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Advanced learning and building for the future

Compiled from The Changing Faces of Learning February 2007 conference presentations by Professor Steve Molyneux, Learning Lab Director and Steve Moss, Strategic Director – ICT Partnerships for Schools.

There is inevitably a range of opinions on the full scope and variety of current and future changes to learning, but there can be no further argument about the outstanding feature on this changing face. It is ICT.

This is triggering transformation in teaching style, learning culture, physical environments and teacher/pupil relationships. It is also creating an unprecedented generation gap – among educators as well as those they are educating.

ICT is driving new thinking about the curriculum structure; about the role of schools; about the environments in which learning takes place; about learning communities which may or may not be co-located; about the skills teachers must have as they increasingly become leaders and managers of transformational change.

Professor Molyneux builds a factual picture which demonstrates with crystal clarity that technology is a paramount factor.

• Internet use is going up at the rate of about 140 persons a second (almost 72 million a year)
• By 2008 an average adult will daily consume:
• 2700 calories of food
• 3 litres of fluid
• 30 GB of digital information
• Unlimited bandwidth in on its way: 6.4 Terabit/s (10 12) over a single sub-fibre (sufficient to carry all the TV programmes of the world plus all voice communication)
• Soon bandwidth will exceed computer power, as processor capacity doubles every 18 months yet bandwidth doubles every nine months.
• 80% of households offer children access to communications and entertainment technology

What does this mean in terms of the work which children now in education will find themselves doing?

Most new jobs will occur in computer related fields and 80% of the jobs do not even exist yet. Between 2000 and 2010 there will be a significant increase in demand for systems analysts, software applications engineers, support specialists, software systems engineers, data communication analysts, desktop publishers, and database administrators. In some cases demand will double.

What is the future of education and learning as we move from an industrial to a knowledge economy?

In the traditional industrial society education was transmission of content. Learning was an individual process separated from the outside world. But the inspiring ideal for education in today’s knowledge society is the use of ICT to support the organic construction of knowledge. Learning is a social process of sharing and community building, deeply integrated with the “outside” world…and the most significant part of it is collaboration.

The adoption curve for new technology is moved closer in time by Government intervention. Such intervention is certainly planned for the education sector – as Steve Moss stressed the Government has earmarked £45billion of investment in its Building Schools for the Future programme over the next 15 years, of which £4.5billion will be spent specifically on ICT.

Molyneux spoke of transformational re-engineering of education & training, and illustrated the difference between broadcast and interactive learning as follows:

He concluded by quoting Charles Darwin: “ It is not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change.”

In his presentation on Real and virtual spaces for learning in schools of the future Moss asked the questions

• What sort of education do we want to see in future?
• What sorts of learning relationships do we want to foster?
• What competencies do we want learners to develop?
• What tools and resources are available to us to support learning?
• What buildings do we want?
• How many computers do we need?

and pointed out that the Building Schools for the Future programme offers a unique chance to design and create new physical and virtual spaces simultaneously, together constituting a 21 st Century environment for learning 21 st Century skills. He added that “spaces are themselves agents for change: changed spaces will change practice” and that flexible spaces facilitate deeper and richer learning.

New types of learning spaces not only incorporate new hardware systems, they also create new patterns of social and intellectual interaction. Given the chance, learners choose the locations where they feel most empowered and most comfortable to complete the work in hand. In places where they see the best support for their way of working they feel safe and so return frequently.

Moss also defined the virtual leaning space.

• It should enable learners and teachers to find, organise and create content and learning resources in ways which are flexible…. It has to be more than a content delivery system.
• Learners must feel that the experience is a personal one.
• The space should also recognise and facilitate the social dimensions of learning – encouraging collaborative work.

He concluded that “there are few financial or technological barriers to achieving transformation through the Building Schools for the Future programme: almost all the barriers are in our heads”.