Over the past few years I have spoken to dozens of educational groups about the future of education. To drive home the importance of change, I remind my audiences that in many technical fields—such as biology and physics—knowledge is doubling every seven years. This rapid pace of acceleration demands that all of us revisit how we approach the vital topic of education.
Luckily, new advances in technology are making it easier for teachers, administrators and school districts to ”jump the curve” and embrace technological innovation in order to stay ahead of this avalanche of new knowledge.
For example, innovative teachers are now using Curriki—an open source curriculum development tool—to continually modify their curriculum with the latest information.
Other cash-strapped school districts are considering following the example of Insight Schools in Oregon which educated 600 students last year with an all-digital curriculum—and they did it for a cost of $4,500 per student. The program now has a waiting list of 3000 students.
Still other innovative teachers are using “clicker” technology to assess students’ understanding in class. The benefit of this approach is that rather than waiting until after a test to find out if a student has grasped a key concept, the teacher gets immediate feedback. In one interesting case, a teacher using this technology discovered that 86 percent of his students incorrectly thought that the mass of a pile of iron nails left in open container would stay the same after they rusted. Seeing that the students didn’t grasp the concept that oxygen molecules were creating the rust—and thus adding weight—the teacher stopped the class and drove home this important point.
On a different front, educators in Japan are now using video technology to both engage students and help them learn better. In early studies, schools using DS Nintendo to teach writing and vocabulary have noted that 80 percent of the students using the technology have mastered junior-high-level competence in English. This compared with only 15 percent under the standard method.
There are also a variety of new tools that will soon revolutionize how we instruct our students in Spanish, French, German and Mandarin Chinese. Private on-line tutorials are already utilizing cheap bandwidth, Skype and Podcasts to transform the field by circumventing the old method of person-to-person tutoring, and other programs such as LanguageLab.com are exploring how virtual reality sites such as SecondLife can help students learn languages better by creating more realistic situations in which they can interact with native speakers.
Other virtual reality technologies are now poised to become major assets to teachers as well. Innovative history teachers, for instance, might use virtual reality goggles to help students gain an appreciation for what ancient Rome was like, and cutting-edge biology and chemistry teachers could employ virtual reality models to explain how atoms of carbon and oxygen form to create carbon dioxide and how this, in turn, leads to global climate change.
Why there is even an avatar called “Virtual Eve” which is providing personalized instruction to some students. To appreciate how sophisticated it is, Eve can even sense when students are bored, frustrated or confused.
The field of education is ripe with opportunity and technology offers the educational community an exciting opportunity to do its job better and more effectively. But first teachers, administrators—and, yes, even students—must understand that a great many tools are already available to assist them in their most important of missions.
Interested in other education-related posts by Jack? Check out these past writings:
The Future of Education: Is it About to Be Rekindled?
The Future of College
What Language Will the Future Speak?
Do the Impossible: A Case Study
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
