Future

Our present education system may be the end of a pre-digital-artificial-intelligence era, before the classroom environment and the nature of knowledge itself change to something that is presently only recognizable as a scene from a science fiction film.

Currently, I appreciate the window to the world provided by such portals as Google Arts and Culture. This is an example of the non-linear nature of knowledge – where a starting point, combined with curiosity, brings the learner and teacher-as-learner from a painting by Van Gogh (for example) to the letters written by the artist, which provide a primary source artefact for engaging with the painting. https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/entity/m07_m2?categoryid=artist With a website like Google Arts and Culture, the classroom can be lead by a spirit of enquiry. This portal is a vibrant way to experience art and culture, as a museum or gallery can be virtually visited, people in the creative industries are interviewed, films can be watched and high-resolution images mean that one can zoom in on the brushstrokes of the artist.

Concerning the digitization of classrooms, Michael Heim’s (Heim, 1994) ideas of the student as searcher, thinker and knower acknowledges that the types of questions we ask before searching for knowledge are crucial as they shape the answers we attain. Within this idea of the student as searcher is the idea of changes in epistemology, where the answers overturn not only the question, but also the notion of a fixed curriculum. The student as searcher follows a line of enquiry which is meandering and intuitive, arousing new questions, leading to independent thought.

New public spaces have been created by technological developments. These are new social spaces and concern the internet as a social mechanism. Piaget’s study of the process of socialization in groups showed that peer groups have the strongest influence on the moral development in children. For the student, it is not merely the presence of ICT that drives motivation to learn – it is the nature of the use of ICT that is important - interconnectivity, interactivity, co-creation, personalisation as qualities of the online world.

Potential spaces for learning and teaching have been redefined by rapid changes in information and communication technology (ICT). The new Junior Cycle curriculum in the Irish school system is peppered with references to the encouragement of the use of ICT in the classroom, but does not outline exactly how it should be used and in what context, nor does it take into consideration the value of the critical eye as an empowering tool for students to adopt.

In the Postmodern world, there is a danger for the undiscerning student to experience a condition where reality and fiction are seamlessly blended together, with no clear distinction between truth and falsehood. We may be on the brink of a world of hyperreality where human and artificial intelligence merge and distinctions between the physical world and virtual world are immersed in a ‘hyperreal nebula’. Baudrillard’s theories on Simulation refer to a cyborg mentality as a slave to corporate will. The ‘cyborg’ in this instance as the notion of the virtual consciousness being part of the collective consciousness. Further to this idea is the notion of the hyperreal simulacrum where the original idea no longer exists and is replaced by an image without resemblance to the original idea (Deleuze, 1990).  Could information and knowledge be on a path along Baudrillard’s four steps of reproduction? From a basic reflection of reality to the perversion of reality to the pretence of reality towards a simulacrum, which bears no relation to reality. As the Droog, Alex, noted in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ - ‘It’s funny how the colours of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen’ (Burgess, 2001). If so, it is imperative that teachers not only embrace their role as ethical leaders, but also as holistic educators, who enrich students with important life skills, relevant habits of mind, aimed towards being students who think independently and who are creators of originality rather than consumers of the mass produced.

References:

Baudrillard, Jean (1994). Simulacra & Simulation (PDF). The Precession of Simulacra: University of Michigan Press. p. 1

Burgess, A. (2001). A Clockwork Orange, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 18^th edition.

Deleuze, G. (1990) The Logic of Sense, translated by Lester, M., Athlone Press, London.

Heim, M. (1994). The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Piaget, J. (1955). The Construction of Reality in the Child The Elaboration of the Universe, translated by Margaret Cook, 1955, Routledge and Kegan Paul.