The Future
a) Future role of education
The implications for education of the developments in computer and
communication technology are significant. Instant access to text,
sound, pictures (both stored and real -time) from around the world can
provide a rich, new environment for learning. The flow of information
makes it very important for teachers and those who handle education to
be increasingl y selective in choosing information and handling
information. It will also be ever more important to improve
information handling skills of the individuals, the skills to access, sort
and manipulate information. Individuals will in an increasing manner
need to be able to sort through advertisements, consumer group
evaluations, energy efficiency ratings and envir onmental impacts,
dealing with complex social issues raised by new technologies, a huge
challenge even to the most capable (Hutchinson, 1993).
The educational system will also be faced with growing pressure for
debating what is the best future for all huma nkind. There is significant
support by those of varied political, religious and philosophical views
that there is a need to incorporate and teach values within the
educational system. The scientific/technological machine is
“increasing momentum, free of p ublic scrutiny” (Hutchinson, 1993, p.
93). Examples are the engineering of new life forms and changing the
genetic characteristics of human beings.
In the chapter on social factors of learning I gave an account of new
trends recognized in the social con ditions of media audiences, which
then reflect the changes in societ y. These changes relate to the basic
human values such as acceptance of diversit y, tolerance of other’s
view, respect for our planet, others and ourselves.
The position of the teacher and his role is therefore examined in the
light of these new dimensions
a) Teacher’s role
At different times and in different parts of the world teachers have had
the role of being disseminators of literacy, guardians of culture, vicars
of moralit y, archite cts of the good citizen and agents of the Gods. In
more recent times, schools have been allocated the task of achieving
social equalit y, overcoming material disadvantage and eradicating
prejudice. Teachers and instructional designers need to be capable o f
diagnosing the needs of the individual learner and knowing how to
meet these needs when discovered (Wood, 1995).
Teachers have many strong traits that can enhance education greatl y:
1. In the lives of their students, teachers often achieve an influence
beyond the intellectual knowledge they impart. Adults often look back
on a teacher who had an inspiring and positive effect on their lives.
2. Human teachers can make decisions that might be difficult for a
machine. For example, a computer can judge gramm atical integrit y in a
paper, but evaluating the worth of original ideas is impossible for
today’s machines.
3. Many teachers are extraordinaril y creative and develop new and
better ways of teaching.
4. By their presence, teachers stress that learning mus t be integrated
into a world populated by people, who are intelligent and have
feelings.
5. Teachers, by helping students to understand and accept each other,
can ease problems that often develop.
6. Teachers can be the role models that children need (Be nnet, 1999).
Technological developments have equipped teacher and instructional
designers with a variet y of innovative tools to meet the acquired skills
of the profession. Westera (1999) identifies three major factors that
clear the way for these innova tions:

The convergence of classroom teaching and distance learning;

The effective technology-push for addressing new ways of
collaborative learning; and

