Horizon Report

The trend that sticks out to me the most is the one stating that "People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to." I think this one is most relevant in our society today. I see this in every age, whether it's a 5 year old or a 65 year old, this expectation seems extremely prevalent throughout all generations. We have phones to get work done, updates, emails, complete communication, and so forth. We have access to the Internet in 99% of the areas we visit. This expectation is in the technological world just as much as it is in the education world because we have come to expect to be able to do whatever, whenever we decide we have time to. In regards to challenges that we face, the one stating that "Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly forms of authoring, publishing and researching," is extremely apparent in the college classroom. So many of our classes require research, tests, and projects that haven't been used in previous years. Because these technologies are new, the way they should be graded and evaluated must be revised as well. However, colleges and professors are so stuck in their usual way of evaluating students that even when they change and modify their curriculum and requirements, they keep their grading the same. All of these factors, and the others mentioned in the article, combine to prove the necessity for change in education. It is no secret that the world around us is constantly changing, and as a result, the classroom should be changing as well. It is juvenile and silly of us to believe that the education system can or should stay the same when everything in students' lives is different. Teachers and schools need to jump on board with technology and its prevalence rather than pushing it aside and being stuck in old ways. This will require the presentation of material to be different; lectures and PowerPoints are not the only means by which teaching should occur. Tests and responses to learning should be interactive, both with the environment and technology. This will provide opportunity for research and gaining deeper understanding of material. Group projects and collaborative work should involve not only phone class and in class work but also blogs and interactive documents that can be accessed through computers. There is so much out there that teachers and the education system deny or neglect. The truth is that if they would simply run with it, they may end up with students who are fully engaged and attentive, who want to succeed and persevere, rather than students who simply go through school because it is required.