Zoom Conference #6

For the final unit readings on the Horizon Reports, my team was split between the 2014 Higher Education and 2014 European Edition. The link to our video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgoS12YuxP8&feature=youtu.be.

Personally, I chose the Higher Education mainly because my goal for my students is that they all at least have the option to go to college. Some may chose a different path after high school, but I think every child should have the chance at higher education if they put the effort in. I found this reading very interesting mainly because it was not that long ago (3 years) since I was completing my bachelor’s degree and also because right now I am obviously working on my master’s degree. I enjoyed reading and discussing the trends that are coming for higher education.

The short term trend that I was most excited about was the Integration of Online, Hybrid and Collaborative Learning. It is no secret that colleges and universities all over the world have been integrating online and hybrid classes for many years now, but with those types of classes you can tend to lose the collaborative environment that many face-to-face classes have. While it is important, in my opinion, to make sure that students in higher education experience online and hybrid classes, I think it should not be at the expense of collaborative learning. Through collaboration, students may be exposed to ideas that they themselves never would have had. Even many traditional classrooms at the higher education level forget about this. I have truly loved this class this summer because I had to collaborate with my peers in a way that I had not in other online classes. Collaborative learning goes beyond answering questions and responding to other questions on a discussion board, but unfortunately, that is where many online classes end. Discussing the readings with my team via video conferencing was much more educational, in my opinion. This also allowed me to have a relationship with my team members and a sense of comradrey with us helping each other out.

Shift from Students as Consumers to Students as Creators is one of the mid-term trends discussed in this report. While I think many universities around the world already are practicing this concept, it could be more widely implemented. It is no secret that students learn better from doing than anything else. Why, then, do we constantly make students sit in a chair and take notes from a PowerPoint rather than have them discover the answers themselves? Granted, most classes require some form of lecture, but I remember taking many classes where my grade was determined not on hands-on projects and collaboration, but three to four tests throughout the semester. I also remember classes where I was required to do projects or work with a group to develop a presentation. The later classes were much more enjoyable and left more of an impact on my education. University libraries are at the forefront of encouraging students to become creators. They have stocked themselves with equipment such as 3D printers, video equipment, publishing software and much more that students are free to use at any time. This, I hope, will encourage professors to allow more options for students to create rather than consume information.

As I discussed in the short term trends, online learning is already being implemented all over the world in higher education. Many schools allow you to complete your whole degree online while others offer online as an option as well as traditional styles of learning. A long-term trend involves the Evolution of Online Learning. Currently, online learning consists of simply taking a traditional class and putting it online so students can access the class information at any time. Due dates are the same, products are the same and, most of the time, the syllabus is exactly the same as any face-to-face class would be. The evolution of online learning deals with making online classes and hybrid classes personalized to meet the needs of all students. There are a few universities who are already using adaptive learning technologies to create personal tutors for students who are taking intro level classes in college. These classes allow students to work at their own pace and have a way of tracking exactly how they are doing in the course. Of course, there are many things to work out with this technology. I do think that students should be held to the same expectations of their peers regarding how long it takes to finish a class, but I also think it would be great to take the tests when you are ready instead of when someone who does not know you at all says you should be ready. Another plus to these personalized classes is that universities will be able to accept more students into these classes because the content is online. One thing the report mentioned that I loved was creating the opportunity for students to really make a choice about how they learn best and pick that option.