Future
of Education Technology
For
those doubting the immediate and long-term impact of technology on
education, Kurzweil (1999) provided a fascinating glimpse into the rapidly
transforming realms of learning enhanced and ultimately usurped through
technology. Passages specific to evolutionary and revolutionary educational
technology through projected decades are here excerpted:
2019:
Hand-held displays are extremely thin, a very high resolution, and weigh
only ounces. People read documents either on the hand-held displays or, more
commonly, from text that is projected into the ever present virtual
environment using the ubiquitous direct-eye displays. Paper books and
documents are rarely used or accessed. Most twentieth-century paper
documents of interest have been scanned and are available through the wireless
network. Most learning is accomplished using intelligent software-based
simulated teachers. To the extent that teaching is done by human teachers,
the human teachers are often not in the local vicinity of the student. The teachers
are viewed more as mentors and counselors than as sources of learning and
knowledge. Students continue to gather together to exchange ideas and to
socialize, although even this gathering is often physically and
geographically remote. All students use computation. Computation in general
is everywhere, so a student’s not having a computer rarely an issue. Most
adult human workers spend the majority of their time acquiring new skills
and knowledge. (p. 204)
2029:
Human learning is primarily accomplished using virtual teachers and is
enhanced by the widely available neural implants. The implants improve
memory and perception, but it is not yet possible to download
knowledge directly. Although enhanced
through virtual experiences, intelligent interactive instruction, and neural
implants, learning still requires time-consuming human experience and study.
This activity comprises the primary focus of the human species. Automated
agents are learning on their own without human spoon-feeding of information
and knowledge. Computers have read all available human and machine-generated
literature and multimedia materials, which includes written, auditory,
visual, and virtual experience works. Significant new knowledge is created
by machines with little or no human intervention. Unlike humans, machines
easily share knowledge structures with one another. (p. 221)
2099: Machine-based
intelligences derived entirely from these extended models of human
intelligence claim to be human, although their brains are not basted on
carbon-based cellular processes, but rather electronic and photonic
‘equivalents.’ Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific
computational-processing unit (that is, a piece of hardware). The number of
software-based humans vastly exceeds those still using native
neuron-cell-based computation. A software-based intelligence is able to
manifest bodies at will: one or more virtual bodies at different levels of
virtual reality and nanoengineered physical bodies using instantly
reconfigurable nanobot swarms. Even among those human intelligences still
using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural implant
technology, which provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and
cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to
meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do. (p. 234)