If we survey science in the very best learning environments in 2005, I hope that we will see totally different content, supported throughout by technology. Information technologies will be used as enablers for learning … but few kids will actually be learning from a networked computer. In general, I dream that we would see involvement of students in a variety of virtual communities, engagement of teachers as lifelong learners and researchers, use of online student portfolios and assessment, and regular use of the full range of network resources … A whole new class of information organizers and intelligent scaffolding software will help students structure their ideas and reflect on their thinking. These tools will finally help realize the promise of metacognition, understanding how you think and learn … The result could well force a total rethinking of what can be taught and when.
Predictor: Tinker, Bob
Prediction, in context:In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology commissioned a series of white papers on various issues related to networking technologies. The department convened the authors for a workshop in November 1995 to discuss the implications. The following statement is taken from one of the white papers, “The Whole World in Their Hands,” by Bob Tinker, the president of Concord Consortium, he has a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and a reputation as a pioneer in constructivist uses of educational technology. Tinker writes:”If we survey science in the very best learning environments in 2005, I hope that we will see totally different content, supported throughout by technology. Information technologies will be used as enablers for learning, just as books, pens, and labs enable learning, but few kids will actually be learning from a networked computer. In general, I dream that we would see involvement of students in a variety of virtual communities, engagement of teachers as lifelong learners and researchers, use of online student portfolios and assessment, and regular use of the full range of network resources … A whole new class of information organizers and intelligent scaffolding software will help students structure their ideas and reflect on their thinking. These tools will finally help realize the promise of metacognition, understanding how you think and learn. With help from information technologies, we will learn how to integrate increasingly sophisticated concepts about thinking into the curriculum, with the result that students will learn to learn much sooner and with much greater insight. This insight will greatly accelerate what students learn and how well they learn from the disorganized resources present on the Internet. When this personal skill is combined with the full resources available, the result could well force a total rethinking of what can be taught and when.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: E-learning
Name of publication: The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning
Title, headline, chapter name: The Whole World in Their Hands
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney