Trends

Online learning is exciting in and of itself, but new trends are even more exciting. It's very difficult for many people to think in new ways. Or at least think of old things in new ways. In psychology we have what's called "functional fixedness." Yes, a strange word, but psychologists can be strange birds. Do you remember the candle problem from psych 101? If not, look it up, I'm not doing your work for you. Functional fixedness is when we find it difficult to look at an object and find new ways to use it. A person may look at a cell phone and fail to think of how it could change. They are so used to how it is that something new doesn't occur to them. There are many examples of this and the internet is bringing on even more. For instance, the newspaper industry. The internet comes along and absolutely trashes the entire industry. What do they do when they see the internet will butt into their news territory? They take their news and put it online, for free. Ok, nothing has really changed except instead of paper it's electronic and the free part, of course. For them to compete they need to shake things up drastically and do something completely differnt. And here, I bring up Steve Jobs and Apple computer. Jobs took something that was already on the market (a cell phone) and changed it to be something different, not totally different, but different enough to be new, fresh, and exciting and makes you jump up and holler, I want one!" And indeed, millions did jump and holler. Education is at the crossroads, too. When online learning became the rage many school took their curriculum and plopped it online. Ok, it's the same stuff only it's online instead of in a classroom. To be truly revolutionary and effective online education needs to change the way it presents material. It's interesting that the online revolution in education will no doubt change all of education even the face-to-face classes. In fact. I think it already is changing face-to-face. When students and teachers) understand how much better active learning, collaboration, and a non lecture format is they will switch over. They will have to, because students will demand it. I think trends will be not only a shake-up of online learning, but a shake-up of face-to-face.