What’s the most influential technology in education right now? Or, more to the point, what’s been the bedrock of education since, say, March 2020?
Video conferencing platforms.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, we all vaulted into online conferencing platforms last year when the pandemic sent us home. Without them, most teachers would not have been able to connect to students.
But—and it’s a big “but”—none of these platforms were designed to support learning.
And now a prediction: A year from now, I expect to see a significant number of learners of all ages still using video platforms to connect with schools.
What will they use? And crucially: how will those platforms shape how they learn?
The extraordinary disruption that all learners have faced this past year has made it clear what learning should look like: It is collaborative; we learn from both educators and peers. We want to interact, not just listen to lectures. We need to participate, verbally and through projects, to show what and how we’re learning. Forcing students to just check multiple-choice options is an open invitation to cheat. And we all want to be freed from the confines of two-dimensional “Brady Bunch” style boxes.
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