Introduction
Within two years a radical shift will begin to occur in the
world of education.
While many people are making predictions about the direction
that education systems are headed, we have found the best predictors to be
hidden in the participative viral systems springing to life in the online
world, such as iTunes and Amazon. These bottom-up approaches are quick to
develop, participant-driven systems that are closely aligned to the demands of
the marketplace.
In this paper we will focus on the key missing elements that
will cause the disruptive next generation education systems to emerge. These
missing pieces will likely be created within the next two years through private
funding and will cause a dramatic educational shift in less than five years.
The primary missing pieces are a standard architecture for an
organic courseware module and the software necessary to build this courseware.
The solution to these missing pieces will be a participative courseware-builder
that allows the general public to create courses on any conceivable topic. We
expect many companies will attempt to solve this problem, but the market will
quickly gravitate towards the one it likes best.
Once the market begins to gravitate towards a favorite
courseware-builder, a number of new systems will be developed to grow the
courseware library, build integrity, make it universally distributed, archive
results, and add functionality.
Lessons from the
Ancient World
During the time of the ancient Greek civilization, several
mathematicians became famous for their work. People like Archimedes,
Pythagoras, Euclid, Hipparchus, Posidonius and Ptolemy all brought new elements
of thinking to society, furthering the field of math, building on the earlier
work of Babylonian and Egyptian mathematicians.
A few generations later the Romans became the dominant society
on earth, and the one aspect of Roman society that was remarkably absent was
the lack of Roman mathematicians. Rest assured, the scholarly members of Roman
society came from a good gene pool and they were every bit as gifted and
talented as the Greeks. But Roman society was being held hostage by its own
systems. One of the primary culprits for the lack of Roman mathematicians was
their numbering system – Roman numerals and its lack of numeric positioning.
1.) Transition from Teaching to Learning
Education has traditionally consisted of the two fundamental
elements of teaching and learning, with a heavy emphasis on teaching.
Throughout history, the transfer of information from the teacher
to the learner has been done on a person-to-person basis. A teacher stands in
front of a room and imparts the information for a student to learn. Because
this approach requires the teacher to be an expert on every topic that they
teach, this is referred to as the “sage on stage” form of education.
2.) Exponential Growth of Information
During the time of Gutenberg, people tended to live and die within 20 miles of where they were born, not because they were afraid to travel, but because they had no reliable maps. People during this era had a very limited understanding of the world around them. The flow of information was controlled by just a few elite members of society, and they understood well the concept of knowledge equaling power.
During the time of Gutenberg, people tended to live and die within 20 miles of where they were born, not because they were afraid to travel, but because they had no reliable maps. People during this era had a very limited understanding of the world around them. The flow of information was controlled by just a few elite members of society, and they understood well the concept of knowledge equaling power.
We have gone from that time, just 500 years ago, where
information was precious and few, to today, a time where information is so
plentiful that we feel like we are drowning in it – information overload.
3.) Courseware
Vacuum
After viewing the data above and thinking about the size and shape of information around the world, now consider the number of courses available, either online or in a classroom.
After viewing the data above and thinking about the size and shape of information around the world, now consider the number of courses available, either online or in a classroom.
Open Education
Movement – The
open-education movement was inspired by the open-source software movement (i.e.
Linux). It mixes in the powerful communication abilities of the Internet and
applies the result to teaching and learning materials, such as course notes and
textbooks. Open educational materials include text, images, audio, video,
interactive simulations, and games that are free to be used and also re-used in
new ways by anyone around the world.
4.) Expanding Gulf Between Literates and Super-Literates
According to the New York Times, there are an additional 20,000 new words added to the English language every year. The primary driver behind this ever-expanding dimension of vocabulary is the ongoing development of science and technology.
According to the New York Times, there are an additional 20,000 new words added to the English language every year. The primary driver behind this ever-expanding dimension of vocabulary is the ongoing development of science and technology.
Along with the creation of new science and technology comes the
need to explain its attributes, its function in technical terms, and its
overall purpose. New words and their associated colloquialisms help create
meaning and structure around the emerging new concepts as they attract more
research and come into focus.
5.) Our “Touch Points” for Interfacing with Society are Changing
“Touch points” are the places where we come in contact with the
rest of the world.
As an example, the average person comes in contact with the
physical world through three primary physical touch points or interfaces – the
shoes that we walk in, the bed that we sleep in, and the chairs that we sit in.
These are the primary touch points for our physical body.
6.) Learning Drivers
Why do people need to learn? Why do people want to learn? What are their motivations? What are the drivers that control a person’s desire to fill their minds with knowledge and information?
Why do people need to learn? Why do people want to learn? What are their motivations? What are the drivers that control a person’s desire to fill their minds with knowledge and information?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs is a theory in psychology that
Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. His
theory contends that as humans meet ‘basic needs’, they seek to satisfy
successively ‘higher needs’ that occupy a set hierarchy.
7.) The Age of Hyper-Individuality
As a society we are less and less interested in the status
competition involved in “keeping up with the Joneses.” We are not all that
concerned about what kind of car our neighbor drives, what kind of TV they are
watching, or what kind of cell phone they are using. Instead, we are much more
concerned about finding products that will satisfy our own particular needs.
8.) Transition from Consumers to Producers
As we transition from a predominantly passive society to a more active one, people no longer want to just sit on the sidelines and watch. They want to participate. And a whole new generation of tools and equipment are allowing people to shift their role from consumer to producer.
As we transition from a predominantly passive society to a more active one, people no longer want to just sit on the sidelines and watch. They want to participate. And a whole new generation of tools and equipment are allowing people to shift their role from consumer to producer.
This transition began with the introduction of comment sections
at the end of online news posts. People began to voice their thoughts on
whether or not a piece of news was accurate, timely, or in any way news-worthy.
Many commenters added additional information.
When Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan’s company, Pyra Labs,
launched Blogger (later purchased by Google) in 1999, a major shift began in
the world of user-generated content for the Web. Suddenly it became easy for
anyone to create a blog site, and millions of people began to experiment.
Archiving Knowledge
While rarely viewed as such, education is a system for archiving
a culture by passing down the knowledge of one generation to the next. Museums,
written documents, books, photos, videos and audio recordings typically come to
mind when considering a cultural archive. But certain aspects of a culture need
to be experienced in order to be preserved, and that’s where the notion of
education as an archival medium comes in.
Craftsman guilds such as tilers and bricklayers are a good
example of trades that require hands-on experience. The intricacies and nuances
of piecing together building materials into artistic patterns cannot be
adequately conveyed through books or even video. The tactile feel of textures,
tapping, testing for hollow spots, and cleaning off excess material are all
part of the experiential learning that cannot be conveyed through some other
medium.
The concept of archiving knowledge is just one of many theories
that will emerge as strategies around the new system begin to develop.
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