Ten Trends 2013: Virtual learning from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Drivers for this trend

Social:

• An increasingly collaborative, team-based world.

Technology:

• Affordability of and accessibility to technologies an broadband technologies

Educational:

• Growing number of courses available online
• Desire for access to wider range of curriculum options
• Specialist teacher shortages
• Constraints on time and budget for PD

When we think of virtual learning, many things come to mind. Most frequently we think of online courses. But virtual learning really embraces a much broader dimension for educators than simply online learning.

A true definition of virtual learning

At its heart virtual learning is about the learning that takes place outside of the school, or bringing what is outside of the school into the school. So, we are thinking about the online environment as a way of connecting students who may be located physically in a school with their learning that is somewhere else.

The benefits and impact of virtual learning

There are many ways we can think about the benefits, or the impact, of virtual learning technologies and their use in schools. The first is obviously the area of online learning that I just referred to—where we see happening around the world, as well as in New Zealand, opportunities created to access learning from outside of the school that a student is participating in.

A good example of this in New Zealand is in the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), where, throughout the country, we have teachers who are teaching students in schools other than the school the teachers are physically located in, and students accessing the learning from teachers who are not located in the schools that they are attending. So, we are seeing opportunities created to address the drivers that are occurring, where we don’t have specialist teachers in many of our rural, or smaller, secondary schools. This is also occuring in some of the urban areas. Through virtual learning, therefore, we are creating opportunities for students to connect to the learning that is important for them.

Virtual learning is not bound by a venue or time

Another area that virtual learning is impacting on is the connection between school and home. This may not seem to meet the virtual learning definition on first impression, but, if you think about it, we have historically talked about home-work and school-work. In the online world that distinction disappears. And so, the connection between home and school becomes something that is quite seamless—whether it is home, as in the physical home that the student lives in, or outside-of-school places such as the local library, local café, a friend’s house, grandma’s house that they might visit after school. The fact that they can continue with their learning in a seamless way and connect with the work that they are doing in online worlds makes the use of a virtual learning environment very high impact.

Virtual learning has greater global reach

Another factor about virtual learning is the global reach that’s now possible for students. Once they had to rely on resources from the local library. Or, from time-to-time, a visitor to the school could provide them with a feel or an insight into what it might be like in other lands or countries that they might be studying. Now, global reach means that they can reach directly into the lives of those who live in some of those countries and lands. They can talk to experts who have visited there, and are familiar with the geography, the terrain, and some of the social issues that might occur there. And they can connect with learners in those areas to collaborate on projects, to look at topics that are germane to them. So, the global reach is becoming increasingly important as students become prepared to be citizens in a much more globalised society than they have previously.

The benefits of virtual learning for teachers

And lastly, when we are thinking about virtual learning we can’t forget about the impact on the teachers themselves—the impact that virtual learning opportunities are having for teachers in their own professional learning and development. Many schools are starting to see that engaging in virtual professional learning and development is of benefit to both the school and teacher—not only in the cost-saving from days off, teacher-release days, and travel, but also the benefit of continuity. Where the investment may have been made simply to get to a one-day course, seminar, or workshop, now, teachers can have access to their professional development over many weeks or months, for a similar size investment. What’s more, it connects them with other educators doing similar things that they are, and who are looking for ways to improve their own professional activity and professional futures in that way.

So, virtual learning has a very broad application. It’s not only about online courses, but also about the way that we extend what is happening in the premise of school—way beyond the school gates.

Links:

• The Virtual Learning Network (VLN)
• Springloops
• LEARNZ
• Virtual Learning in K12 Education, EDtech Magazine (PDF)
• Special Report: The Blended & Virtual Learning Frontier"
• TEDtalk: Shimon Schocken: The self-organizing computer course

We invite your comments below

Check out all the Ten Trends on the CORE website

CORE Education 2013 Ten Trends: showcasing the future from CORE Education Digital Media on Vimeo.

CORE's Ten Trends 2013 launched at ICOT

The recent ICOT conference in Wellington provided an excellent forum to launch CORE's Ten Trends for 2013, with an audience comprised of educators from around New Zealand as well as a number of international delegates.

Approach to the ten trends

This year we have worked hard to develop the trends further, attempting to distinguish them from the 'predictions' published by many other groups and sites. Rather than focus specifically on particular technologies or 'fads' in and of themselves, we've used these things to help illustrate our trends, and to provide examples of how we see things developing. Thus, our Ten Trends headings describe broad, yet significant movements that are impacting on our work as educators.

A useful way of thinking about this is to consider a photograph of a river. A snapshot will provide a clear focus image of the river, captured in a particular instant of time. A time exposure provides you with an image of the pattern forming as the water flows. We want our trends to be more like the latter, providing teachers and school leaders with ideas and examples to enable them to begin thinking about the impact that some of these things may have in their particular context, and, more importantly, to be thinking 'ahead of the game' in terms of how they might respond to these things as the trends continue to evolve and become mainstream.

Nothing to be scared of. Let's discuss the trends and their implications

The trends are not intended to provoke alarm or reaction, rather, they are intended to provoke discussion and future-focused thinking. The examples and illustrations provide a mix of future-focused thinking with examples of things that are happening currently in schools that are leading the way in some of these areas.

