Students’
progress depends on a wide range of social and developmental competencies, such
as the ability to monitor one’s own learning, persist at challenging tasks,
solve complex problems, set realistic goals, and communicate effectively in
many kinds of settings.
This is a
new educational era, where learning may become disassociated from age groups. Education
can now be individualized and self-directed; educators become
supporters who
are primarily facilitators and mentors rather than lecturers. Educators
work on distributed sources of content (virtual) and take place in a variety of
physical settings.
Teachers now days are looking for a different
assessment, a different teaching method, documented by a portfolio of digital
badges and real-world projects, rather than traditional grades or certificates. Yet, most schools continue to use
standardized achievement tests, focusing exclusively on reading and math, as
their primary means of gauging student progress with the existing K-12
education system.
The world
of education is currently undergoing a massive transformation as a result of the
digital revolution. New technologies create learning opportunities that
challenge traditional schools and colleges which allow all ages to pursue
learning on their own terms.
Educators should
be able to adapt and incorporate the new power of technology-driven learning
for the next generation of students. To be effective in this changing
environment requires that the builders of the new education system understand
the customization, interaction, and control of the technologies driving the
changes in education. Education must provide people the knowledge they want
when they want it and to support and guide them as they learn. Develop the
ability of computers to give learners immediate feedback and to engage learners
through simulation in accomplishing realistic tasks. And put learners in charge
of their learning, so they feel ownership and can direct their learning where
their interests take them.
The vision of an educational system that can
integrate all the different elements we see developing, is the key for the new
educational era. But computers can carry out all the algorithms taught through
graduate school, and yet mathematical reasoning is more important than ever. Therefore
we should spend time teaching students to solve sophisticated problems using
computers rather than executing algorithms that computers do well. Memorizing
information is becoming less important with the web available, but people do
need to learn how to find information, recognize when they need more
information, and evaluate what they find.
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