I’ve just been reading an article that Computing wrote after an interview with Bill Gates entitled ‘The revolution is only just beginning’.
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2209036/gates-outlines-vision-future-3801135
Bill Gates talks about how he believes IT is only in its early days with multi-core processors, cheaper hardware, more portable devices and online services to come. He also covers the topic of online services and how we will be able to access our personal documents from home, office, shopping centre etc…
So how does this affect the education our kids – and their kids will have? Will this be the end of schools and lessons taught over the internet on portable devices while kids are sat in the coffee shop of the local shopping centre?
Technology will be the key tool in delivering lessons both in and out of the classroom. Devices that are portable, easy to use and sexy looking are what kids want -something separate from their personal devices but something it will connect to.
Kids want to be away from school and need that cut off point just as much as we may want from our work lives. Whether this is because they don’t enjoy school or exam stress, they still need that separation but when they do want to access the system they should be able to from any device, personal or school owned to warrant their enthusiasm.
The importance of a single delivery tool is essential to this like the Microsoft Learning Gateway or Live@edu and being able to combine these into a single sign on. All devices should be able to access any kind of web page, documents or service allowing this 24 hour access from anywhere.
This adds a lot of pressure on the IT Support team and all staff in a school. It’s the responsibility of the IT Support team to make sure the system is available 24 hours a day, secure, reliable and relevant. As for the rest of staff, it’s their responsibility to add content for the pupils to find when they are having trouble with their course work or homework. It’s also their responsibility to make sure they add content for pupils who just want to find out information on the subject and make it relevant for the pupils learning instead of all sorts of information you can find in search engines.
As a Network Manager myself I have to make sure that these services are available and secure and staff are regularly adding information. I will soon be asking for each teaching department to audit their area so relevant information is always there.
I saw the below video the other day which talked about how students in education today will be doing jobs in 10 years time with technology that is not yet developed! We need to ensure we get the technology and education correct now to ensure the future for us all.
Please post your views in the comments area.