Archives: Expert Predictions

Teachers will be able to keep a cumulative record of a studentÕs work, which can be reviewed at any time or shared with other instructors. Special software programs will help summarize information on the skills, progress, interest, and expectations of students. Once teachers have enough information on a student and are relieved of a lot of tedious paperwork, they will have more energy and time to meet the revealed individual needs of that student. This information will be used to tailor classroom materials and homework assignments. Teachers and parents will also be able to review and discuss the particulars of a childÕs progress easily. As a result of this – and the common availability of videoconferences – the potential for strong parent-teacher collaboration will grow.

Computers connected to the highway will help teachers monitor, evaluate, and guide student performance. Teachers will continue to give homework, but soon their assignments will include hypertext references to electronic resource material. Students will create their own links and use multimedia elements in their homework, which will then be submitted electronically on a diskette or across the highway.

Some teachers will take advantage of easy-to-use authoring software to adapt and combine bits and pieces of what they find. Feedback from other interested instructors will be easy to get and will help refine the lesson. In a short time, the improved material could be in thousands of classrooms all over the world. It will be easy to tell what materials are popular, because the network will be able to count the number of time they are accessed, or to poll teachers electronically. Corporations wanting to help with education could provide recognition and cash awards to teachers whose materials are making a difference.

Educators who bring energy and creativity to a classroom will thrive … When teachers do excellent work and prepare wonderful materials, only their few dozen students benefit each year. ItÕs difficult for teachers in different locations to build on anotherÕs work. The network will enable teachers to share lessons and materials, so that the best educational practices can spread.

Most countries will decide to make increased investments in education, and computer use in schools will catch up to its use in homes and businesses. Over time – longer in less developed countries – we are likely to see computers installed in every classroom in world.

The highway will bring together the best work of countless teachers and authors for everyone to share. Teachers will be able to draw on this material, and students will have to opportunity to explore it interactively. In time, this access will help spread educational and personal opportunities even to students who arenÕt fortunate enough to enjoy the best schools or the greatest family support. It will encourage a child to make the most of his or her native talents.

There is an often-expressed fear that technology will replace teachers. I can say emphatically and unequivocally, IT WONÕT. The information highway wonÕt replace or devalue any of the human education talent needed to the challenges ahead: committed teachers, creative administrators, involved parents, and, of course diligent students. However, technology will be pivotal in the future role of teachers.

Every member of society, including every child, will have more information easily at hand than anyone has today. I believe that just the availability of information will spark the curiosity and imagination of many. Education will become a very individual matter.

Just as information technology now allows Levi Strauss & Co. to offer jeans that are both mass-produced and custom fitted, information technology will bring mass customization to learning. Multimedia documents and easy-to-use authoring tools will enable teachers to “mass-customize” a curriculum. As with blue jeans, the mass customization of learning will be possible because computers will fine-tune the produce – educational material, in this case – to allow students to follow somewhat divergent paths and learn at their own rates.

Some fear that technology will dehumanize formal education. But anyone who has seen kids working together around a computer É knows that technology can humanize the educational environment. The same technological forces that will make learning so necessary will also make it practical and enjoyable. Corporations are reinventing themselves around the flexible opportunities afforded by information technology; classrooms will have to change as well.