Have you ever wondered what education is going to be like in 5 years? or in 10 or maybe 20 years? I guess you have, if you are an educator. Have you ever observed classrooms from the outside and thought: "God! It feels education is still the same as it was in the Middle Ages!!" Well, personally I have been through such an uncomfortable stream of thoughts! Uncomfortable because you, as an educator, judge yourself and others in terms of innovation, efficiency and intelectual atractiveness for our students.
In a changing world, eduacation must change, indeed. However, it must change in reasonable and practical ways. It must meet the needs of contemporary students in a contemporary world. We should not serve 21rst century students with educational practices and contexts from the XIX century! Such is the right state of mind and the motivation of many education intellectuals, and researchers that see the critical need for change in thousands of schools around the world. An example of such an effort and reflection on contemporary education is the Horizon report.
The Horizon report is a project aimed at anouncing and documenting guidance and insights into the future thresholds education must go through, in order to keep competitive and adequate. Now , what is a competitive and adequate education? Well, what do you say about it, dear reader? what would be your answer?
In a changing world, eduacation must change, indeed. However, it must change in reasonable and practical ways. It must meet the needs of contemporary students in a contemporary world. We should not serve 21rst century students with educational practices and contexts from the XIX century! Such is the right state of mind and the motivation of many education intellectuals, and researchers that see the critical need for change in thousands of schools around the world. An example of such an effort and reflection on contemporary education is the Horizon report.
The Horizon report is a project aimed at anouncing and documenting guidance and insights into the future thresholds education must go through, in order to keep competitive and adequate. Now , what is a competitive and adequate education? Well, what do you say about it, dear reader? what would be your answer?
The Horizon report is a visionary document created by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE LearningInitiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE program. The document points out at key trends in our time that call out for education change, and they are:
- Easy access to resources and relationships through the internet.
- Flexibility is required by people so they can study, learn and work whenever they want to.
- Easy access to information of our own and of others.
- Students are studying in a more collaborative fashion, and so are working schools and faculties in educational institutions.
Today, the world is just some "clicks" away!!
The Horizon project also identifies the challenges to be met in the process of innovating education practices. Change will always come along with smooth or rough transitions. In order to make smooth transitions the clue is to know what is yet to come and get ready for it in time, physically and psychologically, for the changes expected to occur. In order for education to meet the new requirements smoothly, the project makes some recomendations as follows:
- Students must be prepared for their future life.
- New metrics for evaluation must be created or implemented. There are new educational experiences that need different evaluation models and scales.
- Digital media literacy has to be acquired in educational environments for a world that demands more and more of them from the new professionals and employees in general.
The project also makes you pop eyes on new powerful emergent technologies that are changing the face of the world like no other. According to their research findings, the most infusing technologies in our time are:
- Mobile computing ( Smart phones and laptops with ulimited and universal internet access).
- Open contents ( MIT classes are streamed free on line for whoever that wants to learn!).
- Augmented reality ( like the maps in google earth and the virtual boutiques offered by google in its applications for laptops, desktops and mobilephones).
- Electronic books. ( I-pads, kindles and other readers)
- Gesture based computing, no physical but kinetic commands! ( Facial passwords, facial interactions between humans and computers and game or music consoles ) ( Kinect of Xbox is using this new technology to engage audiences in entertainment- I already tried that and was astonished!).
- Visual Data Analysis. ( The gate for unexpected capabilities and powerful aplications and implications in communications, and learning empowerment, like never before. The manipulation of visual data to manipulate data and predict outcomes in real, scientific settings).
Will you let your students look through the future window? Will you take them for a walk on the virtual world and use the trends? Will you train them for success? Will you empowered them?
See this moving video about "making the match" for our kids. I adore Adora! She is full of insights, listen to her, I will not blame you if she rips a happy tear from your eye...
A very insightful post. I wonder all the time and it gets me a little worried while at other times, I am looking forward to it, but the question that I ask myself is, if I am ready for the change. Education is really changing for the better so we have to change our teaching styles so as to meet the needs of these students. As you say, the world is just a click away. You are so right.
ReplyDeleteThanks to people like you we are no longer in the Middle Ages! People who work for a better world.
ReplyDeleteThe girl's video is really powerful, she talked about real things happening in the classroom but we as adult and teachers sometimes do not allow students to go beyond and cut their growth. It makes me evaluate myself as an educator where am I? in the group of teachers looking forward to the future or still in the one of XIX?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this post. I agree 100% that "In a changing world, education must change". So much has changed and is continuing to change in technology. We need to be preparing the students for that big ever evolving world .
ReplyDeleteI have to agrre with you that as the world changes so does education and as education changes so must we as educators change with it. It we are stuck in the past then we are of no use to our students. We need to move with the times.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post!!
I too believe that this is a very insightful post. I too wonder what education and its teaching will be like as the years go by. I too, like you, am sure that there will be changes Ancizar. Good points.
ReplyDeleteChanges and more changes - wonderful information my friend. As I read I couldn't help but smile as I could hear you saying instead of writing the information. Adora did rip' a happy tear from my eyes'. Powerful!
ReplyDeleteI love TED Talks, but had not seen this one. My new hero is Adora!
ReplyDeleteVery good approach!
ReplyDeleteFuture holds more competition among different occupations and Horizon reports are telling us how the world is evolving in order to wake us up and try to make us catch up with it. So what is the best education we can keep up with? Like you do, I hope good things are kept even from the Middle Ages!