Transformational technologies — from the wheel to the printing press, steam energy, the telephone, radio, air travel, television, personal computing, and the internet — have never been just about changing how we “do” the mechanics of our lives. Truly transformational technologies allow us to fundamentally re-imagine our relationship to the world around us.
In a major article just published by ISTE, I share something I have been working on behind he scenes for the last two years: the rise of virtual reality and what it will mean to the future of education. I make the argument that, until now, technologies in education have largely been transactional tools. Virtual reality is the first evolving technology that merges both transactional and relational capabilities, and as we all know, relationships are the key to great learning.
Education has not, in fact, been fundamentally disrupted by the computing revolution as predicted 20 years ago. It will be disrupted by virtual reality, as both adult and student learners are able to connect in deep learning experiences outside the bounds of time and space that currently define “school”. This transformation is going to happen extremely quickly relative to the rate of change in most schools, yet we, the educators, are not developing the pedagogy required to take advantage of this revolution. We need to get in the game now, not ten years from now.
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