PROJECTS FOR EDPSY 387:

My Vision of Education in 2020:

INTRODUCTION

Although predicting the potential of instructional technologiesby the year 2020 might appear exciting, I would say that “accurately predicting the future has never been easy, especially when it involves new technologies” (Heinich, p. 335). I think we could anticipate some positive and negative outcomes, always within the realm of speculation, but I really doubt we could actually be comprehensive and accurate in a field that is constantly subject to change. However challenging the task, we may involve in some sort of adventure and briefly describe what might take place in the next five years as far as instructional technologies are concerned. Although technology has almost permeated every aspect of our ordinary lives, I will only concentrate on its impact on education.

a) Elementary and Secondary Education

At least in the United States and in some other developed countries the use of computers in schools is becoming more and more widespread, so much so that currently 65% of all public schools are connected to the Internet and the World Wide Web and it is expected that 95% will be wired by the year 2000 (Heinich, p.338) That’s really amazing! I will try to mention first the positive contributions of technological advances to our lives and second I will tackle some negative outcomes they might also bring forth.... Maybe at this point we should make clear that technology itself does not add much to our enrichment; this , I believe, will be achieved only by the use we make of it.

Both in Heinich textbook and in “Education for an Information Age” that we read for one of our other courses, there is constant reference to the fact that the role of teachers will necessarily change if computers are introduced in school settings and incorporated into the curriculum. The roles of teachers and media specialists will not be replaced by computers, but it will be shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered. While students perform their work with the help of computer-based learning, they can proceed at their own pace and be helped by the teacher on a one-on-one basis. This becomes a key issue when it comes to students with disabilities or with special needs. In one of our classes, we discussed and even had demos of issues connected with accessibility; it is amazing how these advances in computer engineering are creating new and effective adaptive devices to meet the needs of the physically impaired.

In the next few years, it is also likely that computers will be present in every classroom, maybe by using the same cable connection most classes already have for access to instructional television. This will also change the structuring of schools to give place to the ever increasing technological expansion. New systems of instruction have already been introduced and will be further developed in the future, like programmed tutoring and cooperative learning (Heinich, p. 344). This in turn will require a different pattern for setting up learning environments. A very positive outcome in this new teaching-learning trend is that division of labor is required for the design and implementation of instruction. This is more than welcome when we consider that teachers normally have a quite heavy workload. Another important role will be played by the school library media center: “cybrarians” will have to use search engines very skillfully to provide for the students’ demands both at school and from home. As our textbook quotes, “an intelligent person is not someone who knows everything, but who knows where to find it!” (Heinich, p. 346).

Finally, we have to stress that this pervasiveness of media and technology both in schools and in homes will definitely enhance communication between parents and teachers and administrators: no doubt that the typically busy parent who rarely steps into his or her children’s school might participate in class discussions or e-mail the teacher for reports if he or she can do it on-line from his or her office or home. Now, we cannot overlook the downside of this massively spread use of technology. Up to a certain extent, we have all experienced some frustration when we need to reach someone and we use all the technological tools we have available, only to find that the other person is not on-line or that our message is registered by an answering machine or pager of some kind! You can really hate them in case of an emergency... Also in the field of instructional technology, there are some still existing problems with compatibility of courseware, which might lead again to many frustrations when you are limited only to one operating system: we have been victims of this in our own Ed Lab, when we create a Powerpoint presentation or a Hyperstudio project on a PC and then we have to show it to the rest of the class in the next room, and the Macs will not run them! Or viceversa.... Hopefully, hardware companies will fill this gap in the near future!

