Today, I read an article in Vision - Looking at the future of learning (issue 03_2006) which is a magazine issued by futurelab, a UK institution dealing with the future of education. Most of the articles seem to be online but I cannot find this particular article.
The article describes how people are now constantly connected through communication and online access. With speckled and mote computing and sensors in our environment this might even become more so.
Thus, people are connected "to a powerful and flexible information infrastructure" which is changing the nature of knowledge and also how to aquire it because we are now facing an almost ubiquitous access to information which has changed and will change the way we learn and work, so that
- information literacy (esp. with regarding to its processing) will become more important
- our learning will become more flexible due to the delivery of learning opportunities in a more seamless way
- computers will disappear from our gaze and be hidden in other devices
- there will be connections aong people in different locations
- new learning methods will be created that better suit the so-called digital natives (with different behavior patterns and necessities)
- the way people learn in developing countries
But above all, what’s necessary is a cultural change in teaching and curriculum developement. However, there are also critical views that technology will not change anything. The belief that computers could be essential one day is called "a cowardly cheat by technocrats counting on technical innovation to shield themselves from hard questions about what schools should be" (Michael Schrange of the MIT was cited in the article, p. 3).
Lastly, he article suggests that educationalists will have to worry less about technology.
Isn’t that what social software is already about? That this is easy to use for everyone facilitating being connected, communicating, interacting and collaborating.
