Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

1 – Emerging Technologies in E-learning
Technology in education:
looking at fiction to find real
possibilities
In his “lost novel,” Paris in the 20th Century, science
fiction author Jules Verne predicted gasoline-powered
automobiles, high-speed trains, calculators, the concept
of the Internet, and several other technologies invented
well after 1863. Verne believed strongly that humans could
realize all such predictions: “Anything one man can
imagine, other men can make real” (Verne, n.d., para. 1).
As scientists in various fields may have taken their cues
from Jules Verne, we too can get some ideas about the
future of technology and education from science fiction.
Looking at some science fiction within the past 15
years, we will start with predictions that are less farreaching
than those contained within Jules Verne’s
works. For example, in 1993 a low-grade action movie
called Demolition Man depicted a teacher in the year
2023 talking to distance learners who attended class via
individual video monitors placed around an empty table.
The students’ heads, as shown on the monitors,
followed the instructor’s movements as he paced around
the room. Most or all aspects of this scenario are already
possible with today’s videoconferencing solutions, high
bandwidth connectivity, and cameras that use infrared
beams to automatically follow a moving subject. Three
years ago, Florence Olsen (2003) depicted immersive
videoconferencing solutions with virtual students
beamed into another classroom hundreds of miles away.
In some cases, perhaps, Moore’s Law—computerprocessing
power, measured by the number of transistors
on integrated circuits, doubling every 18 months—
makes it more difficult to look too far into the future
because the future arrives so much more quickly.
At the same time, when we read Neal Stephenson’s
The Diamond Age, we can see the potential to realize
some of his predictions in less dramatic fashion. For
example, when people first study sign language, they
may dream about signing in full sentences, even though
they cannot yet sign in the waking world. In this scenario,
the brain contains the previously learned phrases
in a mental “database” and stitches them together in
new ways during the dream. Soon some instructional
designer will put a comprehensive set of sign language
video clips into an online database that will allow anyone
to learn full sentences quickly by typing text and
watching the dynamically generated compilation of the
sign language equivalent. Additionally, education and
technology have been combined to create tutoring software
that learns what you know and steers you to specific
lesson components that will fill your learning gaps.
These “intelligent tutors” exist for math, accounting,
physics, computer science, and other disciplines.
A final set of educational predictions in science fiction
is too far out to tell if they are possible. In 1999, a
film called The Matrix strongly contradicts William Butler
Yeats, who said, “Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire” (Yeats, n.d., para. 1). In the
film, the characters plug a cable into the back of their
heads and go through “programs” that embed knowledge
and skills directly into their brains. The lead character,
Neo, becomes a martial arts expert in hours
instead of years. Another character, Trinity, learns how
to pilot a helicopter in seconds. In reality, humans have
had little success linking computers to the brain. Recent
developments, such as real-time brain control of a computer
cursor (Hochber, Serruya, Friehs, Mukand, Saleh,
Caplan, Branner, Chen, Penn & Donoghue, 2006), allow
us to believe that some day Matrix-style education may
be possible. By then, hopefully, we will have mastered
how to teach higher level thinking skills, since this futuristic
just-in-time learning presumably will let us skip
over lower level skills.
Imagining technology in
education tomorrow
Following Stephenson’s example from The Diamond Age,
we will imagine how emerging technologies from the
foreseeable future can help us meet instructional needs
in the online environment. Being educators, we will start
with the instructional needs when making predictions.
To do this, we will focus on needs related to helping
students successfully meet the learning objectives: sharing
resources, facilitating activities, and conducting assessment
strategies.
SHARING RESOURCES
Almost all online instructors begin the teaching and
learning process with sharing resources with students.
Currently, this process requires instructors to create new
and/or find existing resources that relate to the topics
being studied and then to disseminate them to the students.
Unfortunately, some end the process with just
sharing resources instead of going further to facilitate
interactivity or to assess student performance. Students
may miss opportunities to participate in robust, collaborative
learning experiences. Here are some ways in
which we think the resource sharing process will change.
12 Education for a Digital World