For all the technology that has been invented in the last 20 years, there’s pitifully little of it in the classroom, as lamented in this piece from Singularity Hub. As someone who has done quite a lot of remote study in the last 10 years, through traditional universities, I tend to agree.
Most use of technology I have seen, apart from online collaboration tools, revolves around how we take notes, read notes, and/or are read notes, or how notes are handed out to students. Plus a lot more irresponsible use of Microsoft PowerPoint templates than I had need to see ever in my lifetime. Very little of it seems to be repurposing educational styles in order to make the most of what the technology offers or helping students to understand what technology even exists. Even if just speculatively. There’s not even the widespread use across education of the sort of technology that you find in apps, on mobile phones.
But not only is technology not being used, its impact is not being taught either. For example, virtual reality and augmented reality will, I believe, dispense with the need for much of the rote learning we have historically experienced. All the “how to” content on a platform like YouTube, served up to a wearable device like the much-maligned Google Glass (many competitors will make this eventually commonplace, rather than a laughing stock) will make obsolete the need to have to consult a plumber, a doctor, a mechanic in the first instance because the user-manuals for all these things could be made available. How are we teaching plumbers, doctors, and mechanics to navigate the human interface when their skills are second or third line support, instead of first? Or what about the use of predictive maintenance using artificial intelligence (as discussed in this interview with a principal at the McKinsey Global Institute)? How are we bringing these technologies into the classroom to teach the new generation of repairers how to analyse and interpret this data instead of diagnosing the root cause problem, as they are traditionally taught to do? I don’t think we are. My guess at some reasons for this would be:
- Limited consistent understanding of the impact of technology in educational institutions
- Not a management agenda item, target, goal
- Lack of budget for technology
- Too complicated to secure support for
- IT department says “no”
- Administrators say “no”
- Students aren’t asking for it
Unless we bring new technology in to show our secondary and tertiary learners what it can do and possible impacts upon certain job groups, how do we expect them to be working nicely with technology in their futures?