21st Century Learning - The Future Education
Presented by: Nur Aisyah Mohamad Hadi, Nur Aisyah Jamsari Hussain, Nor Hazwani Mohamad and Nurul Izzati Iman Shafiee
at Co-academic Carnival held at Kolej Tingkatan Enam Hj, Zainul Abidin on 12 August 2017
Some of us might be wondering what is it
like to learn in years ahead of us?: Will there be books. Will there be classrooms?
Or the most unpredictable one; will there be teachers?
Some of these questions have already
been answered partially. The presence of online materials like e-books,
e-magazines and e-newsletters have replaced printed materials on paper. The
logical arguments will be a few that I have listed down here:
a) Easily accessed
b) Convenient
c) Exploitable
d) Economical
It is my privilege to explain each
one.
Easily accessed means online
materials can be accessed anywhere, anytime. A student would be able to read
these materials by just keying in the address codes, and ‘BANG!’ the materials
would be right in front of his eyes and on top of that he could use any
electronic gadgets he fancies.
Materials online are convenient to
use. Apart from being readily accessible, they
do not have to come in files of paper. A student need not carry huge volume of
materials like books or research scripts around to study or for references.
Web materials are
extremely exploitable. One could just browse through the webs for appropriate
articles to download. Then. They could be edited to suit his needs. He could
use other parts of the materials for varied purposes.
Undoubtedly, the
internet provides huge volume of information dirt cheap! The users do not have
to keep them in hard copies. Keeping hard copies will incur heavy expenses.
I am sure everybody
here agrees that the whole files of information can be conveniently packed in a
storage device which is only the size of a thumb! I was informed that my school
has been keeping all sorts of files like words, excell, jpeg, videos and others
in a tiny thumb drive of 16GB for more than ten years and it costs only a
little more than RM20.00. This one is equivalent to more than a ton of paper!
We are currently overwhelmed by the fact that we should have proper arrangement of the
classroom so that each student will interact effectively among them making
learning fun and collaborative; some of the elements listed as revolutionarised
pedagogy. That is so much to do with the physical aspect of the classroom. For
your information, a school could also be a virtual one or in other words,
electronically set up through for example, video conferencing, podcasts,
blogging or simply; the simple, fast and versatile what’s application or
telegram.
The school members
could be scattered everywhere and at different times and settings but each
could be reached through electronic gadgets almost instantly. It is in fact
more effective responding to the students after school via e-mail, facebook or
twitter; all meant for the students to be engaged with their lessons or
tutorials. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg for his facebook, Bill Gates for his
Microsoft and not least worth mentioning, Apple Incorporation for their amazing
computer operating system. The web traffic is extremely busy with numerous
crisscrossing of information or data. All one has to do is tap and exploit
them, and the world is virtually at our fingertips.
One may wonder; if
the world-wide web is the powerhouse of information, what would the teacher’s
role be? Yes, our dear teachers would facilitate learning. Their job is to get
the students fully engaged in the learning process. A student could be
individually engaged in a task while others have their own to attend to. Apart
from that a task could be shared in collaborative or co-operative learning; all
meant to get the students explore or discover knowledge.
The 21st
Century Learning embraces student-centeredness in education; the essence of
future education. We have to follow the wind of change. If not, what would become of us? The student resort to googling most of the time for references. If a teacher is still teaching, less would listen and more would fall asleep. If a teacher guides and inspires, she is guaranteed to have students who would follow her. Before I conclude my sharing, let me ask you two questions:
a. If you are a teacher, would you say 'yes' to 21st Century Education?
b. If not, what are your reasons?
Thank you.
