We are experiencing a revolution comparable in scale to the Industrial Revolution, which some call the “Information Revolution” and others the “Knowledge Revolution.” The most distinctive characteristic of this revolution is universal connectivity and the free flow of information.
Education, or learning, is fundamentally the flow of information. In this revolution, education must inevitably undergo dramatic transformation. Our generation has grown accustomed to receiving education from (public) schools, and once we leave school, most of us cease learning altogether. Yet a series of technological advances, particularly the invention of the internet, are shifting education away from schools toward homes, workplaces, preschool and post-secondary institutions, and business hours.
However, past experience has revealed to us a profound disconnect between the demands of new technologies and traditional initiatives like public education. New technologies have only been applied to the periphery of schools’ core academic practices—such as providing computer labs, technology courses, and extracurricular programs—without fundamentally rethinking the basic practices of teaching and learning. This is despite the fact that computers have already become the primary means by which we read, write, calculate, and think outside the classroom.
It is foreseeable that new technologies have the opportunity to enhance the personalization of education, allowing learners to focus on their own interests. Furthermore, new technologies can provide learners with effective feedback at any time and create spaces for them to engage and interact. Learners can choose what they want to learn, follow a pace suited to them, and develop into the people they wish to become.
Yet there is concern that this educational revolution may exacerbate educational inequality. Due to the conflict between new technologies and traditional education, public education systems have struggled to incorporate the DNA of new technologies in the short term. Moreover, the new technologies that rely on computers require substantial costs. While hardware costs have been declining in recent years and the ratio of computers to students has been improving, it remains difficult to meet the needs for implementing new technologies, and even national budgets struggle to bear the burden.
For this reason, new technologies may create “information barriers” not only at the technological level, with affluent and well-capitalized individuals monopolizing information resources. At the hardware level, the same hierarchical divisions will emerge—families unable to afford computers will lose their competitive edge.
In his new book Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins mentions,
One of the wonderful promises of the traditional school system is to provide all students with common learning technologies. The varying capacities of families to own and use computers limit schools’ ability to fairly distribute learning opportunities.
The Advantages of Technology
There is no doubt that technology will bring innovation to education. Such innovation may require a process, but it will certainly reach a satisfying conclusion. New technology has changed the way we communicate information, and this change represents a shift in information flow with stronger power to educate (transmit information to) learners.
1. Real-time learning—new technologies make information transmission more immediate.
A typical example is how modern learners utilize and depend on search engines. Whenever there is a question or something you want to learn to complete a task, you can find what you are looking for. From this perspective, if technology is utilized well, then the ability to ask a good question becomes even more important. The essence of real-time learning is the ability to discover appropriate information.
2. User customization—new technologies can cater to individual preferences.
Due to increased computational power, abundant data, and mature algorithms, personalized education tailored to each individual’s specific circumstances is gradually becoming a reality. Like adults, young people are increasingly unwilling to learn what others consider best, preferring instead to decide for themselves what has value and what they need to learn. This will break the standardized mass-production model of traditional school education. This is not necessarily a good thing before learners become independent learning explorers.
3. Learner control—this corresponds to user customization.
New technologies enable learners to control their own learning, deciding what has value for them, how much time they want to spend, and what help they need, thus controlling their learning more flexibly. Similarly, the prerequisite for learner control is that they have already been taught how to plan and control their own learning. Otherwise, it will backfire.
4. Immediate feedback—better interaction and simulation games.
An important aspect of learning is immediate feedback. After I learn something, I apply it immediately based on my understanding, then immediately receive feedback to know whether my application was correct, and if not, how to correct it. Simulation games are an interactive manifestation of immediate feedback, where I can quickly see the results of decisions and make optimizations and adjustments. In this regard, new technologies are already more efficient than classroom teaching. Furthermore, the immersive experience brought by game simulations makes it easier to lead learners into a state of “flow,” creating valuable learning opportunities. The complexity of skills needed to progress through the game is not easily detected, and learners master high-difficulty techniques and knowledge “unconsciously.”
5. Scaffolding—providing appropriate help needed to complete tasks.
In a learning task, good system design can enable students to complete tasks with less guidance. However, because different students have varying abilities, each student requires different levels of guidance. New technologies can provide personalized scaffolding for system design, and it will not let others know that the student needs additional help, avoiding comparative frustration and prejudice, while also saving teachers considerable tutoring time.
6. Reflection—enabling learners to review and compare.
A learning system created by new technologies can reflect on your process of completing tasks by recording actual performance and compare it with standard answers or best practices, showing you how to improve. Furthermore, you can compare it against a set of standards for assessing performance, measuring your own progress. These create the possibility of quantifying learners’ progress, using technology to track student learning to continuously iterate and improve.