Changing student -tutor relationships.
Traditionally, classroom teaching has been contrasted with distance education, but the
ever-rising use of the computer and computer networks in education is changing this
notion. Computer – mediated communication has both affected the teacher’s role in
the classroom teaching and the social isolation of students in distance education. It
offers a meeting point in cyberspace for anyone involved in the educational process
and the need for social interaction within the setting of distance education. Classroom
teaching and distant education are combining a new educational approach that
combines the strengths of both practices. It addresses the individual needs within a
collaborative context. Although primarily pushed by technological means for
delivery and support, it represents an educational innovation that affects the
pedagogical fundamentals of education and learning, supporting new ways of learning
and creating a new educational frame of reference (Westera, 1999).
The software available to deliver distance education becomes more and more simple
and many programs can be handled without any training. The common ownership of
computers means that users are gradually more and more experienced with these
tools. Collaborative learning implies that the use of the computer is dependent on the
telecommunications facilities. It can be reached either in, an asynchronous way like email, conference tools or news, or synchronous with real-audio/video or
videoconferencing. As mentioned before the development of the so-called
“groupware” or on-line learning systems offers a number of extended functionalities
for the support of collective design. The role of the media changes from being a
distributor and presenter of knowledge to that of a flexible, interactive, educational
tool in support of all kinds of learning activities more or less in a user friendly way
(Westera, 1999).
It has already been said that the availability of a worldwide computer network is
assumed to have a tremendous impact on existing social and cultural patterns. It
opens up a vast reservoir of information that can be accessed and filtered with the
assistance of sophisticated search machines. The Internet also sets up an open (virtual)
community, showing only a few barriers for the exchange of ideas of others. Some
basic suppositions of educational systems are affected.
First, the position of the teacher is recognizably going through changes from being an
absolute expert in the field, while students have an easy access to new or actual
information, not even known to the teacher. The teacher will no longer be the one
who keeps the information but will be a valuable helper in providing the proper
pathway to the needed information and of assisting the student in interpreting what he
or she learns and giving it a context.
Second, delicate information like examination assignments and associated
elaborations will be distributed among students using the WWW. Any information
society tends to be an open society and any information available to one member is
bound to become available to all members of the group involved.
Third, remote learning facilities and models for collaborative learning make the
contact with the tutor less important.
Fourth, computer-mediated communication is different from face-to-face contact.
Emotions are poorly transferred and may easily be disregarded or misinterpreted. In
asynchronous communication, speaking skills and assertiveness will become less
important. The teacher’s authority, being based on professional communication skills,
is seen to be affected by this impoverishment of the communication (Westera, 1999).
All these factors cause the relationship between tutor and student to become more
egalitarian; some of the tasks usually made by the tutors are taken over by the
students themselves. This is greater than before because of lifelong learning ideas
where students are often adult, highly autonomous, mid-career professionals who
consider themselves as users of educational services. This means that the common
authority and predominance of the tutor is highly undermined, causing the tutor’s role
to shift to that of a coach, providing meta-level guidance and support to stimulate and
optimise each student’s learning process.
b) Lifelong Education and Cultivation of Knowledge
As we move into the 21 s t century, the thought of lifelong educ ation is
becoming a realit y. Markets move so quickl y and jobs skills are
outdated so soon that the need to continuall y upgrade one’s skills and
education are becoming vital for survival.
The shift from an industrial -based to a knowledge -based societ y marks
our era. In the knowledge -based societ y what is valued in our work
determines what is needed to prepare for life and work. The role of
education and learning for cultivating our knowledge and skill is
