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I'll stick my neck out: My personal belief is that 90%
of what is in the present day school curriculum in mathematics
and science will be eliminated in the next three decades.
However my goal will not be to convince anyone that this
will happen or ought to happen. Instead I shall try to
convince my audience that we ought to be discussing whether
such things might or could happen. Thus, the immediate
burden of my message is less about schools, the practioners
of learning, than about theorists, the policy makers and
us. I believe we are wearing blinkers that direct our
gaze on how to fix or improve current practice instead
of looking for ways in which new powerful technologies
might make possible radically different practices.
I shall anticipate and answer three objections to this
position.
Objection1: "It just isn't true that the education
world is not thinking about big change. Digital media
are already giving rise to new ways to teach and new
ways to learn." Reply1: Most of what is being done
consists of new ways to teach the same content. The
real power of the new technologies is to permit deep
change in the content - changing what is learned as
well as how.
Objection2: 'Technology should not determine the content
of the curriculum. It should be a tool not the master.
Reply2: The boot is on the other foot: the present curriculum
is almost entirely determined by technology … by
the old-fashioned limited knowledge-technology of static
books and chalk and pencils. By its universality digital
technology liberates learning from the limits imposed
by all previous technologies.
Objection3: Even if a better kind of education could
be designed it would be impossible to implement drastic
change in something as deeply rooted as school. Reply3:
Not impossible. Just difficult. We see the problems
and a glimpse of ways out of them by looking at case
studies of large-scale implementations of one-on-one
computing in schools (that is to say where every student
has a personal laptop.)
The paradoxical nature of the disconnect between discussion
of technology and discussion of fundamental issues of
content and methodology is best exemplified by a situation
in France. At the same time as some regions (Eg Les
Landes and Bouche du Rhone) are at the word-wide cutting
edge in implementing digital technology the central
Ministry of Education is conducting a national debate
on the nature of school with only marginal mention of
technology
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