Under the educational revolution, students should participate more actively in learning and share knowledge, rather than spending large amounts of time competing with each other for better grades. The biggest problem with traditional educational models is forcing students of different personalities and diverse interests to sit quietly in classrooms listening to teachers lecture, memorizing what they say, and then reproducing it during exams. This destroys most children’s curiosity and desire to learn.
The “losers” in learning under traditional educational models need no longer be “losers.” In reformed education, there should be no losers, only students who have temporarily not found learning methods and content interests suited to them, no low-achieving students who cannot or do not love to learn.
The Dilemmas of Technology
As the school system continues to evolve, its components become interdependent and interact with one another, reaching an equilibrium state. Changes in student numbers, school locations, and other systemic elements do not alter the fundamental arrangement of the system’s components. Once a complex system is established, it is difficult to lose balance; therefore, technologies that reconfigure teaching practices face enormous challenges.
1. Cost and management—challenges of hardware support and administration.
Although computer costs continue to decline and the ratio of computers to students in schools continues to increase, most schools still cannot achieve a 1:1 ratio. Moreover, much research shows that even in schools where the ratio of computers to students is 1:1, teachers progress very slowly in changing their teaching practices. Additionally, managing computer resources is itself a challenge; theft and damage impede widespread computer use.
2. Machine limitations—what computers cannot teach.
As the saying goes, “teaching by example and personal conduct,” teachers do far more than impart knowledge—there are many subtle things that computers can never replace. Good teachers can provide encouragement when students doubt themselves, helping children work toward their goals. They develop possibilities in children that parents and children themselves might never see. They challenge learners’ preconceptions, encouraging divergent thinking and bold action.
3. Teaching and authority—what teachers feel challenged by.
The application of new technologies inevitably brings changes in teaching methods. Most teachers did not learn in teacher training schools how to use computers and other technologies to develop teaching systems based on new technologies or track student learning, making teachers’ work more difficult.
Moreover, teachers earn students’ respect partly because of their knowledge and wisdom, and partly because of their ability to inspire students to engage in learning. When students can obtain all the knowledge they lack from computers, especially when what teachers teach differs from what they obtain from computers, this poses a tremendous challenge to teachers’ authority. Teachers need authority to demonstrate why learning is important, yet computers only undermine this.
4. Assessment—standardized testing as a limitation on how computers can transform schools.
Standardized testing reinforces the belief that education should concern itself with students learning different knowledge and skills, rather than conducting research or completing projects. Computers can be innovatively applied to such endeavors as in-depth research or completing innovative projects, but there is little room for this in curricula. Instead, offline formats are simply moved online—students continuously practice on computers the skills necessary to pass various exams, rather than learning innovatively or spending their time in more meaningful ways. This runs counter to the modes of learning that new technologies are best suited to promote.
School culture has deeply embedded a belief that students should read, listen to, and absorb the vast accumulation of facts, concepts, procedures, theories, beliefs, technical works, and scientific creations developed over centuries. An educated person is one who understands and appreciates these great intellectual products in human history. This view of learning originates from liberal arts education.
By contrast, the education engendered by technology is an activity-based education that emphasizes hands-on ability. Computers are highly interactive, providing learners with a myriad of tools to accomplish meaningful tasks. Therefore, compared with the “assimilation of cultural knowledge” educational philosophy pervading school education, they align more with the “learning by doing” educational philosophy.
These two perspectives are not entirely in conflict, as it is entirely possible to embed accumulated cultural wisdom into interactive learning environments, but they are not made in heaven. Therefore, technology has the potential to direct education in a different direction—toward the design and construction of products and the analysis of complex problems and situations. This is an educational philosophy entirely different from the currently prevailing school culture.
Schools naturally employ just-in-case learning, while technology encourages just-in-time learning. The school system cannot help students develop intrinsic motivation for learning, but learning technologies provide some direction on how to enhance student motivation and make learning content more dynamic. The core curriculum of modern schools remains rooted in the medieval trivium—logic, grammar, and rhetoric—and the quadrivium, comprising arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Subsequently, schools added subjects such as history, geography, and science, but the basic curriculum organization still reflects its historical accumulation. There are two domains where new technologies explicitly influence what constitutes important learning: communication and mathematics. New technologies provide interesting ways to transition between fundamental and applied literacies.
It can be said that we are undergoing an educational transition, a shift from school education to a new form of education led by new technologies. Under this new form of education, we need an educational vision that allows everyone to access various new educational resources, where every child should have such a device providing diverse educational resources. The current trend is that these resources are readily available to the wealthy while leaving most people behind.
Horace Mann once envisioned that education could provide everyone with a path to become an elite. Universal school education formed the foundation of today’s middle-class society, but the rise of new technologies, privatization, and growing income inequality are destroying this vision. In the face of this tide, it is crucial that more people think about how to provide equal opportunities for all citizens to access educational resources.