According to the New York Times, most high school students by the year 2020 will be receiving their information and/or lessons in an online format. With the rapid rise of classroom technology, Tom Vander Ark highlights pilot programs such as New York City's "School of One" that blends online learning with small group sessions.
But does this make sense in today's culture? Are the traditional teachers that oppose the use of a projector and mouse falling behind to an inevitable evolution that is taking place in the classroom? Let's think about this.
A student wakes up to her cell phone alarm and checks her text message from a friend that's asking her to bring her DVD back to school because she forgot it yesterday. After getting on the bus, the student plugs her ears with her iPod nano and plays a 3-minute downloadable game on her phone. After school, the student finds herself back at home with a TV that is set to the Relentless Consumer Channel, rapid firing 30-second commercials on the viewer (that are all accompanied by a website of online deals). Another text from a friend redirects the student's attention to the computer to check her friends' 140 character tweets and newest mobile uploads on Facebook. To wrap up, that night after eating dinner, the student needs to work on an important math assignment. She decides to video chat with her friend over Skype and hovers the camera over her notebooks to discuss an equation both students are working on. Before heading to bed, the student decides to listen to her favorite podcast on science, only to set her alarm on her phone to start over again tomorrow.
We are receiving almost all of our information online, especially young adults who have access to a computer and a data transfer phone. Who needs to wait for weather on the 6 o'clock news when you can go to weather.com? Why wait to catch that important newscast when there's live feed on the website? Why worry about watching your favorite TV show at 8 PM when you can come back from a PTA meeting and catch the episode at your own leisure on the official website, commercial free?
In other words, the point is, why on earth are schools the last place to adapt? If a student acquires almost all of her information from some online source, does it really make sense to keep an old method of learning as mainstream? Schools used to only have one chalkboard and one room. Then we gained multiple rooms with multiple whiteboards in each. Now we've peeked into the future by starting computer labs, allowing for every student to his and her own "personal whiteboard," with the implementation of virtual chat rooms such as "Second Life."
The graffitied and torn fossils on the bookshelves (I've heard they were once called textbooks) can be replaced with periodically-updated online materials that a student can access not only in school but at home. A student pulling down a map from a wall in front of the whiteboard can instead use a mouse and projector to zoom deep into a third world country and analyze its GDP and political corruption with a second country pitted against it, side-by-side on the same screen.
Yes, there are funding issues, but this post isn't addressing that fact. There are online tools and rising technology available that will provide breakthrough curriculum at next to nothing cost. What is stressed here is the fact that our educators must catch on to the method of communication that our world is evolving to, regardless of if education wants to or not. If schools should remain where vital thoughts and constructive reasoning come from for a curious and growing student, it seems we must catch on, else Wikipedia will become our home schooling agent.
But does this make sense in today's culture? Are the traditional teachers that oppose the use of a projector and mouse falling behind to an inevitable evolution that is taking place in the classroom? Let's think about this.
A student wakes up to her cell phone alarm and checks her text message from a friend that's asking her to bring her DVD back to school because she forgot it yesterday. After getting on the bus, the student plugs her ears with her iPod nano and plays a 3-minute downloadable game on her phone. After school, the student finds herself back at home with a TV that is set to the Relentless Consumer Channel, rapid firing 30-second commercials on the viewer (that are all accompanied by a website of online deals). Another text from a friend redirects the student's attention to the computer to check her friends' 140 character tweets and newest mobile uploads on Facebook. To wrap up, that night after eating dinner, the student needs to work on an important math assignment. She decides to video chat with her friend over Skype and hovers the camera over her notebooks to discuss an equation both students are working on. Before heading to bed, the student decides to listen to her favorite podcast on science, only to set her alarm on her phone to start over again tomorrow.
We are receiving almost all of our information online, especially young adults who have access to a computer and a data transfer phone. Who needs to wait for weather on the 6 o'clock news when you can go to weather.com? Why wait to catch that important newscast when there's live feed on the website? Why worry about watching your favorite TV show at 8 PM when you can come back from a PTA meeting and catch the episode at your own leisure on the official website, commercial free?
In other words, the point is, why on earth are schools the last place to adapt? If a student acquires almost all of her information from some online source, does it really make sense to keep an old method of learning as mainstream? Schools used to only have one chalkboard and one room. Then we gained multiple rooms with multiple whiteboards in each. Now we've peeked into the future by starting computer labs, allowing for every student to his and her own "personal whiteboard," with the implementation of virtual chat rooms such as "Second Life."
The graffitied and torn fossils on the bookshelves (I've heard they were once called textbooks) can be replaced with periodically-updated online materials that a student can access not only in school but at home. A student pulling down a map from a wall in front of the whiteboard can instead use a mouse and projector to zoom deep into a third world country and analyze its GDP and political corruption with a second country pitted against it, side-by-side on the same screen.
Yes, there are funding issues, but this post isn't addressing that fact. There are online tools and rising technology available that will provide breakthrough curriculum at next to nothing cost. What is stressed here is the fact that our educators must catch on to the method of communication that our world is evolving to, regardless of if education wants to or not. If schools should remain where vital thoughts and constructive reasoning come from for a curious and growing student, it seems we must catch on, else Wikipedia will become our home schooling agent.
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