Today’s children are extremely savvy. They’ve grown up in a world where information was always just a button away. Buttons? Soon, they won’t even need buttons. With Windows 10, they’ll simply say, “hey Cortana.” She’s more like the world’s greatest librarian than a personal assistant. She delivers content on command. In the future, after children have mastered reading, writing, and arithmetic, will more formal schooling still be necessary?
I watch the way my own children (boys 7 and 10 years old) learn to play video games. They use Google to search for tips and tricks. They watch seemingly endless YouTube tutorials. Even when they’re trying to do something more complex, such as building their own Minecraft Server on a Raspberry Pi, I barely help. I tell them to search the web by themselves. If one blog’s instructions fail and they whine with frustration, I encourage them to start from scratch and try a new source. “Computers can be irritating,” I explain, “lots more failures than successes. But when it works, you’ll be happy.” Sometimes they give up. Other times they persevere. Each time they are learning not only about the task at hand, but also about the nature of self-directed learning.
Because of the unprecedented access we now have to information, some folks think that online self-directed learning will soon replace traditional education as we know it. They imagine that open, web-based solutions like Khan Academy, Lynda, EdX, and Coursera—perhaps paired with a system of certifications—can address most of society’s education needs. Professors, in a world where information is ubiquitous, could become more like curators than instructors.
by MindMake via MindMake Blog
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