Where Old Meets Now

    Speculating on future variables and consequences of the will be educational system is no simple task, and can only be measured a success by overcoming the inertia of the currently entrenched system.  Countries, Districts, and especially Teachers need to embrace innovative ideas, explore and experiment with the tools that are now in abundance as never before, and initiate the future that they envision and our students require.  If education can keep abreast of these changes and provide what our students and society desperately need, the beast of educational bureaucracy will have it’s inertia altered, allowing for the much-needed change to begin.

    As technology forces “the steady move to digital environments“, educators will increase their integration of 21st century learning skills, digital literacy, alternate reality games, simulations, and game play to enhance the delivery of content to and for their students.  These approaches will develop student-centered environments that will utilize constructivist and connectivist theories to ensure the best instructional methods for our learners’ individual needs.  The collaboration afforded by digital technologies will empower the exploration, expansion, and implementation of Open Teaching; this instructional model will follow a flexible curriculum allowing students to complete compulsory core concepts, while enhancing their educational experience through completion of individual modules of interest, delivering a unique learning environment based upon each students needs and skills.  Resources will be developed through “relationships between non-commercial and commercial enterprises, that will help with the dissemination of material” “across multiple diffuse platforms of interaction.”  This fundamental shift will force a new instructional role upon future educators, no longer just instructing their class, they will be facilitating the students exploration of knowledge for themselves.  Generalist classroom teachers will become specialized in their areas of interest, allowing them to facilitate their specific knowledge to students regardless of their location around the world.  By coordinating these efforts it is possible that the future of education will only be limited by limitless connections, and ones imagination on the use of tools to enhance the educational experience for all students.

    Technology is a ”disruptive and expensive innovation,” however is it the savior of education?  Can the “budget be found to support technology” with our ever erratic economic climate?  Technology is only a tool, utilized either expertly or poorly depending upon the training and creativity of the wielder, this forces a concentrated effort by many to ensure current technology within the classroom, and proper teacher professional development to allow our students to successfully compete globally.  However, more importantly our current system is failing at a fundamental level, our students are entering the workforce with unbalanced skills (promotion of group activities have “severally limited our students independent ability for decision making“, while “basic numeracy skills continually decrease“), which will continue to worsen as time passes regardless of the method of instruction employed.  Our system needs to refocus, it is now more important than ever to teach to the masses, not to the few, but why can both not happen?  Open Teaching theoretically provides an educational utopia, allowing all students to focus and graduate with the necessary skills and knowledge for their chosen path in life, not be forced to accept current dogma.  However, two major issues still exist, firstly how will students be assessed if the smorgasbord of instruction is employed, as well how can one ensure the existence of skills and knowledge within our students?  Along with new curriculum, new forms of assessment will follow, the modification of Prior Learning Assessments for example, will allow both the school and the student to determine the necessary modules for completion, combining flexible learning with sound assessment practices.  Secondly, swaying “academic faculty members to change their traditional modes of instruction” will slow down or stop the necessary adjustments needed.  This problem is simply solved with attrition, as older staff retires they will be replaced with newly trained educators and begin the transformation, this process will be slow, but inevitable, education cannot remain stagnant or it will become irrelevant as time passes.

    Education finds itself at a crossroads.  Can a system be developed that incorporates innovative instructional strategies providing students with more leverage and ability to negotiate their own learning, or will complacency persist in our current system?  Each day our planet moves closer and closer to complete globalization, forcing our schools, teachers and students to change in order to compete.  Hardware, software and technological resources are constantly being developed and improved upon to make the transition easier, teachers constantly spout the mantra “what is best for our students”, now the time has come to test the strength of this belief, the road will be hard, but failure is not an option.