The use of technology lends itself to enormous flexible applications for home study or even home schooling . However, according to my personal point of view, there is a risk involved here for the socialization of children. We cannot deny that, after the home, the school contributes immensely to the insertion of the child to society. Therefore, if we deprive children at this early stage of the access to this basic form of community life, we might be depriving him of developing many social skills that he will need for his future job and for life in general. On the other hand, there is not so much evidence that all children have equal access to technology. Equipment is still very expensive and it should really be a “must” in order to justify the investment. However, prices are likely to drop in the future... Although all in all technology for learning programs have more positive outcomes than negatives, we sometimes come across interesting reports in the newspapers about certain applications of technology in schools that generally put parents, teachers and administrators on the alert. Such is the case of having complete access to the Internet from schools when children have not yet developed their critical thinking skills to browse the web in a sensible way; that is, for learning purposes and not just for the fun of it... A quite recent article from our local newspaper illustrates another interesting issue: how schools can provide computer access if they frequently fall short of funding. The paper article discusses “The Zap Me” program that equips schools with the necessary hardware and software for students to have access to the Internet, obviously in return for some commercial benefit, generally in the form of advertisements. Schools are then confronted with the dilemma of accepting this or not having computers at all (The News-Gazette “Zap Me!”, December 6, 1998). This would lead to a further and longer discussion about different ways of applying for grants and getting funding, which depends mainly on school administrators but which is generally being carried out by individual teachers with a concern for creating a better educational environment.

b) Higher Education

Universities with multiple campuses are currently using Internet connections as practically an indispensable tool. It is now possible to send and receive courses through telecommunications systems allowing students to start or continue their education and even earn a degree, provided that they can have access to the university network. The article “Earn College Credits. Skip the Commute” illustrates this increasing trend towards cyber-schooling (USA Weekend, December 4-6, 1998) or hyperlearning, as our textbook calls it (Heinich, p. 343).

Taking courses on-line has many advantages, not only in regard to one’s own personal time management but it may also contribute to the preservation of the environment, by reducing unnecessary traffic of people and vehicles from one place to the other. This allows people to balance a full course load and still have a social life (USA Weekend, p. 20). There is no doubt that a large number of people will now be able to take courses via the Internet at a quite reasonable price, taking advantage of both synchronous and asynchronous delivery of instruction as well as desktop video conferencing, also over the Internet. More and more universities, also the most prestigious ones, are offering programs on-line and the Internet will soon overrun all other formats of distance learning, due to the versatility of its features. Web-based instruction will definitely be much more widespread in the next four or five years, since more and more schools, businesses and homes are having access to the Internet. This allows people who wouldn’t actually attend classes on a university campus to continue their education.

However, I again think that it is not the technology itself that makes it possible for us to realize as persons but whether we make the best use of it. Although distance learning has all the good points I mentioned before, it might not be so beneficial if we don’t have real control of our time management and our priorities in life. After attending our “Office of Educational Technology” Open House, I learnt something interesting from two women who were taking courses on-line in our department. They were both very happy with their studies and how they were applying that to their classes in the schools they are currently working at. Interestingly enough, one of them said that with the program now on-line she could be working at home from her computer until 3 in the morning, because that was the time the house was really peaceful. More surprising was that her husband, who was sitting at the back of the class, nodded very happily. My question is: how many husbands are out there who would be delighted with the idea that their wives be on-line almost every single night??? A likely story... Next, how long can a working mother resist this pace if she reduces so much her hours of sleep and next day has to work both at home and outside and take care of her husband and children??? I think there is a question of virtues and priorities involved here, since we can all get very easily carried away by the fancy capabilities of computers and networks and spend our lives glued to the “box”. We might, then, be running the risk of losing some more important things..., a husband among them!

Another downside of distance learning so far is that it is quite expensive: technology provides a rich environment for active and interactive learning, with sophisticated learning models and modules, but it requires highly specialized equipment if we want to use its full multimedia capabilities. For instance, virtual reality is a fantastic instructional tool but it is a luxurious item, since it is still extremely expensive and time-consuming to develop as we well witnessed when we visited the CAVE here on campus.

We can conclude, then, that with the rapid advance of technology, we'll definitely have different kinds of educational patterns and develop new learning styles. We cannot help being amazed at the incredible multiple directions technology is pointing towards. Hopefully, we’ll be sensible enough to make the best use of it, keeping an open-minded but discretional attitude to use what we need, when we need it , for the purpose we need it and, most importantly, for effectively meeting people’s real needs.