eachers will build their own set of personalised tools from curated libraries of apps
3. Technology ceasing to be centre stage in teaching and learning and becoming part of a blended learning approach combining experiential, social interaction and technology.
4. Student devices in the classroom will continue to be a contentious issue. However, there is a need for simple and robust devices that can be used and when the lesson demands. Outside the classroom personal devices will have an increasingly important role to play in playlist and self-aware learning.
5. Assessment will move away from examinations, tests and certificates towards portfolios and peer validated competence playlists (the model that’s used by LinkedIn).
Disruptors
There are a number of disruptors that will strongly influence education and education technology over the next few years.
Neuroscience
Modern neuroscience is still very young but is having a significant impact on educational thinking, mainly because of the wow factor. While it is giving us new insights into the learning process, we have to be careful simply because many of its findings are still conjectural. It is also a two-edged sword as people with anti-technology agendas are using it to promote their arguments. Over the coming three to five years we will see new discoveries, the refining and/or rejection of theories, and the need to make sure that education technology engages with the field in a mutually beneficial way.
The key findings that are significant from a technology point of view are as follows:
1. The optimum experiences through which the brain learns are more in tune with gaming than formal education. Repeated trial and error with constant failure, short tasks and rewards, multi-sensory input with an emphasis on visual 3d and a sense of ‘false danger’ all massively boost cognition and create a sense of immersion.
2. Emotional security has a massive physical impact on cognition. Safe, positive and emotionally secure situations are necessary for learning. This underscores the need to tackle cyberbullying.
3. Certain activities are better suited to non-technological solutions. A good example is texts. Neuroscience indicates that reading a physical book boosts cognition and enhances a wide range of skills to a greater extent than reading text on a virtual screen. We are already seeing a move back towards books in the classroom, especially in literacy classes.
4. The impact of screen use on developing minds continues to be controversial. There is no peer-reviewed evidence that iPads and phones negatively affect development. The moral panic about screen use is similar to the moral panics about novels, films, TV, comics and video nasties that the popular press whipped up over the last two hundred years. We do need to be mindful of the arguments coming out of this quarter and respond to them in a measured way, backed up by robust statistical evidence.
5. A number of theories that still have currency in education h