2020 learning technologies

When I try to gaze into the future I hurt my eyes. It's difficult to see much beyond the end of the year, so trying to predict what technologies we might see in schools by 2020 is like staring into a very strong spotlight. We can merely speculate. It's not even worth trying to extrapolate trends based on developments from the previous 10 years. Change is not linear, it's exponential. That means that the change that has happened over the last decade, rapid as it has been, will in no way compare realistically with the changes we can expect over the next decade. But I'm going to stick my neck out anyway .... so how about this for a prediction?

It is highly likely that more informal tools and technologies, such as handheld devices, mobile phones and games consoles will take an increasing role in formal education. I can say this with some confidence, because there are already some signs of this happening in some schools. We don't know what informal personal technologies will look like in 2020. But teachers and education leaders are beginning to realise that there is a huge untapped potential in today's personal technologies. For example, the Nintendo Dual Screen and Wii games technologies are already being used effectively for teaching in some schools. iPod tools are connecting learners with content outside the walls of the school. The GPS capability in mobile phones has enormous potential for the teaching of geography, while the context aware facilities in smart mobile phones can extend the classroom beyond its traditional walls and out into the world, embracing history, natural sciences, citizenship and art/design. Imagine children using their context and location aware devices to access information about art or natural history exhibits in a gallery or museum. Imagine them capturing images of the places they visit which they can later upload onto their blogs, or videos they can create of real-time events beyond the classroom. Imagine the impact of augmented reality (AR) overlays on live images from an iPhone camera, feeding children with information about the world as they move through it, exploring. All of these things are already happening in a limited way, and we can imagine that such applications will and must spread, as smart phones become cheaper, more reliable and more powerful.

Some cynics might predict that there will be little change over the next few years in schools, because a) they are conservative organisations b) there is very little money available to invest in new technologies in schools and c) when introduced, new technologies are seldom successful in schools across the board unless a government initiative forces them to be adopted (see for example Interactive White Boards and school VLEs). Pragmatists might also point out that even if new technologies are introduced into formal learning spaces, they are often applied poorly and innappropriately, or are used in ways that fall short of their true potential. There is also the question of whether all children will have access to personal tools such as smart phones. Schools don't have budgets to ensure that all children have a personal technology. The only way this will happen is when they become as affordable to purchase and use as a ball-point pen or a pencil.

I'm going to conclude this blogpost by predicting that in school, children will one day use personal technologies in a similar way to the way they now use pens and pencils. We won't be seeing ICT suites in the future, anymore than we see pencil suites now. We need a seamless provision that blurs the boundaries between what children use to learn when they are in school and when they are outside the school gates. We need to be in a position where the excitement of informal learning and the powerful richness of social media, personal gaming and instant messaging can continue inside the formal learning space. The sooner this happens, the better.

Image source by Mac.Merc (Modified)

2020 learning technology by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

2020 Learners

Children who are born this year will be halfway through primary school when 2020 arrives. What will be their experience of education?

If the last few years is anything to go on, we can expect some far reaching changes between now and 2020. We will witness the introduction of many new digital tools and technologies. We will also see changes in the curriculum, teacher roles, and learner needs. But what will these changes be? Will they be good ones? Over the next week or so, I want to explore what possible changes we can see on the horizon, and how they might affect learners and teachers, school and education.

But a word of warning... Predicting the future can be a hazardous occupation. In Biblical times, if a prophet got it wrong, he was stoned to death. Harsh. When clairvoyants get it wrong, the worse they can suffer is possibly having to pay you your money back. Astrologers don't often get it wrong, because they know better than to say anything specific. Everything they predict and advise is just far too vague for anyone to detect if it's accurate. While most of these 'futurologists' are playing games, if politicians wish to decide what is best for children they had better get it right. If they fail to plan properly for the future of our schools and education, their decisions will have a profound effect on our children, our grandchildren, and ultimately on our society.

We can't accurately predict the future of course, but what we can do is watch the trends. So will learners in 2020 be any different from those we see in our schools today? Will their needs and aspirations have changed from our own? It's highly likely they will. My own children have had very different school experiences to my own. My son, who will be 16 this year, wants to become an interactive games designer - a job that was unheard of when I left school. Many of the jobs that will appear in the next 10 years do not yet exist. Most of today's jobs rely either exclusively, or to a large extent, on information and communication technology of one form or another. This trend is on the increase. It follows that children of the future will need even more digital literacy skills than they have now. Does the current curriculum cover these skills fully?

Globalisation is also on the increase. Worldwide systems, nations, communities are more interdependent than ever, and this trend is upward. Employment mobility is also on the rise as borders come down and people move from country to country for work. Whole populations are migrating across continents to seek better living conditions thanks to European Union legislation and other international border agreements. Children of the future will need to learn more about other cultures and how they can maximise their skills in other countries. They may need to learn more languages too, but with intelligent systems providing ever more accurate translations, it may simply be a case of mastering yet another digital literacy.

Children of the future will also need to learn for life - learning to be flexible, adaptable and open to changes that might - for our current generation at least - be perceived as a threat. Of one thing we can all be certain - that change will accelerate in the next few years. Change can be disruptive and can take time, energy and effort to adapt to, but learners of the future will need to see change as an opportunity, and will need the requisite skills to take the opportunities that are presented and turn them into positive and sustainable outcomes.

Finally, children will need to be able to design their own learning spaces, create their own content and learn from it. They will be less reliant on didactic and transmissive forms of teaching and will turn instead to more independent learning from the vast storehouse of knowledge we know as the World Wide Web. This does not preclude some form of 'schooling' however. The teacher's role will change to accommodate these new needs. Teachers will become facilitators, mediators, co-authors and co-producers of content, and ultimately, companion travellers with children on their road to better learning. It is already happening in some schools. In posts later this week, I will explore what possible new roles of teachers in 2020 will need to adopt to help to prepare learners for an uncertain and certainly unpredictable future.

"The arrow of time says the future will be different to the past." - Professor Brian Cox

Image source by 'Back of the Napkin'


2020 Learners by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.