central to this new societ y. Learning for life is n o longer relevant but
lifelong learning and education have become the centrepiece of our
age. This transition leads to new notions of how we refer to education
as the focus of cultivating knowledge and skill to prepare for the
Knowledge Age. Traditionall y when we consider why education plays
a crucial role in societ y the reaction usuall y is that education
empowers individuals to contribute to societ y; fulfils their personal
talents; fulfils their civic responsibilities and carries tradition forwards
(Trilling and Hood, 1999). In the Knowledge Age the implication to
these statements change considerabl y:
1. Contributing to Society . The skills needed for dail y work in
knowledge-based societ y have to be based on a set of skills for
participating in a complic ated web of global economic, informational,
technological, political, social and ecological interrelationships. These
skills are needed in order to learn new ways to live and work in our
very complicated, technological, information –rich world (Trilling an d
Hood, 1999).
2. Fulfilling personal talents . To a greater extent people enjoy the
benefit of the powerful knowledge tools – computers and
telecommunications hardware and software. These tools add to our
learning, our work, and our play. They can be lo oked at as amplifiers,
storerooms and sensory extensions for our thinking and
communications and are becoming “power tools” for our personal
development.
If a strong social plan to make these tools available to
everyone is not made, the existing gap bet ween “knowledge rich” and
“knowledge poor” will increase. The darker use of these tools can lead
to addictive violence and titillation, feeling of social isolation and
even depression from over -immersion in electronic media space. These
negative things m ay play a part in preventing many of our children
from full y developing their talents (Trilling and Hood, 1999).
3. Fulfilling civic responsibilities . The Internet and the electronic
media have opened a much wider field of issues, facts, opinions, and
conversations than ever and the potential for involvement and informed
participation has never been greater. This leads to the need to become
a “smart customer” of information. To learn how to exercise
discrimination and filter the flow of information becom es more and
more important. As fewer and fewer international media companies
control the source of information we get the need to make careful
choices and use critical judgments is greater than ever (Trilling and
Hood, 1999).
4. Carrying tradition forwar d. Multicultural societies are on the
increase everywhere due to worldwide mobilit y, immigration and inter marriage and growing economic opportunit y. This leads to the call for
the maintenance of skills to preserve one’s identit y as well as to learn
compassion and tolerance for the identities and traditions of others
(Trilling and Hood, 1999).
These new approaches to education leads to consideration of what kind of skills
learners need to fulfil the requirement in the Knowledge Age. Trilling and Hood
(1999) here outline what they believe to be the key Knowledge Age survival skills,
the seven Cs seen in table 4 (Trilling and Hood, 1999, p. 8):
Table 4. Seven Cs of skills.
Seven Cs
Component Skills
Critical thinking-and-doing
Problem-solving, Resea rch,
Analysis
Project Management, etc
New Knowledge Creation, “Best Fit”
Creativity
Collaboration
Design Solutions, Artful
Storytelling, etc.
Cooperation, Compromise,
Consensus,
Community-building, etc.
Cross-cultural Understanding
Across Diverse Ethnic, Knowledge
And organizational Cultures
Communication
Crafting Message and Using
Media Effectively
Computing
Effective Use of Electronic
Information
And Knowledge Tools
Career & Learning Self -reliance
Managing Change, Lifelong
Learning
and Career Red efinition.
Although this new set of skills is seen to be necessary to handle the requirements of
the Knowledge Age our educational systems do not keep up the pace of the business
world. The education of the Industrial Age with learning through facts, drill and
practice, is slowly but steadily being modified to the education of the Knowledge
Age. Learning through projects and problems, inquiry and design, discovery, and
invention, employing new methods based on collaborative learning, problem-based
learning and situated learning using the latest expertise in computer and
communication technology are more and more to be seen.
Trilling and Hood summarise the major findings of over two decades of progress that
educators, developmental and cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, learning
and instructional theorists, sociologists, academic researchers and others have
achieved to what is known about how we learn. They developed a model they call
“The five Cs of modern learning theory” (Trilling and Hood, 1999 p. 9):

