Education in 25 years

Communication technology definitely changed education. I remember when I was in primary school, projector and computer were only used for big events in class with no internet connection. Education stayed the most traditional way of oral and literal teaching. Then in high school, internet, computer, powerpoint are common in each class and no one would, like we did in primary school, make a fuss on the fancy effects on the screen. In college, for the first time in my life I took online course, where everything you learn and need were shared online by electronic version. Unconsciously, we all witnessed and experienced the process of how communication technology change school and class. Thinking about 25 years later, it is definitely reasonable to go wild with imagination and believe in the incredible power of technology in education.

In Facer and Stanford’s article, I really think the “Informed Choice” education system in World 1 is viable to be the real future. “A highly personalized education system structured around the individual collaborating lifelong with paid mentors and structuring education provision from diverse sources around their needs”. Even today, the physical connection between students and teachers are being weakened by the virtual contact online. With less sense of being a collective group, the idea of individualization in education will definitively be enhanced. In 25 years or more, more people realize their personal expectations from education and would like to choose anything that meets their needs. Each one has his own personalized design of program, have class and meet with professors individually.

From my view, I can imagine other two scenarios of education which may happen in 25 years. First of all, schools may no longer exist and are taken place by online education schools. This is not an idea comes from nowhere, it is actually happening in today’s education system. The introduction of communication technologies into schools weakens the importance and necessity of physical interaction. Class may not be hold in real classroom, assignments are all handed in via emails, google drives help share every material within the class. It is so convenient, time-saving, labor-saving and efficient than any other method before. With computer technologies, the statistics of one student’s online attendance, exam grades, academic performance improvement can be easily calculated and valued, which I believe is more efficient than traditional ways.

Second scenario that I imagine may happen in the future is that classes will not take place in traditional setting like classroom in schools, but in real working situations. In other words, there may not be classes for students of different majors. Instead, each person study in real working occasions based on their own choices. The high efficiency and immediacy of technologies makes educators and students more practical and efficient. With figuring our what they really want to learn well and fast, education happen in the real working environment instead of schools and universities.

The future relationship between communication technology and education is very unpredictable. It depends on how technology advance, how people react and adapt to it. One thing can be sure, from my point of view, is that the virtual connection made by new technology will definitely play more and more important role in education that will change the educational expectation, design and interaction in the future.