What will schools look like in 2020?How should we prepare?   Will RichardsonApril 14, 2010

 

This is a conversation without end. Please participate!

 

“If you think that the future will require better schools you’re wrong. The future of education will call for entirely different learning environments.”

--Knowldege Works Foundation 

“Digitally literate young people have come to understand that there are at least two living channels for learning - 1) an institutional channel, and 2) a peer-driven, interest-driven, and unregulated digital media channel. The bifurcation of learning experiences for young people is bound to call the institutional identification of schooling and learning into question in the coming years. We don’t yet know the consequences of how this shift will play out, but unless schools figure out how to adapt to digital media our children may end up hearing their fathers say “remember when we went to school for an education?” 

--Richard Halverson, co author ofRethinking Education in an Era of Technology

The shift?

Unprecedented opportunities for learning with technology. 

Anytime. Anywhere. Anyone.

Schools are:

Time and place. Filtered. Teacher-directed. Standardized. Push oriented. Content-based. Group assessed. Linear. Closed. Sept-June. Local.  

Learning will be (already is):

Mobile. Networked. Global. Collaborative. Self-directed. Inquiry based. On demand. Transparent. Lifelong. Personalized. Pull. 

These shifts represent a huge challenge to schools.

 

What changes?

 

The way we think about our role changes.

 

 

The way we think about literacy changes.

 

According to the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), 21st Century readers and writers need to:

 

"Develop proficiency with the tools of technology."

 

"Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally."

 

"Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes."

 

"Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information."

 

"Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts."

 

"Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments."

 

National EducationalTechnology Plan (Draft) http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010

The model of 21st century learning described in this plan calls for engaging and empowering learning experiences for all learners. The model asks that we focus what and how we teach to match what people need to know, how they learn, where and when they will learn, and who needs to learn. It brings state-of-the art technology into learning to enable, motivate, and inspire all students, regardless of background, languages, or disabilities, to achieve. It leverages the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size fits-all curriculum, pace of teaching, and instructional practices.

1.0 Learning2.0 Assessment3.0 Teaching4.0 Infrastructure5.0 Productivity

 

1.1 Revise, create, and adopt standards and learning objectives for all content areas that reflect 21st century expertise and the power of technology to improve learning.

 

1.3 Develop and adopt learning resources that exploit the flexibility and power of technology to reach all learners anytime and anywhere.

 

2.3 Conduct research and development that explore how gaming technology, simulations, collaboration environments, and virtual worlds can be used in assessments to engage and motivate learners and to assess complex skills and performances embedded in standards.

 3.1 Design, develop, and adopt technology-based content, resources, and online learning communities that create opportunities for educators to collaborate for more effective teaching, inspire and attract new people into the profession, and encourage our best educators to continue teaching.

 3.2 Provide pre-service and in-service educators with preparation and professional learning experiences powered by technology that close the gap between students’ and educators’ fluencies with technology and promote and enable technology use in ways that improve learning, assessment, and instructional practices.

 3.3 Transform the preparation and professional learning of educators and education leaders by leveraging technology to create career-long personal learning networks within and across schools, pre-service preparation and in-service educational institutions, and professional organizations. 

 4.1 Ensure that students and educators have adequate broadband access to the Internet and adequate wireless connectivity both inside and outside school.

4.2 Ensure that every student and educator has at least one Internet access device and software and resources for research, communication, multimedia content creation, and collaboration for use in and out of school.

4.3 Leverage open educational resources to promote innovative and creative opportunities for all learners and accelerate the development and adoption of new open technology-based learning tools and courses.

5.4 Rethink basic assumptions in our education system that inhibit leveraging technology to improve learning, starting with our current practice of organizing student and educator learning around seat time instead of the demonstration of competencies.

 

"The success of universal schooling has led us to identify learning with schooling. These new alternatives will make us rethink the dominant role of K-12 schools in education as children and adults spend more time learning in new venues."

--Collins and Halverson inRethinking Education in an Era of Technology

Already, we have more options for "education."

WikiversityUniversity of the PeopleUnclasses.orgTeachstreetEduFireSchool of EverythingOpenLearnOpenCourseWare ConsortiumiTunesUCosmoLearningNational Connections AcademyOpen High School of UtahOpen Learning IntiativeAcademic EarthConnexionsFlat World Knowledgep2pU 

So, what are the implications for us?

What will have to change?

The "Big" Shifts in the next ten years?

1-1 and Mobile  Every teacher, every student has access, anytime, anywhere.

Networked schools and classrooms School as node.

Teachers as Model Learners First Not about what you know as much as how you learn.

Passion/Interest/Personalized Learning Learning the important lessons in the context of our interests.

Open, Transparent Resources Freely created, freely shared.

Inquiry  Learning is solving problems, asking questions, not memorizing content.

How do we prepare?

Starting points:

How are we ourselves learning differently?

How do we prepare our teachers for different roles?

How do we begin to change curriculum?

How do we start these conversations at our schools?

Discussion

What questions do you have?What resonates most?What are your biggest challenges to change?