Although it is difficult to make accurate predictions of the future there are several things that I do see happening:
1. Retinal or fingerprint recognition software will become a significant part of online education. One of the main drawbacks of online education is that it does leave the door open for academic dishonesty. Although most students will do their work there is potential for fraud or cheating to occur. Therefore I predict that computers will come with some sort of identity recognition software that force users to prove their identity.
2. Textbooks will become obsolete. Although this is not by any means a bold prediction it is unlikely that budget strapped districts will invest in textbooks for much longer. Even e-textbooks may become more obsolete as teachers may choose to create custom and more interactive options such as wiki's, podcasts/vodcasts, or webquests to present content. Most subjects also already contain a variety of online resources that are free to use.
3. Tighter copywrite and fair use restrictions will be legislated. Although I do not support the SOPA law and worry about censorship on the web, the reality is that a lot of material is being pirated and people are not being compensated for their work. Eventually this will have to be addressed.
4. Teachers will spend a majority of their face-to-face time with struggling learners. Most students are more than capable of learning through primarily web-based means. Moving forward it will be more effective and efficient for most students to get a majority of their instruction through online learning and teachers will spend most of their face-to-face time working with students who do not respond to online learning or need intense interventions.
5. Online learning will be the key to America's future prosperity. No longer will schools be able to use the excuse of not having enough effective teachers or students not being able to have access to the best education. Online learning opens up doors to students in the most difficult of educational scenarios and truly can offer everyone a high-quality education.
So there are my predictions for the future of online learning. It would be nice to get a couple of them right.
Agreed that hardcover, paper wasting, 10lb textbooks will be dead. These next few years will be crucial for publishing companies, however. These companies already have addressed the trend of having online versions of their textbooks but it's the small details that will dictate their success or not. Is the online version compatible with all browsers and all models and makes of tablets, etc? Is the e-book option more expensive, the same, or cheaper? Will schools have to pay for updates or add-ons? If these questions and others are not answered to the satisfaction of schools I think you will definitely see teachers and schools creating their own original content and class structures incorporating all of the online resources available. Kind of like this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.schoolsoftwaregroup.com/BuildYourOwnCurriculum/CurriculumSoftware.aspx