What do my gym and the future of education have in common? Let’s throw them in the Education Innovation blender and find out.
I belong to a gym is called Snap Fitness. Their motto is “Fast-Convenient-Affordable.”
They describe the Snap Fitness experience…
“Drive up, walk in, and work out whenever you want. Just minutes from your doorstep, our club is like a having a private gym in your backyard.
“Use your personal keycard for instant access to a safe, clean, comfortable facility packed with state-of-the-art exercise equipment and value-added services you’d never expect from a club our size.
“Enjoy the same workout experience as at those big-box health clubs – but without the crowded parking lots, long waiting lines and inflated fees.
“Time-saving convenience, money-saving value and fat-burning workouts – just another way we deliver a better experience and better results…”
I think the future of education will be similar to my gym. First, education in the future will be fast. It will be fast because students won’t even have to leave their house in many cases. E-learning and virtual learning will provide students the opportunity to learn right in their own homes. Teaching and content can be delivered at the speed of an Internet hook-up all over the world.
It will be convenient. Students will be able to learn anywhere or anytime that makes sense for them. Much like Snap Fitness says, “…our club is like having a private gym in your backyard,” the same will go for education. The web will bring learning to the student, regardless of where the student is and at a time that the student chooses. What could be more convenient?
My gym uses the personal key card to get into the gym, while our students will simply use their passwords to log into the personal learning portals. The learning will be of a quality similar to what they can get in the classroom, if not more so, because students will be able to pick and choose classes that best match their learning styles.
Great workouts at my gym are the great teaching and learning of the virtual school. Imagine the wealth of resources, including expert teachers, video, audio, interactive websites, podcasts, social networks, etc, that the virtual school can bring to students.
My gym says it is affordable (which it is), but so to will virtual education and e-learning. Think of the amount of money that could be saved if teachers taught from their homes or places of work and students learned from home or their places of work. No costs for building buildings, no costs for utilities, no need for busing, for maintenance, etc. Virtual learning could save districts money. Why open a new high school, when you can start a virtual one?
My gym and the future of education both share one other thing. You have to put in the hard work to get results.
Catalytic Questions:
What excuses are teachers, schools, and districts giving to avoid e-learning and virtual learning opportunities for your students? How can you answer them?
In the same way I have hunches about the future of education, what hunches do you have and what are you doing about them?
In what ways might some “sacred cow” be holding up e-leaning in your school or district? How can you overcome those beliefs?
In what ways might virtual learning be made more attractive to teachers and administrators in your district?
What is your sense of things to come: More of the same or big changes? In what ways are you preparing for what is coming?
How might you start developing the tools and methods that will be needed to succeed in an e-learning or virtual learning environment?
How might Professional Learning Communities change is such an environment?
What are the unintended consequences of these changes?
What analogies or metaphors do you see?
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