Forecast #1:
Learning will become more social and game-based, and online social gaming may soon replace textbooks in schools. The idea that students learn more when they are engaged—as they are when playing games—is helping educators embrace new technologies in the classroom. In addition to encouraging collaborations, games also allow students to learn from their mistakes through trial and error.
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| Games vs Textbooks ? |
I feel this forecast is somewhat coming to fruition (despite the vagueness in writing a good forecast as if it is almost like fortune telling) but not exactly. Point of the matter is, MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses have begun to take hold, and the context in which
educational content is being presented is being challenged in many different ways. The capabilities that gaming programs or Virtual Worlds bring by use of Multimedia, certainly has its potential and brings many different possibilities to the table. Stanford, Princeton, and University of Michigan among others have partnered with Coursera (a for profit education technology company) as a platform for presenting courseware. Whereas Harvard and MIT are developing, in a joint venture, a platform called edX which builds on MITx (a not for profit technological platform recently established). With such strong advancements in technology that has accompanied Web 2.0 and with advancements in Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Course Management Software (CMS) systems as examples, it is easy to see that new
technological forces are some of the driving factors of success, especially when considering the trend of a few years ago where there was similar attempt to provide online learning (and seemingly became a dyeing fad). A
global goal (another force factor for success) is to provide top notch education for free to anybody (those that seek it) making it very
economical. Regarding the MIT and Harvard project, George Siemens a MOOC pioneer stated “Projects like this can impact lives around the world, for the next billion students from China and India.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/education/harvard-and-mit-team-up-to-offer-free-online-courses.html Finally, with MOOCs catching popularity and as they become a strong hold for Universities to provide courses, online education is here to stay.
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| Online Learning is Global and Here to Stay |
This week Udacity (a major player among MOOC providers) announced that they had cancelled a scheduled math class because of concerns about quality. This brings to question the notion that MOOC's at traditional colleges may be faced with resistance and social acceptance and/or that due in fact to lack of existing standards being in place that program qualities may not be sufficient, where as traditional f2f brick and mortar institutions have traditions and historical influence from years and years of past. Again, these are some factors that may influence acceptance and implementation. Keven Carey (http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2012/08/23/the-mooc-led-meritocracy/) suggested that some differences between traditional and online learning programs also comes down to risk and money. He suggests that society invests a lot of money in traditional institutions, and going to college is a big endeavor, yet along comes MOOCs' as a game changer in education and which are not publically supported and they risk nothing but students time in regards to demonstrating success. Programs retentions rates are of less importance than in traditional learning institutions and MOOCs as Kevin stated are free, low-stakes, open-access systems with far more of a license to operate as a pure meritocracy.
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