PROGRAMMES & CURRICULA
New learning to the fore It is commonly thought that the future of education will eliminate all borders between countries and dismantle previous stereotypes regarding the ways in which learners are able to acquire knowledge. Technology can, after all, turn our entire lives into learning experiences. As Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows , has argued, higher education seemed on the verge of a technological revolution 100 years ago. This was when the spread of a powerful new communication network – the modern postal system – made it possible for institutions to distribute their lessons beyond the bounds of their campuses because anyone with a mailbox could be enrolled in a class.
Now, the rapid explosion of the information age has introduced a series of tools and instruments that have changed learning for ever. These include educational platforms, video lessons, social networking, cloud computing, smart objects, mobile learning and educational gaming. In the current aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all the world is online. Additionally, there are almost as many active mobile subscriptions as there are people in the world – it is therefore no surprise to learn that students are increasingly accessing course materials from their mobile devices. It is in this context that demand for open courses and greater access to knowledge has risen so rapidly that new developments and initiatives have occurred on a constant basis. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer one example of this new era of learning. In reality, MOOCs merely added momentum to the steady growth in learning that has taken place since the turn of the millennium. They earn praise for bringing outstanding teaching to multitudes of students who would otherwise not have access to it, including those in remote places and those in the middle of their careers. The online mode of classes are also promoted as a way to bolster the quality and productivity of teaching in general – for both on-campus and remote students. In addition, there is a rapidly increasing number of educational initiatives that are built around the concept of open education, using the latest educational technology. Many of these feature new associations, strategic alliances and coalitions between some of the world’s leading institutions. Meanwhile, the leaders of online education providers, such as Udacity, Coursera and edX, have not limited their aspirations to enhancing distance learning. They believe that online instruction will become a cornerstone of the higher education experience for on-campus students as well. The merging of virtual classrooms with real classrooms, they say, will propel academia forward. They also proclaim that their offerings are reinventing education. MOOCs are today’s equivalents of early TV, when TV personalities looked and sounded like radio announcers, as the author of The Nature of the Future , Marina Gorbis has argued. People are thinking of MOOCs as replacements for traditional lectures or tutorials, in online rather than physical settings. In the meantime, a whole slew of forces is driving a
“The explosion of the information age has introduced tools and instruments that have changed learning forever”
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Business Impact • ISSUE 4 • 2023
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