Context: Environmental Learning

Construction: Mental Model Building

Caring: Intrinsic Motivation

Competence: Multiple Intelligences

Community: Learning Communities of Practice
Context is very important in learning and the envi ronmental conditions
are considered much more influential than before. The transfer of
knowledge from one context to another is not often successful in the
case in school conditions as real –world conditions. Therefore there is
an increasing demand for mo re “authentic” learning tasks that match
real-world conditions in addition to the need of having rich learning
environments that offer a wide variet y of contextualised opportunities
for discovery, inquiry, design, practice, instruction and constructive
exploration. This approach coincides with the need to become
proficient in solving real -world problems and to exercise critical
thinking and doing in the Knowledge Age (Trilling and Hood, 1999).
Construction refers to how mental models are built. A new exp erience
is assimilated and changes accommodated to our models as we confront
experiences that don’t quite “fit” and we even hold important
misconceptions about the world as necessary bridges to more
“accurate” models. The educational importance of constru cting
models, both physicall y and “virtuall y” are understood. It can be seen
how valuable design, simulation, and building activities are in
learning, for they match the constructive, modelling and designing
aspects of learning and the manner in which the y prepare for the
methods used to accomplish the future knowledge work (Trilling and
Hood, 1999).
Caring about what one is doing is an important factor of learning.
Recent project -based and problem -based learning programs where
learners define their own projects and set their own criteria for which
they will be evaluated have shown that much learning can happen when
students genuinel y care about what they are doing. These findings
coincide with the Knowledge Age need to develop self -reliant and self motivated learners and workers who have the determination to
creativel y solve difficult problems and find answers to tough, complex
questions (Trilling and Hood, 1999).
Competence comes in a variet y of flavours but the debate over what are
the inherent “modul es of learning” is still ongoing. It is known that it
is rewarding to encourage multiple learning approaches to match
diverse learning st yles and multiple ways of expressing understanding.
This supports the Knowledge Age necessity to benefit from multipl e
talents in the creative solving of problems in diverse teams, and in the
delicate design of services and products for diverse audiences (Trilling
and Hood, 1999).
Community plays a crucial role in learning as know from the socio cultural theories of lea rning. This extends the value of learning in
context, as said before, to the social and cultural realms of group
interaction, peer and mentor relations, group culture, and the
environmental influences of tools, settings, and techniques. All these
matters again support the Knowledge Age need to use collaborative,
communit y-based methods to problem solving and to learn from a range
of communities of practice in the chase of lifelong learning.
This new learning model of the five Cs shows that the skill demanded of the
Knowledge Age are very consistent with the ways we naturally learn, solve problems,
find answers to questions, and develop our abilities to think and act. Fortunately, there
is a close match between the theory and Knowledge Age needs but unfortunately
current educational practice often does not match modern theory (Trilling and Hood,
1999).
c) Computer Technology and the Future Perspective
Computer technology in education has the potential for improving
education. Technology innovations are i ncreasing the demand for
reforms in teaching and learning approaches. A recent research report
(North Central Regional Educational Laboratory) presented conclusions
about the most beneficial approaches to technology use in K -12
educational settings of the 21 s t century. The authors report that
(Valdez et al., 1999, p. 1):
1. Technology offers opportunities for learner-control, increased motivation,
connections to the real world, and data-driven assessments tied to content
standards that, when implemented systemically, enhance student achievement
as measured in a variety of ways, including, but not exclusively limited to,
standardized achievement tests.
2. Policymakers are demanding greater accountabilit y for
technology use, both because of resource expenditures and
because research shows that the abilit y to use technology
effectivel y is now necessary for all lifelong learners.
3. Generalizing findings from technology research has been
difficult because it is a rapidl y moving target due to changes in
technology and an educational vision.
When looking more closel y at their findings Valdez et al. also conclude
that technology has an important role to play in K -12 education though
it will not solve all educational problems. Student attitude and interest
towards the su bject is improved because technology makes learning
more interactive, enjoyable and customizable.
Minimall y, for
technology to play a positive role, the following factors must be
considered (Valdez et al., 1999, p. 2):




The success or failure of technology is more dependent on human and
contextual factors than on hardware or software.
The extent to which teachers are given time and access to
pertinent training to use computers to support learning plays a
major role in determining whether or not technol ogy has a
positive impact on achievement. Students of teachers with more
than ten hours of training significantl y outperformed students
whose teachers had five or fewer hours of training.
The success or failure of technology involves seeing it as a
valuable resource. This requires determining where it can have
the highest payoff and then matching the design of the
application with the intended purpose and learning goal. The
success or failure of technology-enabled learning experiences
often depends on whet her the software design and instructional
methods surrounding its use are congruent.
The success of technology depends on having significant critical
access to hardware and applications that are appropriate to the
learning expectations of the activit y. Re search and best practice
indicate that one computer for every four to five students is
necessary if students are to be able to use technology in a
manner that will yield significant improvements in learning
It is the teacher’s perception that improves th e climate for learning
especiall y because technology increases student motivation in subjects
for which they use computers (Valdez et al., 1999).
When printed material came about and became a public resource of
knowledge the educational system strived to teach everyone to read and
write to be competent to use the printed material. Now the educational
s ystem is facing it again, but not to teach to read and write but to help
the learner be able to master the new computer and communication
technology. A report by Oppenheimer (1997) on a poll taken in the
USA claimed that teachers ranked computer skills and media
technology as being more important and more essential to master than
other school subjects such as history and science (Salomon, 2000).
Salomon reported that teachers in a good training college were taught a
new (constructivist) pedagogy and the technology that helps realize it
real classrooms. They were given the opportunit y to experience first
hand a constructivist, team -based, problem-oriented an d technology
intensive pedagogy. But when the students were asked what was the
most significant thing they had experienced and learned, they stated
that it was the use of the computer. Mastering the technology promoted
one’s self esteem and perceived self -efficacy, while mastery of the new
pedagogy aroused uncertaint y (Salomon, 2000).
When discussing the technology and the conception of knowledge it is
possible to talk about three functions, the preservation of knowledge,
production of new knowledge, and transmission of knowledge. With
online courses access to knowledge is made possible. With ready
access to knowledge it is becoming less and less important to possess
knowledge, and far more important to know were to find the
information you need (Salomon, 2000). The information encountered
and accessed is not the same as the knowledge constructed on its basis.
Information is not knowledge, the difference between the two being
(Salomon, 2000, p. 4):





