have access to computers
even some of the time. Much less where entire curricula could
be designed around networked learning for anything more than
a small fraction of the student population.
While I have no doubt that the technology permits and potentially
could optimize virtual education, I do not see the conservative
core of the country (U.S.) approving use of tax dollars for
this purpose. I now live in a state that has an appalling policy
that values a zero-based budget over necessary public education
expenditures in the PRESENT let alone investments for the future.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that our educational
structure in the U.S. could do something as revolutionary as
allowing students to grow at their own pace. It would take a
complete revolution in our educational system to make this happen.
By 2014, many of the wealthier suburban and private schools
may well be in this ''advanced'' mode, but I don't think it
will yet be the norm for ''most students.'' But the prediction
itself isn't aligned well. ''Set by student choices'' could
mean a haphazard pursuit of immature interests and fads or a
carefully structured sequence of authentic learning experiences
and inquiry learning projects that may or may not require online
activity (e.g., the Anderson School of the Future in California
is highly innovative in this regard but used little technology).
I happen to believe that such a restructuring should occur and
will be best enabled by strong doses of virtual/online interaction,
but it will take longer than 10 more years to get even the majority
of schools headed there. And we cannot afford to continue to
widen the achievement gap for lower-income and racial/ethnic
demographic groups of young people.
Students may THINK at first this is a good idea, and they may
enroll in these virtual classes, and they will likely try one
out, but the fact is (and I have taught and talked to a lot
of learners in this environment) the only ones who can ''learn''
in this environment are (a) those who can read very well (b)
write articulately and (c) are highly motivated to learn. That
is limiting, to say the least. Plus most people want personal
contact and group interaction in a learning environment. Until
online audio-video real-time contact is generally available,
virtual classes will not appeal to the majority of learners.
It will be fine for ''mature'' learners who are highly motivated.
For the average, it will not work. The vast majority of youthful
students I speak to tell me that they would far prefer a ''regular''
class to a virtual class. For those who are at the MBA level
or who are mature students who are holding down full-time jobs,
I agree that they would prefer the virtual classroom, simply
because it is the only realistic choice they have based on their
situations, but even they would prefer a more traditional classroom.
Maybe when the technology is ubiquitous and everyone can have
broadband and all classes can be simulcast it may work. In the
meantime ... virtual classes will remain the last option for
most students.
Going all the way back to the Minnesota PLATO system, we've
seen predictions that computers would transform learning. But
people want to learn in social settings. The advancement we
finally are seeing today is that the Internet is facilitating
social interaction. It's all becoming easy to use and rich in
terms of what can be conveyed and shared. I fully expect this
to continue on a reasonable, gentle growth curve until computer-mediated
interactions are a significant natural part of a learning experience
- alongside the traditional classroom setting.
These are two very different items within the one question -
I certainly don't predict education being increasingly driven
by student choice, but increasingly by federal government directives
that focus on demonstrable, relatively low-level skills. But,
I also see more and more students working online as part of
their coursework - whether as a home-school homework interface,
content delivery during a school day, or substitution of some
classes with online discussion sessions - but much of this will
be driven by economics (i.e., fewer teachers can teach more
students using online media) than by, say, research showing
students learn more effectively online. Education - especially
compulsory education spheres - has a woeful track record in
taking up new technologies in meaningful and useful ways.
Schools are slow to evolve, and in-person student/teacher learning
will remain the norm. Virtual classes are useful, but I don't
believe they'll become the norm in the next ten years.
Students will never control their in-school choices and this
is the largest threat to national competitiveness and security.
We have taken away the teacher's sand box, his arrows and quiver.
We are failing at education. Children have self-organized outside
of institutionalized education to produce the KSA of future
workforce needs. Network Video Game Builders are engaged in
transdisciplinary, inquiry-driven, self-motivated learning.
They are creating new worlds, new processes, new techniques,
new languages and new knowledge. We can not seem to pierce the
veil of the their play to understand their learning much less
their attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Generation Y is the
ARCHITECT of global futures. Can we trust them? Can we entrust
them? Can we trust ourselves enough to let them go? To be free:
To explore? To invent? We are experiencing a renaissance. Institutionalized
Education is LOST to industrial and agrarian structures, influences
and perceptions. We need a qualitative transformation of learning
from the students up. Teachers are students and those who get
it are in it.
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