The article written by Facer and Sandford(2010) is an very interesting and thought-provoking work for educators to think about what the future education would be like. Speaking of the viable prediction, from my own perspective, it's this one: "Distance matters less, but geography still counts".
As a matte of fact, I can there is a sign for this prediction to happen. The sign I refer to is the technological tool we use for learning, socializing and working. Let's talk about learning sign first. Because of the advancement of technology, students used to learn in a face-to-face setting; now they have other choice--to learn in distance courses. In other worse, they can go to their virtual classroom to learn at anywhere and any time. They don't really have to be physically present in a classroom. It seems that distance does matter less. And for socializing, in the past, we had to stay in touch with friends in other countries or families in different cities via postcard, mails or phone call.However, today, we can just make a Skype call, Facetime or even just use SNS like Facebook to connect with our friends and families. Even though we may be far away from our friends and family, we still can easily know how they are doing by doing a few clicking or swipes on Facebook. It appears that distance matters less, right? As for working, again, for some international companies, some of their employees probably do not reside in the same country as where the headquarter is. So they have to work in their home country. When it comes to reporting their work progress, they can just use video conferencing to host the meeting and still feel "social presence" in that case. This is another sign of distance matters less.
But Facer and Sandford (2010) also mentioned that "‘face to face’ is
likely to retain its importance for speciļ¬c interactions" (p.84) in this prediction. I agree with this statement as well. It's because there's still limitation for virtual world. For instance, the interaction in the virtual world or via video conferencing is still not as real and authentic as the interaction happens in a face-to-face setting. That's also why 'face to face' would still have its importance in the future. One is example is that if two companies want to cooperate and sign a very important contract, people from both sides would still want to physically meet each other and then sign the contract. It seems to be more formal and professional to have this big event happen in a face-to-face setting rather than simply finish it in a virtual environment. Additionally, the argument: geography still counts can also be seen in a company example. If a person wants to work for an international company remotely, s/he would still consider where the base of the company. Is it in a suburb or urban area? S/he would still think geography of the company location count because s/he one day might need to fly to the base for some important meetings. This situation can be also applied to a school setting as well. That's why geography counts even though today we have Internet, social media, video conferencing and other advanced technologies.
As for 2 other predictions of mine, the first one is widely application of augmented reality (AR) in class at an educational setting. I know it may sound unlikely to happen at first. But when I think about the application of iPad in today's schools, I can see the possibility of the application of AR in schools as well. People may argue that it's too expensive for schools to purchase devices and equipment for AR. It's true for recent years. However, after 25 years, there would be other new and advanced technologies which overshadow AR. At that time, the price of AR might not be as expensive as it is now. Moreover, probably students can use their personal smartphone to experience AR in the future as well. At that time, schools would be able to purchase devices and equipment for doing AR. Teachers can integrate AR in class to increase students' learning motivation and help them maintain their new learned knowledge via this kind of true-to-life experiences.
My second prediction is global classroom for elementary and secondary schools. Because of Internet and technologies, people are able to get access to news and people around the world. Global village is something that has been brought up since the Internet emerges. People have been talking about the importance of having broader views. Some teachers are trying to reaching out to teacher from other countries in order to have students from both sides to learn with each other. They want the kids to learn different culture and raise their learning motivation as well. This leads me to think of this prediction. Since technologies shorten distance among people but enhance chances for people to get to know more about the world, it's likely that schools would want to expose children to a global learning world. I predict that schools may have one session for doing a global class once or twice a week. In that session, students would present their projects to their counterparts in other country; or students learn and listen to their peers of other country to present their learning results. Even though it's just my prediction, I do hope that this kind of scenario can really happen in the future. In that way, I'm sure that students would be more motivated in participating in school learning.
