„We are in the place, that we have no idea what’s going to happen in the future”- Sir Ken Robinson.
Nowadays it is hard to follow the changes in a developing world. Due to new technologies, appearing every year, we have to go through a process of constant learning. Not only we have to adapt and change our habits to fit in, but also it is necessary to keep trying to understand how to follow trends effectively. It gives us the comfort of being familiar with new ideas. What’s more – we won’t be shocked in case we wake up in the world we do not understand.
Let’s turn our thinking in another, new direction. Leave behind all this constant and monotonous knowledge insertion. Who does need books in these days? We all have internet access, stop wrapping your thoughts just around hard facts. Learning and teaching how to adapt to new tasks is more valuable. Soft skills are a fundament to switch our brains from school desks lifestyle to tech-aware, new path. “One unifying factor of these trends is the focus on the direct impact technology will have on people.” It has been 50 years of internet development and just next 5 will bring the same amount of impact. ”
Hyperautomatization– combination of ML and automation tools in work. Multi experience– online users perspective will drastically change how users perceive the digital world. Human augmentation– how technology should be used to deliver cognitive and physical improvements in our lives. Transparency– a variety of attitudes and actions we need to undertake to raise awareness of new tech. (Those are only few of Gartner’s new top 10 strategic technologies, link in sources).
What is most important to achieve those goals is to be open-minded and keep the ability of constant learning. If we are talking about learning, we can’t go around the topic of education. The purpose of education is not only to give knowledge. It’s also about teaching how to be able to gain knowledge through the whole life. What this follows- the creativity aspect. It is commonly known that children are creative in every way. Guess what? We all were children one day. We all are born with the potential in inventing new things, having great ideas and fascinatingly connecting things. That’s why the new challenge for education is NOT to kill our creativity throughout the process of learning. Using new technologies innovatively and carefully is the key to success!
Education is meant to take us in the future we can’t grasp. Impredictibility is insane, even in a short period of 5 years. We can’t foresee the future, so be prepared for it! Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself to develop your skills. It especially concerns young students.
Here are some honourable mentions, how new technologies try to develop our education system already:
FUNTRONIC
What is better for children than having some fun, and motion included? What if we can compare those two things with class?
Take a look at this product. „Magic carpet” is nothing more than a projector and a camera which detects the movement. It is forcing students to jump off the desks and teamwork to achieve various goals in plenty of educational games. What’s the better approach, than through something that kids love within seconds? Brilliant!
MINECRAFT
Sounds strange? Yes, indeed, but it works!
Millennials are, softly spoken, professors in playing Minecraft. It’s one of the most successful projects of the 21st century. Let switch the roles! Let children educate a teacher something! Kids with pleasure will play and even explain everything to the tutor without being asked. The amount of things they can do in this game is insane. Using creativity mixed with interesting topics makes great improvement compared to normal learning. It’s also a good case to observe how many ways kids can develop their own paths of understandings. And it works in almost every subject. There’s just one more thing left: direct their effort in the virtual world in a proper way to lead the lesson!
PHOTON
Just another clear example. Photon Robot allows seeing how your code works. By simple steps solve tasks from teaching him movements to not complicated labyrinths. Learn the basics of coding languages and analytical thinking through playing with programmable robots.
Sources:
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=pl
https://www.spidersweb.pl/2019/01/magiczny-dywan-funtronic.html
Interesting to see how schools are going to adapt to these changes, it would be great to have interactive classes with robots and smart programs and without need to carry many books everyday to school
Well, I wouldn’t want to give up all the traditional methods. Just to boost the effectiveness of learning and creativity with some tools. But yeah, interactive classes are great! 😀
It is wonderful that people finally realized that education needs changes. I believe that in the future there is no more space for traditional (and boring) schools. What You described in Your article are the first steps into the future of education. We should focus on developing creativity among children. Also, today’s children need to be taught with innovative methods, which will make them engaged in their subjects. That’s awesome that more and more digital learning tools are developed because traditional methods of teaching are not as efficient as they used to be for example 20 years ago.
We need to constantly improve and digitalize education because without futuristic education there will be no future 🙂
That’s the first step indeed. Digitalizing is a great idea to improve the whole learning process. But we have to keep in minds that technology may be a threat, especially among youngsters. Sometimes it’s better to take those devices out of their lives to avoid addiction!