550 Week 5 and the Crystal Ball

Being in a program like this, I feel most of use are probably a little more optimistic when it comes to the future of online learning.  For my colleagues, on the list of about 100 things they are trying to think about in regards to education's future, it clocks in at about 99, or maybe a bit further down.  That said, with my best attempt to remove my own bias, I really think the stars are aligning for online education.

First of all, the technology is getting there.  There are more and more collaborative web 2.0 tools released every year, all of them with their own unique features.  The more technologically advanced we get, the less it feels like a separate type of class, and more like an alternate way to get the same experience.  Bandwidth still seems to be an issue, as we cannot all share video at the same time in our Collaborate classroom, but that will be something that will advance as well in the coming years.  I could see an entire class all streaming video at the same time in the not too distant future.

Common Core will also help us avoid a political fight.  The idea of an online classroom has been pitched to us as "Kids can take their classes from the best teachers in the country!"  Of course, then we get into charter schools and vouchers and "Are the kids that need help the most getting it if a few teachers are teaching groups of 6,000?"  Not to mention "Can these 'best' teachers in the country effectively handle their class sizes?"  The fact that we'll all be teaching the same curriculum puts us closer to equal ground.  Yes, some teachers will present those ideas better than others, but with a common curriculum, students can choose the type of classroom that fits them best.  They can choose to be in a face-to-face direct instruction classroom, or an online constructivist classroom or anything in between.  And we can use benchmark assessments to measure whether or not those types of learning are actually working for those students.

If the current model of education is, as many have said, a "factory", then I feel the schools of the future will be more like shopping malls.  Students will be able to try out many different types of learning.  The difference will be that we will be able to give them advice about their "purchases".  Hopefully online learning can gain some more attention in the near future, because it does fit nicely with the current focus in education.