Please feel free to use the Ten Trends slide show, the videos, and the matrix in your staff meetings or more widely with community groups and students, and if you'd like to have any of the CORE team come and provide further input, please don't hesitate to ask.

Unfolding detail and resources

During the course of the year we'll be publishing further information about each of the trends, with more examples and illustrations, and an opportunity for you to contribute your thoughts and ideas through the forums we'll be hosting online. In addition, the Ten Trends will be a focus of CORE's breakfast sessions in regional centres around the country, providing an opportunity to engage in discussion in these forums also.

It's important to remember that these are not predictions, they're trends. We'd really love to hear from you about things you consider could be used as examples or illustrations, or of areas that you consider we should be thinking about as we develop our trends in future years.

Further information:

• CORE's Ten Trends 2013 (CORE website)

Ten Trends 2012: Thinking 3D from EDtalks on Vimeo.

We live in a 3D world but represent it in 2D. But that’s changing…

We live in a 3D world. This is not new – it has been the case since the creation of the earth. The X-Y-Z axes have been a foundational part of our understandings of and approach to mathematics, architecture, art – and air traffic control!

While we’re surrounded by the reality of 3D, there have been limitations, however, to the ways in which we can represent our 3D view of the world. An artist may use the vanishing point in a painting to create the impression of 3D, but is still essentially working in 2D – you can’t see ‘behind’ the objects in the picture, for instance. Similarly, an air traffic controller has traditionally viewed his 3D view of the airspace above the control tower as a series of flashing dots on a 2D screen using x-y-z axes.

The 3D options are expanding, so we are starting to think in 3D

Source: Wikipedia

What is changing now is our ability to represent 3D views of the world in more accurate 3D forms. The emergence and advances made in 3D movies, albeit with special glasses, has become fashionable, and provides a good example of how we are now beginning to ‘think’ in 3D as we are viewing.

Another example of how we are beginning to ‘think’ in 3D has its origins in many forms of games and puzzles that were around long before computers, but are now emerging in the ways we interact with objects on screen and in the virtual world. A program such as Trimble Sketchup (was Google Sketchup) brings tools to the user's fingertips that enable them to quickly and easily extend simple 2D objects into 3D objects, which in turn can be rotated and viewed from all angles – including the ability to enter ‘inside’ them.

The web's ubiquitous Google supplies a range of 3D options that are becoming a part of every day life. Google Maps in Street View (or Satelite view), is now an "every day" option around the world. And Google Earth is developing its range of options to explore the Earth, the oceans, the moon, mars, and  the galaxies. Google's new MapsGL (in beta, and it's offered if you're logged in), using WebGL technology is improving the experience so that transitions are smooth and realistic in Google Maps.

What ‘thinking in 3D’ means

This ability to engage with the 3D world requires the ability to think in 3D, i.e. to ‘see’ behind and through objects in our imaginations – and in reality – in the same ways that air traffic controllers have done for decades. Increasingly the technologies at our disposal are providing opportunities to create, visualise and represent our ideas in 3D.

A further example can be seen in the development and use of 3D printers. Until just a few years ago these were the domain of very high-end manufacturers and research labs – but now you can buy them off the shelf from most electronics retailers. Schools are investing in them to enable students to take the 3D objects created in virtual environments and turn them into physical objects they can hold and use.

Future 3D development

Future scenarios for 3D printing include the ability to make purchases online, which are then ‘printed’ on your printer (as opposed to being physically shipped to your address.) Already this technology is expanding into areas beyond the solid objects we may think of, to combining with the biological sciences to ‘print’ human organs for transplant, or food that you can eat.

Some links to explore:

• http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html
  Surgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago; we meet him onstage.
• http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_harouni_a_primer_on_3d_printing.html
  2012 may be the year of 3D printing, when this three-decade-old technology finally becomes accessible and even commonplace. 
• http://www.ted.com/talks/carter_emmart_demos_a_3d_atlas_of_the_universe.html
  For the last 12 years, Carter Emmart has been coordinating the efforts of scientists, artists and programmers to build a complete 3D visualization of our known universe. 
• http://www.3d-thinking.com/
  Interesting website that provides a philosophical rationale for the notion of thinking 3D – aimed at professionals in these emerging areas
• http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/06/how-spatial-thinking-can-improve-math-and-science-skills/
  How thinking in 3D can improve math and science skills – All of us, children included, live in a three-dimensional universe—but too often parents and teachers act as if the physical world is as flat as a worksheet or the page of a book. 
• http://nrich.maths.org/2392
  Useful article from the NRICH project on the value of spacial awareness and 3D thinking – Behind, beside, in front, to the left, to the right are all important in the development of children's understanding of objects in three dimensions,

3D implications for schools

As this world of 3D becomes more prevalent, we need to be thinking about the implications for what we are doing in our schools to encourage the ability to ‘think’ in 3D as a dimension of what it means to be literate in the 21st century.

• What priority do you give to providing 3D learning experiences for your students?
• What sorts of experiences could you provide right now… and into the future?
• What challenges does thinking in 3D raise in terms of assessment? How can these be resolved?