Page 16 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

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5. The fifth paradigm shift is now on our horizon, and it will challenge the very notion of how schools will more successfully meet their purpose of having at least 80% of learners enjoy success in school and establish the belief, based on capability, that they can learn almost anything, anywhere, anytime with anyone (A4).
Over the next 25 years, we will experience the rise of video as the primary information source that learners will use for research and inquiry. It will also increasingly become the medium that learners and educators use to demonstrate their comprehension and understanding.
Welcome to the YouTube generation. There was a time, not that long ago, when students would type requests for information into Google and then read the suggestions they thought had the most chance of answering the questions their teachers were asking them or the questions they were asking when ‘researching’. Increasingly we are now turning to YouTube. Why? The answer to this question is quite simple but the answer also has profound implications for us all. Most of us learn more efficiently from watching the YouTube video than reading text-based web documents, unless we need research-level documentation that has been peer reviewed and approved by experts in their field. Warning: Using YouTube requires high levels of discernment, critical questioning and analysis; just as do books!
Increasingly, it is not about written content, but video. It’s changing the sort of information we share, and the mode of learning is becoming more interactive. And we’re just at the start of it. It’s changing concentration spans from long-term to a focus on multi-tasking. We’ve waited 600 years for this next medium to be transformed, and its effect will be as profound – if not more – than the printing press.12 Daryl Passmore
Almost universally, educators and communities meet this notion of video usurping reading text with disbelief. One of the reasons why educators take this position is that we are one of the success stories of the second and third paradigm shifts in learning. Our ability to be in that elite group, part of the 20% that did well in 20th- century school systems, was largely derived from our capacity to learn to read and write by rote, with relative ease.
Our job as educators was dependent on us being able to read and write, something we excelled in. Consequently, reading, writing and mathematics contribute to our sense of status and who we are within our communities. Focussing increasingly on video alongside of text is akin to a reduction in our status; not something we will give up lightly. We also tend to assume that everyone can read and write fluently, but many can’t, as can be seen from the quote that follows.
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Ninety-three million or 43% of American adults read at or below a basic level, and one-
third of these individuals lack even the most simple, concrete literacy skills (Kutner,
Greenberg, & Baer, 2006). Why, after decades of educational research and
advancements in instructional practices, do so many adults lack literacy proficiency?
Mellard, Daryl, Kari Woods, and Emily Fall
12 Passmore, Daryl. “The shape of things to come in 2017” The Sunday Mail (January 1, 2017). Retrieved from http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/the-shape-of-things-to-come-in-2017/news-story/f9ed2fb66facf25409452d22692d81fb 13 Mellard, Daryl, Kari Woods, and Emily Fall. (2011) “Assessment and Instruction of Oral Reading Fluency among Adults with Low Literacy.” Adult basic education and literacy journal:2011 5.1 3–14. (Print). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689316/