Now that technology is affordable more people have access to education. However, education is not necessarily enhanced by the technology. Technology is a tool to facilitate learning, it is not a “silver bullet”. Rather than throwing technology at education, we should be evaluating how technology can enhance learning. One of the benefits of technology is the ability to provide content in multiple formats to cater to the different learning styles. It seems as if parents continually complain about the education system yet the availability of resources for learning today is far greater than it was previously. At some point, ownership of learning should be placed on the student, technology and teachers can only bare part of the burden.
Yesterday, Biz Journal published the article, 10 Communication Technology Trends Shaping Education. The author wrote an excellent closing paragraph. “A new type of education, and a new type of educator, is emerging. We are going forward to a learning system of the latest gadgets and apps, while returning to an older teaching model where the teacher knows the student, not just the subject. We are finding out that anyone with the right platform can be an expert at something, and anyone with the will to learn can become a student. We have new tools. We have new toys. They are one and the same.” The 10 trends are:
- Gamification
- Flipped learning
- Distance education
- Mind mapping
- Social media
- Digital textbooks
- Just Google it
- Augmented reality
- User-generated content
- Big data