Information is discrete, knowledge is arranged in networ ks with
meaningful connections between the nodes
Information can be transmitted as is: knowledge needs to be
constructed as a web of meaningful connections
Information needs to be contextualized; knowledge is always part
of a context
Information requires clarit y; the construction of knowledge is
facilitated by ambiguit y, conflict and uncertaint y
Mastery of information can be demonstrated by its re -production;
mastery of knowledge is demonstrated by its novel application.
Information items do not link to eac h other by themselves, except for
complete association. In doing so they need at least two things:
tutelage and a communit y of learners (Salomon, 2000). Salomon once
studied the extent to which an intelligent computer programme served
as a “more capable peer” in student ZPD. The programme could do
that but did not match to a human tutor as it lacked the human touch
(Salomon, 2000). The importance of the interpersonal component is a
crucial factor when constructing knowledge and the community of
learner behaves as one. Fundamental elements of good learning are
based on sociall y distributed cognitions and sociall y appropriated
knowledge as seen in the theories of Vygotsky.
Computer and communication technology allow an easy access to
information. It ca n offer problems to be solved, like in simulations, it
can provide methods of navigating new multimedia routes or connect
students from different continents, but it cannot transform the
information accessed into knowledge.
The new vision of learning is to make learning accessible to all, but it is expensive
and difficult to reach this vision within the methods used by traditional education.
The critical cost factor is the cost per student for an hour of instruction, including both
development of learning material and the delivery of it. The current interactive
technology, hardware, and software make it a thinkable goal to reduce the cost factor
and provide education for all. Digital technology makes it possible to reach more
people than ever before. Educating the world is no longer a utopian dream but a
technical possibility (Bork, 2000). There are a few important factors in creating a
learning model for a computer tutorial learning system which have to be considered;
first, it must be highly interactive, second, it must be individualized; third, it has to be
adaptive to the needs of each student; four, it entails mastery where every student
learns everything in each subject; fifth, in creative learning students must construct
their own knowledge; sixth, the learning content may rely on problem solving,
creativity and intuition; seventh, learning can take place in distant setting where
students can be anywhere and can learn at any time; and eight, peer learning will be
encouraged.
Alfred Bork at the Irvin University of California (UCI) suggests a plan for a new
learning model using a computer tutorial learning system. The first step is to gain
information about the production of highly interactive tutorial units and consider all
ages and financial data for the future. The next step would be testing the experimental
units with large numbers of students in both formative and summative evaluation.
Using the result of the empirical effort a large-scale development could proceed.
Bork anticipates these developments to be on similar scale as putting a man on the
moon but with less uncertainty. Learning material must be prepared in many areas, in
many languages, spanning birth to death over a period of many years. It would be
best to have this effort worldwide supporting development and distribution for
developing countries. With this effort we might have the chance to educate everyone
at all levels (Bork, 2000).