Web 2.0 in the classroom Another excellent Edublogs.org weblog

Education in the year 2020 will be shaped primarily by ubiquitous internet connectivity, advances in technology, and our society’s increasing environmental concerns.  However, the change will not be entirely one sided, as the shifting face of education will in turn influence the very factors that are shaping it.  To begin, it is important to identify the factors that will drive the changes and their immediate impacts.

The Ubiquitous Internet

The year 2020 will see the great majority of the world gaining access to the internet.  Not only will such connections be commonplace, but they will also be mobile as well, enabling instant connectivity for the individual no matter where he/she happens to be.  With instant and widespread availability of such a wealth of information, the importance of what you know becomes less important than how you use the knowledge at your disposal.  Likewise, the ability to quickly find information becomes a more valuable skill than remembering vast quantities of it.

Another change prompted by the ubiquity of the internet is the increase in social networking.  When an individual is constantly connected to the internet, it becomes trivial to send, receive, and share information with social networks; they could be as small as your family or your class, or as large as the entire fan base of an artist or residents of a city, state or nation.  However, the speed and depth of information that can be shared will be limited by the available technologies.

Advances in Technology

Hand in hand with the spread of the internet will come increases in the sophistication of technology.  More bandwidth, more processor power, longer battery life, sharper displays, and better media interaction will be provided by increasingly smaller, more mobile devices.  The increasing quality of audio and video capture will be paired with the growing capacity of the expanding internet to provide an interactive media experience that is only hinted at by such current technologies as Skype and video podcasts.

Environmental Concerns

One of the fastest growing movements in modern society surrounds the “green” revolution.  Though its emphasis currently falls on recycling, conservations efforts, and renewable energy, the trend in the future will probably be towards lifestyles that have less of an impact on the environment.  One such lifestyle change would be a reduction in driving coupled with an increase in telecommuting.  Another would be a shift towards smaller, more distributed communities that rely more upon walking and bicycles for transportation.

With these important factors for change identified, it is now time to assess what impact they will have upon education, and what impacts education may, in turn, have upon them.

The Telecommuting Boom

The availability of devices that capture and send high quality audio and video will not only affect the type of media at our disposal, but also the way we interact with one another.  Teleconferencing has progressed from speakerphones in boardrooms to full audio and video chat sessions with participants on far-flung continents.  This will only become more commonplace as the cost and environmental impact of travel become more of a concern.

This might be felt dramatically in the classroom.  Imagine a class that is able to hold a debate with one in Australia, or a French foreign language class having the opportunity to interact with students in Paris, first as learners of French, and then as teachers of English.  As students are able to participate in social networks with each other, the role of the teacher becomes less as a store of knowledge and more as a facilitator of communications.

We might also consider what the school of the future might look like.  School districts in 2009 are being forced to shorter weeks and fewer days by the increasing cost of busing.  Is it too much of a stretch to imagine smaller, more distributed schools, accessible to the majority of students on foot or by bicycle, that form networks with a larger set of schools to offer more advanced and varied courses?  The current trend towards cyberschools is probably just the beginning.

The Teacher As A Guide

In the previous section, the shifting nature of the teacher was hinted at.  Instead of being a distributor of knowledge, the teacher becomes a guide that helps students learn how to find, filter, and use the information available to them.  Just because information is easily and widely available does not always mean that it is relevant, or even factual.  The teacher of 2020 must be able to teach the skills that make the facts useful because the facts will be easily accessible.

One aspect of this change will be the increase in the relative importance of ideas over facts, a change that brings complications when it comes to assessment.  Tests and assessment will become more subjective as the teacher needs to determine not just what the student knows, but also what he/she can do with that knowledge.  Similarly, the empowered student will become more self-directed, opening the door for increasing self-assessment.

Along with this shift in what an educator teaches comes an increase in the teacher’s role as a moral guide.  The scope of the internet’s information is vast, and with that vastness comes some information that might not be appropriate for students.  The teacher must be able to guide a student to the proper response to such material

A Rich Media World

With HDTV sets and surround sound audio, the modern world already boasts a rich media experience, but it is one that has not yet fully been embraced in schools.  One of the limits to this change is the availability of content for the classroom.  As the technology to produce better audio and video becomes cheaper and more widespread, the barriers to entry are lowered.  The result will be an extension of the current explosion we can already witness in audio and video podcasts.

No modern television network or radio station might be interested in providing high quality, expensive content for a narrow audience.  But what if the network was two guys in a garage who wanted to share all that they know about the basics of car maintenance?  Or what if a Greek math professor wanted to use ancient ruins to explain geometry?  Give him a cheap HD camera and some high quality microphones, and classrooms worldwide will benefit from his knowledge and access.

This change goes both ways.  As textbooks and libraries move online, and as the ubiquity of access technology alleviates the schools’ burden of having to provide such devices for students, resources will be freed up.  These resources could be employed to support a deep and varied field of artists and content creators whose work, in turn, benefits the schools.

There are many other changes that will be prompted by advances in technology, the ubiquity of the internet, and environmental concerns.  By identifying just a few of these, I hope that I have demonstrated what an immense shift we face over the next decade.  2020 is eleven years from now.  Think back eleven years to 1998.  Did you have a cell phone?  Perhaps, but did it have a web browser on it?  Or a camera?  What would the iPhone look like to a cell phone user of 1998?  Would they even be able to comprehend what its capabilities entailed for mobile computing and social networking?  So we must imagine ourselves looking forward to 2020.  Change, both technological and social, is certain, and its pace will only increase in the future.