07 June 2006

Are you what’s termed a ‘digital native,’ someone who has grown up with technology, or a ‘digital immigrant,’ someone trying to catch up with the new lingo? Either way there are some fascinating glimpses of the future in this recent Report from Becta, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, and lead partner with Government on the national e strategy.

The Report comes in the form of five think pieces. Each looks at a particular aspect of emerging technology and their likely impact on education over the next 3 – 5 years. As such this is a strategic rather than a technical Paper and so mercilessly free of techno jargon though excitement at spotting an imminent tipping point in the evolution of technology does spill over on occasions. “These are just one strand of a much bigger generational shift in digital technology that can be likened to the Cambrian explosion of life on earth” perhaps being a case in point.

The first piece looks at mobile technologies and argues that ‘we are moving from being consumers of media to becoming creators and producers.’ This is posing quite a challenge for education; do we go with the flow even if it leads us into some uncomfortable areas or do we try to contain and manage it? The piece cites various examples where people have seized the opportunity to become digital producers. Some are well known, mobile phone filming of the tsunami and London bombs are instances, the war blogs by inhabitants of Iraq is another. Education examples include the creation of a podcast by an immigrant mother helping her family learn the language and the more sensitive area of ‘filming’ what goes on in a classroom and relaying it on.

Generally two distinct types of mobile learning are emerging; ‘safe learning,’ typically using standard mobile devices and effective in providing access to learning in contexts not easy to reach such as prisons and factories. And ‘disruptive learning’ a more personalised and challenging approach in which control of the learning passes to the learner to construct, research and perhaps publish as required. The conclusion is that mobile learning can generate intense benefits. Yet its greatest value to education perhaps is the range of tools it can offer, from podcasting to satellite based systems, for both tutor and learner alike.

The learner as active participant, designer and producer is the theme in the second piece on what’s termed ‘the ambient web.’ The basis of this is connectivity, the bringing together of “an evolutionary web of new capabilities to enhance learning intensity.” This is being made possible by new technologies which allow devices to come together and communicate among themselves; Bluetooth is a well known example, ZigBee, apparently, an emerging one.

The piece cites some interesting case studies to illustrate the power of connectivity. In one, a ‘mediascape’ is created for children to explore how lions survive in the savannah. Through a handheld computer, headphones and special sensors, children create the natural environment even down to sights, sounds and smells, to test out hypotheses on how lions adapt their behaviour. Information is collected and relayed through to a simulated savannah on the whiteboard.

As the author concludes, “sensing of the environment can take on a new level of meaning as vast arrays of simple sensors can be scattered around to create a smart sensing ‘mesh’.” Thus it would be possible for instance to recreate an historical site as it was while walking round it today or to study the impact of pollution through the use of different chemical sensors. By adding sensory intelligence to what students can read and discuss in a classroom, “a more immersive physical experience” can be created to motivate learners.

Think piece 3 offers a fascinating insight into how Human – Computer Interaction (HCI) is changing. The familiar rows of desktop boxes and screens are going and being replaced by a more sophisticated relationship between human and computer, with the user not having to sit in front and the computer increasingly able to react to the needs and even the touch, smell and mood of the user.

Five trends are detected. The first is ‘usability,’ focusing on what the user needs rather than trying to load more on the computer, a shift from a ‘one size fits all’ design to the ‘ubicomp’ or ubiquitous computer. Secondly, ‘multi modal interaction,’ interaction with computers that’s based on human senses, moods and voice tones, great for when you’ve had a bad day. Thirdly, ‘implicit v explicit interaction,’ moving from the traditional explicit form of interaction of having to sit down in front of a screen to more implicit and less fixed forms of interaction. Fourthly, ‘adaptive and perceptual interface,’ using pressure pads and sensors that respond to the emotional state of the user, which may help to explain some e mails. And fifth, ‘credibility,’ learning how to tell if the computer is telling the truth; no more computer says no perhaps.

The fourth think piece maintains the theme of HCI by examining computer based social networks. In perhaps the most technical of the pieces it describes how new specialist social networks are emerging, “communities of ideas in virtual space.” ‘Blogs, wikes, moblogs, folksonomies and podcasting’ are all forms of social networking.’ Folksonomy, “a way of categorising data on the web using tags generated by users” has an obvious interest for the world of education. Often described as social bookmarking, it encourages tagged websites and words to be shared and built into favoured sites. Googlemap is a further example.

The final piece looks at how broadband is changing. The big push at present is around entertainment because that is where the biggest revenue opportunities are but there are opportunities and service developments for education as well.

A major boost recently has been the emergence of local loop unbundling (LLU) which has removed a number of restrictions and made the UK broadband market one of the most competitive around. The piece argues that the UK market is in a transitional period as companies rush to offer higher speeds, greater quality and more bundling of services. Current innovation is focusing on two areas; service integration, and service flexibility. The worry, though, is that a new broadband divide is emerging, one based on speed rather than access. And, one might add, language; some of us are still trying to differentiate our blogs from our vlogs.

© Edexcel Policy Watch 2005. Steve Besley is General Manger of Education Policy at Edexcel. Policy watch is a service intended to help busy people understand developments in the world of education. Visit Edexcel at www.edexcel.org.uk