21st Century Education

The 21st century is the new age of technology. The extent of our technological capabilities today far exceeds what anyone could have imagined, even twenty years ago. There is a rather infamous quote (whose validity is under discussion) from a patent officer in 1899:  "Everything that can be invented has been invented" - now the humor of the statement just compounds as time goes on. Whether it is a legitimate quote or not, the point remains: there is truly no limit to what technology may be able to do. We can only hope to grasp what is happening now and try to ride the waves of technology as they break. In the area of education, especially, classrooms, students, and teachers should all be kept up-to-date on the latest technology (as much as budget allows) because if kids don't get introduced to it at school, they will already be behind today's vast technological market.
The 21st century classroom should, as I mentioned, embrace technology as much as possible. Modern kids barely even remember what a blackboard is, nor do they need to. Every classroom should have an interactive smartboard - it is an amazing tool to get both teachers and students involved. A step even further than the smartboard is rapidly becoming reality: multi-touch surfaces. What if every student's desk was a multi-touch surface?? "Okay kids-please get out your history book" - students tap the appropriate icon on their "desktop" and voile - there's their textbook! Students can interact with the pictures, the pages, do homework literally on their desk, and then swipe it to the teacher's desk when they're done. How amazingly cool would that be? And yet, it is not that far out there. The 21st century classroom will need to incorporate these things in order to keep up with the times. How about another cool technology that 21st century classrooms could (and should) soon have-biometrics. In an article I found on Edutopia called, "Five Future Technologies that Will Shape our Classroom" they explain: "Biometrics is the technology used to recognize humans based on specific physical or behavioral traits. In the future, this technology will help intelligent software completely understand the physical and emotional state of children learning in the classroom. Course material presented to students can be altered on the fly and will be perfectly tailored to individual needs based on biometric signals from students." Wow. Talk about helping out the teacher. But students can only benefit from such measures.

So-what should the 21st century student have? Well a "notebook" of some kind, certainly. Whether it is an iPad is less important-what matters is that students should have the same technological capabilities in school as they have at home. In today's ever-changing society, kids need to have their attention captured more firmly than ever before. By putting the tool directly into each student's hands, they are helping to create their own environment, in all the best ways. Here's another cool future technology that 21st century students may well have; from the same article, a different technology - augmented reality eye-wear: "AR is essentially the layering of further data on top of the reality we already see...imagine having an AR Benjamin Franklin sitting at your desk explaining the Declaration of Independence. The immersive experience that students will enjoy both in and outside the classroom will be amazing." 21st century students will experience things that no other generation has, and they will flourish because of it.

 As  for the 21st century teacher - well they just need to keep up! Teachers should be equipped with everything, if not more, than the students have. Think about an iPad containing all their grades that they can take home. How about having all the students turn in their assignments by swiping them from their multi-touch desk to the teachers. How much more complicated, yet at the same time so much simpler. Teachers, too, must learn to embrace their technological surroundings, or risk losing credibility. 21st century teachers must learn to make their jobs easier, not harder, by incorporating all that modern technology has to offer.

What a wonderful world.