This means that future technology will need to support students who are developing their own portfolio of skills and competencies, and who will be learning through projects that encompass a range of subjects. We are also seeing a shift towards Blended Learning, combining experiential education with technology, so that the latter becomes one tool among many, and to ensure that physical experience (making things, doing experiments with laboratory equipment) and social interaction continues to be the core focus of classrooms.
De-centralised education systems tend to encourage pockets of excellence and innovative practice. In reality these can end up being isolated, even within schools where one or more ‘super teachers’ experiment with new technologies and pedagogies and the rest of the staff carry on as before. Over the next three to five years, Change Management and teacher training and support will continue to be a priority to ensure that all staff are brought to the same level. Online teacher communities and support networks (e.g. Edmodo) are and will be a vital part of this.
From a technology perspective the rise of mobile devices and apps has led to a rapid shift away from large one-program-does-everything model towards Playlist Learning and Teaching. With this approach, students and teachers are building and using their own highly personalised collection of apps to learn and teach both inside and outside the classroom. In the short term this has led to a huge demand for curated libraries of content. Long term this shift allows for the development of Diamond Age Primers – artificial intelligences that work with a student or teacher to build a flexible curriculum for learning in response to the interests, intellectual development, skills and needs of the individual.
One student-one device teaching is currently problematic and, without standardisation, will continue to be so. There is still a demand for physically and technically robust student devices t