What does the future of education look like? People love to look forward in time and see what things will look like in a hundred years. It is almost as rewarding to step back in time and look at how far we have come in terms of only a few decades much less a hundred years. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s there was a big push to put computers in the classroom. Encyclopedia Britannica made an electronic version on CD that you could put in your CD ROM by the mid 90’s. The make up of the classroom was very teacher centered still as I and other students sat in lecture driven classrooms. Discussions and projects were the only real time that we produced a product. By the end of my high school times there was significant changes in terms of what technology was out there, but even then things were still done on video tape and editing was a process that required a lot of time in a little room in front of a large TV.
That obviously is not the case now where video can be manipulated online and projects can occur completely remotely. I can remember taking a correspondence course in High School, and having to send in my projects by mail. The educational environment has changed and changed rapidly. What the canvas looks like in the future is anyone’s guess. James Paul Gee brings up the point that education is heading for a creative revolution, as video games become common learning and assessment tools in the classroom. He is right, and there does seem to be a large amount of movement towards a video game rich environment. However, as the power is shifting toward student-centered classrooms, the focus for innovation lies with the teacher. How willing is the teacher to innovate and bring some of these ideas from the future to the present? Solomon and Schrum (2007) bring up open source as a potential help to ushering in this new era of education, but there will have to be significant advances to open source software. This would be similar to a web 2.0 experience for this off the shelf software that is free to use. The average user is not tech savy enough to customize the software to a point that it would help to accomplish the goals set forth by Gee. I completely agree that open source “could help realize the potential of technology to transform education” (Solomon and Schrum, 2007). I however have to be realistic, as I am not getting paid to sit back and just develop tools. That would be a great job, but that is also a reason that districts buy software. I look forward to the web 3.0 process. The next step takes this open source software and allows people with varying levels of technological proficiencies to implement customization in a way that we have not seen. Google may provide that opportunity as the company continues to offer free solutions to paid alternatives.
This week was all about the future, and for the moment the future looks good. Our job as educators is to help bring that optimistic future to light.
Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video
Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 168-176.
That obviously is not the case now where video can be manipulated online and projects can occur completely remotely. I can remember taking a correspondence course in High School, and having to send in my projects by mail. The educational environment has changed and changed rapidly. What the canvas looks like in the future is anyone’s guess. James Paul Gee brings up the point that education is heading for a creative revolution, as video games become common learning and assessment tools in the classroom. He is right, and there does seem to be a large amount of movement towards a video game rich environment. However, as the power is shifting toward student-centered classrooms, the focus for innovation lies with the teacher. How willing is the teacher to innovate and bring some of these ideas from the future to the present? Solomon and Schrum (2007) bring up open source as a potential help to ushering in this new era of education, but there will have to be significant advances to open source software. This would be similar to a web 2.0 experience for this off the shelf software that is free to use. The average user is not tech savy enough to customize the software to a point that it would help to accomplish the goals set forth by Gee. I completely agree that open source “could help realize the potential of technology to transform education” (Solomon and Schrum, 2007). I however have to be realistic, as I am not getting paid to sit back and just develop tools. That would be a great job, but that is also a reason that districts buy software. I look forward to the web 3.0 process. The next step takes this open source software and allows people with varying levels of technological proficiencies to implement customization in a way that we have not seen. Google may provide that opportunity as the company continues to offer free solutions to paid alternatives.
This week was all about the future, and for the moment the future looks good. Our job as educators is to help bring that optimistic future to light.
Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video
Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 168-176.