Learning in the 21st Century

Based on the Intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015) video , I was very amazed of what our environment will become. But I still have doubts, in the year 2015, which is only 6 years from now (2009), will technology have such huge impact to humans?

From the video, I find that the transformation in technology is very beneficial to the education sector where students seem to be more motivated to learn almost anything and everywhere through their hand held devices. I find that children has more flexibility in learning in the sense that they are able to learn at their own pace and what is relevant and meaningful to them. The hand held device that each student will own is an extremely a powerful tool that provides clear and accurate feedback to the students whenever they are in doubt. I do really hope that this situation will really happen in the future because there will be more student-centred activity in the classrooms and learning will be more engaging and fun especially for dry and abstract topics.

And I also like the fact that technology in the medical area is so advanced that there will be a heart-beat detector attached to wrist and will prompt warnings or feedbacks when senses danger.

However for the rest of the envisions, I find them very scary because perhaps I am not mentally prepared to be so dependant on technology to the extent that I will need to use sunglasses for various functions of communication such as book tickets and make invoice payments. It all sounds scary as if I will be in an alien world!

After visiting classroom of the future (COTF) last monday, I feel that MOE should really provided students with those hand held devices, simply because it is very interactive! As for the classrooms of the future, I realized that the teacher student ratio will be reduced and hence more teacher-student interaction will be available. I am also fascinated that the future classrooms equipped with full internet wireless condition where students will sit in a very comfortable air-conditioned environment for lessons. I just hoped that I was born later to get all those privileges!

Based on some readings, the digital natives craves for interactivty therefore the traditional teaching approach will be phased out sooner or later. The learning process of the digital natives is completely different to us due to the advancement of technology. It's just like a cycle, humans invent technology, technology changes the future generations of mankind (the digital natives), and now we as teachers need to change our teaching style to accommodate this evolution.