The Future of Learning
Today, and for the last century, education has been practiced
in segregated buildings by carefully regimented and
standardized classes of students led and instructed by teachers
working essentially alone.
Over the last ten years, this model has been seen in many
quarters to be obsolete. We have seen the emergence of a new
model, where education is practiced in the community as a
whole, by individuals studying personal curricula at their own
pace, guided and assisted by community facilitators, online
instructors and experts around the world.
Though today we stand at the cusp of this new vision, the
future will see institutions and traditional forms of education
receding gradually, reluctantly, to a tide of self-directing
and self-motivated learners. This will be the last generation
in which education is the practice of authority, and the first
where it becomes, as has always been intended by educators, an
act of liberty.
Stephen
Downes