XplanaZine

It’s the end of the semester and I can’t say I’m too sorry to see this one go. It reminds me of a favorite M*A*S*H episode, one in which we see the passing of an entire year with the events bookended by Colonel Potter (Harry Morgan) dressed up as Father Time and declaring “Happy New Year! May it be a damned sight better than the old one.”

Not that things have really been that bad. My online courses at the university are beginning to develop into something worth taking, the zine has grown and evolved into a nice serendipity for all involved, and my family has been blessed in a number of ways. But, to be honest, I haven’t quite reached all of the goals I set for myself and I have been over-committed for the last half of the year. As a result, I find myself straggling home, seemingly last in the race, and just hoping for some rest and re-energizing.

In general, this is my favorite time of year. I get to look at the error of my ways and then re-commit myself to being and doing better next year. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to saddle up and get right back into the excitement of the life race, full of thundering speed, flying debris, and competition against my own expectations.

Rather than make the usual turn-of-the-year personal resolutions, however, this year I want to spend some time talking about the things I hope we finally get to see with regards to education and technology. We’ve been teetering on the brink of change for a couple of years now, and I hope this is the year we get to see some of that change take place.

So, without further adieu, here is my list of hoped-for changes, along with my personal commitment to do everything possible to make them come about.

1. The disappearance of the LMS: Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we don’t need some technology, or even a technology platform to teach from, I simply don’t believe that the current LMS solutions are the right technology or teaching solution for the job. In general current LMS platforms are constructed on a traditional pedagogical model that focuses on teachers and static content. The new world order is about learner-centric education and dynamic content. As online education continues to evolve, the existing systems and content models will no longer be viable. I, for one, will be glad to see them go.
2. The growth of learning experience as a primary goal in online education: The buzzword phrase among publishers is still homework management solution. By that, they mean traditional assessment. The reality is that traditional assessment is severely limited, particularly when you consider that learning models are evolving rapidly toward simulation, immersion, and real-life experience. There will always be a place for information-acquisition assessment, but the real need is for a knowledge-and-wisdom development model that embraces and promotes experience. Experiential learning has been around since before Aristotle and it is the most effective form of education. Perhaps this will be the year that technology and content providers catch up to this reality and provide us with some next-generation products and thinking.
3. The creation of global collaboration strategies in e-learning: It strikes me as odd that the world has become so global and open while education, for the most part, remains a “local” activity. Security and information privacy concerns have forced us to keep our classes locked safely behind LMS and authentication walls. And our technology/teaching solutions have yet to provide ways in which our students can take full advantage of the global learning communities in a collaborative environment. My hope is that this year, blogs and wikis won’t just be fancy words but that they will become integrated tools for letting learners reach out beyond their local space to share and learn from others around the world.
4. A legitimate, multi-discipline use for handhelds: The mobile phone and the iPod rule. We all know it. We all have one or the other or both. These are the ubiquitous handheld technologies everyone predicted for the past five years. Now the pressure is on to see what we are going to do with them. Are we willing to let our learning models become truly mobile? Are we ready to let learners determine more of the “when” and “where” of their education? I hope so and I think this is the year for it.

Most of all, this year I hope we are able to start looking at new models of learning that will allow us to measure the real value of technology in education. To date, all we have done is forced technology solutions into our preconceived brick-and-mortar teaching models that, quite honestly, may not be all that great with or without technology. The problem is that technology introduces new possibilities for learning and we must finally get serious about changing our school and education models so that we can finally move into the new century of learning.