The Future of Education

IT giants partner educators to make learning a seamless ride

Boundaries of studying and technology development fading fast

• By Rania Moussly, Staff Reporter
• Published: 00:00 May 23, 2011
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• Image Credit: Illustration: Ramachandra Babu/©Gulf News

Dubai: IT companies break new ground at such fast rate that education systems struggle to keep pace. Yet, the trend is that industry giants like Cisco systems, Microsoft and Intel, are partnering educators across the world in an attempt to embed technology into the remotest classrooms.

Therefore, it would not be a complete fantasy, when referring to information and communication technologies (ICT), to imagine holograms and other futuristic technologies in the classrooms in the near future.

When speaking about the future of technology in the classroom, IT experts believe human kind is in for a ‘wild ride'. For starters, the entire concept of the classroom is up for a reshuffle.

"The best way to start would be to define the word classroom, where will the classroom of the future be and how will the students learn," said Frank Florence, senior director of industry solutions and marketing at Cisco systems.

He added the future of classroom education could be one where media technologies have a prominent presence. "We are seeing some universities in the US experiment in the virtual education community environments," he said. "With things like Second Life, we are also seeing holographic experiments now in learning education."

However, Dr Khalid Khawaja, Chair of IT at the American University of Dubai (AUD), believes such radical changes in the UAE and subsequent regional educational systems are unrealistic; as holographic technologies could never replace the human bond between student and teacher.

He added the fundamentals of the Middle Eastern K-12 and tertiary systems still need to be cemented in place before educators look to fix specific teaching problems with futuristic technology.

"We still have a lot of challenges to address when it comes to K-12 and university education," he said. "We are still trying to create quality education and research institutions to be innovative and productive."

Once such principles are achieved the advanced use of technology in the classroom could be introduced to solve teaching and learning challenges.

"We have a lot of challenges at the fundamental level," he said. "Having futuristic technologies is not going to all of a sudden turn our universities into world class research institutions."

For Wendy Hawkins, executive director of the Intel Foundation, we are still in the ‘Stone Age' when it comes to the potential for technology in education.

Radical change

"I think we will see a radical change in education that is offered by technology," she told Gulf News at the recent Intel International Science and Education Fair (ISEF) held in Los Angeles. "We will see changes that allow students to pursue their own ideas but we are just dipping our toes in the water."

The Intel Foundation was established in 1999 with an aim to provide teachers worldwide an opportunity to learn how to use basic technologies such as computers and the internet.

"Such an opportunity changed the way they teach and changed the relationship with their students in the classroom," Hawkins said. "They then become the coaches and guides to their students, which is what we trained 9.5 million teachers across the world to do."

She added the ability for students to design their own learning games is within reach today.

"Those tools and resources are coming and will be very transformative for the students who develop them," she said. "Using 3D immersive technologies has tremendous potential in schools and universities."

However, Dr Khawaja, believes the reliance on technology in teaching with no measurable purpose is a futile pursuit.

"If we are not introducing technology with the full understanding of what learning outcomes we are trying to achieve and how to measure them it's pointless," he said. "Education is becoming a learning outcome based formula, which is a very important concept." He used the example of the introduction of gaming into a computer programme writing class at AUD to illustrate the introduction of specific technology with measurable learning outcomes.

Gaming

"We found that introducing computer gaming to illustrate the principles of programming to students got them more excited," he said. "We brought technology in to allow them to programme in a gaming context and we saw significantly improved results."

Advanced technical developers like Intel are mindful, however, of the challenges educators and academic institutions face when it comes to keeping up with rapid technical developments. "It is difficult for universities to have their faculty keep up with the technical developments that a company like Intel is driving because the change comes so rapidly," Hawkins said.

"Our recent announcement about the 3D chips Intel is developing is a new technology difficult for universities to incorporate quickly enough into the curricula." This is why Intel works with advanced universities worldwide who then disseminate the new curricula across the board.

Yet, when it comes to incorporating new technologies into the education system the UAE is one of the leading Arab countries.

"With universities in the UAE we find most classrooms have the latest generation of technology," said Azza Shinnawy, Education lead at Microsoft Gulf. "This part of the world is quite advanced in deploying the latest technology generations and student adoption of these technologies."

Future of classroom technology is classroom driven

Azza Shinnawy, Education lead at Microsoft Gulf believes the future of technology in the classroom will depend on the demands of the labour market as learning environments will become increasingly tailored to suit employer needs.

"The classroom will have to prepare students for the relevant exposure they will get in the workplace," she said. "Therefore their technical learning context will not be different from that of the labour market."

She added the use of advance technology is in and of itself a means to a end in which to engage students in the learning process. The various technical developments on offer for use in the classroom also present an opportunity for individual based and tailor-made learning.

"Technology is also impacting positively in terms of learning outcomes," said Shinnawy. "It allows students of a certain aptitude to progress quicker than the slower ones and with this nature it's creating an individualised and personalised learning environment."

However, Dr Tarek Shawki, Director of the regional bureau for science in Arab states at United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) believes with all the rapid technical advancements; it is the educators who are most resistant to change.

Speaking at the recent Global Education Forum in Dubai, he said the ancient fundamentals of education, which consist of a knowledge shift, remain the same. Yet, technology and the new developments to come are simply part of the educational evolutionary process.

"Our classic global education system is driven by the industrial revolution but it is set to change dramatically in coming years," he said. "Yet, the education world is the most resistant to change."

He added worldwide education systems are experiencing a paradigm shift driven somewhat by IT firms.

"If the education system is not fast enough to respond it will perish and others will take education away from it."

Dr Shawki referred to a new initiative developed by Apple called iTunes U (University). Located in the online iTunes store, it allows users to download or stream university lectures at the world's leading institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge for free.

However, he believes universities in the Arab world need to get as innovative in their thinking through the use of technology. "We have kids listening to iPods and using iPads, if you knew how many iPods are sold you'd see the potential in something like iTunes U," he said.

"Yet Silicon Valley is responsible for all the technological advancements in education while Arab universities are just watching…we have to face the fact that either we jump on the wagon or get left behind."

Ms. Sunita