It's interesting to sit down and read the my classmate's blogs and tweets and my own ones. It's like a chronological progression that I can tell little by little from each reflective paper we wrote. I used to have poor writing skills and was frightened to give other people any comments on their blogs. Then I realized that when I started to apply my critical thinking to each every minute and worry less about my language , I am bringing up great ideas and becoming a reflective thinker rather than a worrier who won't produce.
I find when I take on the topic of 21st Century education, I tend to expand the topic and relate it to all the trending words and phenomenon pops up everywhere in the news feed. " Technology Use"," Distance Learning","Teachers' Changing Roles","multiculturalism"," International Education" and so forth. Then I look at those words again, those that pops up and overwhelm my brain, just like whenever I check my "Pulse" RSS reader on my iPhone, it makes me wonder. Since when we start to know more than we think we know?
Why do each everyone at the time has a clear image of what the near future of education looks like yet it is so unpredictable 50 years ago? The rapid pace of technology improvement has seen the realization of an anticipated " multi-task" office and classroom functions in a 58.6x115.2x9.3 mm Smartphone. The reasons people failed to make an accurate prediction is because in the information age, our knowledge base is not bulging up but explosively expanding. Then we as educators take a look at the education closely, we inevitably come across several "why"s which are also easy to answer: why in 21st we come to a stage that we are we using all the technologies, critical thinking skills and more personalized/customized methodology for individual students; why are we making these revolutionary changes to our education systems; why are we bringing in all the new notions of multiculturalism, lifelong learning and critical thinking- Thanks to technology, progressive human society and globalization, we know that's what the time required our education to be. Then“where" is our new generation education going?
It is obvious that we are shifting the focus of education from looking for skilled, knowledgeable resource provider to finding someone who is able to cater each every individual student's need in their learning procedure. Technology uses, easier access to knowledge, interactive classroom, encouraging creativity and bold ideas. The educators' role is not merely a resource provider in the 21st century, it has become a combination of Resource Provider, instructional Specialist, Curriculum Specialist, Classroom Supporter, Mentor and School Leader. Just like what is happening in the graduate level classes in most of the higher education institutions, educators are igniting students' thoughts, creating discussions and let students take over the knowledge delivering procedure by sharing their learnings. Presentations and reading facilitation are the two best examples that teachers are rendering the autonomy to students to explore in what's out there on the internet and in their minds. I was intrigued by a video made by Salman Khan himself- his prediction of year 2060. In his mind as teachers' role changes, there will be no more old school instructive style teaching where teachers stand in front and students sit back behind tables and taking notes. Instead, teachers will have more joined classes and the only task is to let students take advantage of each of their specialties. Either you are a freethinker, a very organized project manager, a great data collector or a learning-through-physical advocate, there will always ways to help the students to create their own projects. Where to get resources? Internet. That however means more competition for educators, they are no longer a tool to teach you Kongfu moves, they are to convey the Wushu spirit to students. The more influence you bring to students the more successful you are. That happens to be where the peer pressure is from. There might be a larger portion of students doing better in creative thinking than organizing, that doesn't necessarily mean the creative thinking type of teacher is doing a better job. Quantity will no longer be a measurement for teachers' achievement anymore. People will get used to it when this model of the teacher - student relation is set to be standard in a few years.
When I first heard of Khan Academy I was very impressed with the brilliant idea behind it but more traumatized by how I was unaware of the history of making. I can relate it with my personal experience. When I was studying Maths in Chinese high school, the difficulty in each math problem and the " Efficiency”teachers are often pursuing in order to get the whole textbook content covered made students like me unable to follow no matter how hard we tried. I would usually spend a lot more time after class trying to figure it out however getting help from other people is not easy because the high achievers even if they want to, they can't offer much help as their time is highly limited. Ever since my friend started to record it and share with us, the convenience to review and replay made everyone more confident in learning. Khan Academy is not only diminishing the distance barrier for learners, but also offers different versions of solutions to the same academic problem. Additionally, the multi-language feature, contributed by 17,000 translators all over the world, is pushing it to be more accessible and universal. Sometimes people would come and challenge the credibility of online programs. The majority still tend to associate online programs with words such as" diploma mills", "lack regulations", " easy-cheating" and accuse the online courses are not easy for students "under no supervision with plenty distraction" to fairly productive. However, students should know by themselves, by the time they applied for an online program, they are determined to take responsibility of the time and efforts they are put in. All the scams can be avoided if students can do some research on the online program/ degree provider. There will be no way that you waste all your money and time on a non-creditable course if you choose to learn not to buy in.
As Internet taking on bigger roles in education, there emerges all kinds of new applications and websites. They are extremely helpful in terms of the instant effective communication they renders teachers and students. The way they are formed is amusingly interesting too. They are following the successful models of entertainment website and digital games. In one of the classes early in the course, Tien and Karla brought up an interesting app called Edmodo (https://www.edmodo.com/). Edmodo as described by Wikipedia is "a social learning platform for teachers, students, and parents". It is commonly thought of as the Facebook of schools, as called by pupils and teachers alike. Along with the learning scenarios listed above, educational social networking sites, as such, offer a unique opportunity to “connect with students and help them create norms and reflect on how different online actions will be interpreted.” Edmodo offers educators a chance to begin a dialogue that meets with students their experiences to critically examine the use of social networks and ethical use of media and online formats. The way it works resembles a lot of the very popular social network website Facebook. Now when you research to find more newly emerged, eye-opening educational websites or applications online, you will find their similarities with all their entertainment-based counterparts. For example, TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/) reminds me instantly of YouTube in the way they both encourages people to instant share, comment and start new social/educational trends and obviously even the name with a 40% similarity. The video sharing program had created a bridge to bring students internationally together and encouraged them to share their learning experiences. It also means teachers working in different cultural backgrounds and educational systems can gain access to successful teaching strategies and styles in a more visual way. In this way teachers no longer have to be traveling and physically there in the classroom to understand what other teachers are doing and how they are doing it, instead teachers sitting in the office can watch a bunch of different successful teaching examples at the same time, compare them take notes and having a relaxed yet very productive lunch break. Such examples are numerous, Animoto (http://animoto.com) immediately makes connections in my mind to Instagram/vine and more. Even Kham academy is applying the game mode- easy register, easy sign up (online games easy sign up steps), achievement record (game achievement and trophies), easy search in the category (online game view map), a notification system ( as most popular on Facebook). Soon enough the whole Internet will be no more boring as all the knowledge is shown plain in the text. A lot of teenage students would not spend 3 secs even to wait till the commercial to run over, needless to mention a long dull text last 10 pages with meanwhile random pop-up contents and on-going Facebook poke wars.
By making through this course I find that's exactly what we as students and educators are doing.We are not only to keep up with the new high technology use, but also assist peddling our boat towards a fun, appealing and approachable direction to encourage people to learn while having fun.To keep an academic blog and tweet as we can is also a way to show off the progress we had made in the recent years in easy accessible communication on Internet. As educators, when we start to throw comments or post academic writings online. We are not only making the words sound, we are also showing that we are dedicated in keeping the educator's standard in order to make a difference from the rest of posts on the Internet which serves a different purpose either to purely entertain or biased due to personal needs. Theoretically, new technology was applied to entertainment industry first because it is the easiest and most efficient way to evoke the public interest in the new invention and start a trend. Educators should seize the opportunity when the new technology is no longer strange to the public anymore, to implement the educational use of the fresh new way to make teaching an enjoyable, heuristic.
Another interesting outlook for 21st Century education is the embrace of multiculturalism. According to the historical context, Canada had come a long long way in this revolutionary process : From giving minority group's legal obstacles in immigration and limiting their political and social rights during the 1800s and early 1900s to government adopted multiculturalism in the 1970s and 1980s (Kobayashi, 1983), till now In the 21st century becoming often characterized as "very progressive, diverse, and multicultural" by people all over the world. I experience the multiculturalism in my everyday life first hand as a "visible minority". When I was studying back in China, I have never had any thought of my identity in a racial context. Although there were a lot of people from outside China, they still all appear to me as of minority groups in China. Not till I bought myself a one-way ticket and come to Canada, sitting in the classroom with classmates from all over the world, I start to wonder what racial differences and cultural differences mean to me. It indirectly influences people's assumption of my social status just by looking at my Asian featured face. I adjusted myself to new environment fast enough- well it still took me a whole year- because I had a good language and an openness education from my mum who was an English teacher in her early career years. However, not everyone is lucky as I am in terms of the preparation to study internationally. Most of the time I still overhear or get involved in the discussion on specially how east Asian students are not speaking out their opinions to their instructors, academic advisers and school board when they come across troubles at school. I made the same mistake throughout my entire MEd program. I was on a very poor academic writing standard compared to my verbal skills. Additionally I was intimidated to ask questions and report problems during my study. It is majorly due to the cultural protocol in Chinese school culture, that students should not suggest that they are having troubles in their study. It happens often that in a Chinese class, students do not raise questions during or after instructor's speech to show respect and try not to ask " simple and stupid" questions to the instructor and remain silent most of the time. Instructors take it as a confirmation of their success in teaching jobs and do not even bother to ask " Is there any questions, comments?". The traditional Chinese teaching style makes it hard for " new" teachers to make changes. Because when a Chinese teacher start to seek responses from students in the lecture, students are not prepared and usually feel pushed to come up with an answer. Which is why Asian people are not very good at doing impromptu interviews.
Teachers in the 21st Century will come across a lot of similar situations in an international demographic classroom. It is required of teachers to accommodate all kinds of students from all over the world by respecting their cultural background, different learning styles and communication protocols and invent ways to create a healthy class culture to embrace differences. In Internationalization of Higher Education: Preparing Faculty to Teach Cross-Culturally, Dr Gopal says: "Cultural diversity has already permeated academia at a local level as many North American universities have implemented diversity plans to increase cross-cultural engagement between faculty members and students. As people become more globally mobile, the ability to respect and value other cultures is not only imperative to educational systems around the world but to produce globally-minded citizens, preparing them to work in international contexts and creating a more democratic society". (Gopal, 2011) Teacher preparation to teach in the globalized 21st Century has brought a lot of attention in the recent years and it is certainly an eye catching hash tags that will appear more and more often on the Internet.
The most impressive progress I made through taking this class is I am paying more and more attention to the improvement we made and the innovative new teaching style we are implementing in the new era. New teacher's role in class, new pedagogy, new technology used in classrooms and multiculturalism all had contributed in the revolution we are experiencing at the moment. The only way to take advantage of the changes is to embrace them. Therefore as educators we are ought to make ourselves more comfortable by practice our critical thinking skills, make use of technology to create our own ways to teach based on our understanding of 21st Century Education. The next generation will be more challenging in terms of the revolution that is happening at the time being. More preparation needs to be done to welcome an open sources, full autonomy Utopian in the education world.
Video Source:https://www.khanacademy.org/talks-and-interviews/our-vision/v/year-2060--education-predictions