Next-Generation Educational Technology Versus The Lecture

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In this excellent article, Joel Foreman (2003) argues that despite waves of IT-driven transformation sweeping through the higher education system, many obsolete academic structures remain obdurately intact. He goes on further to argue that the most worthy of change is the large lectures such as those found typically in undergraduate introductory courses, which mainly exists because it is cheap and pragmatically useful. He envisions that someday it will be replaced by the kind of immersive 3-D digital environments that have been popularized by the videogame industry, such as Ultima and the Sims Online, in which hundreds of thousands of players can simultaneously interact in graphically rendered immersive worlds. In other words, students can enter and explore a screen-based simulated world that is the next-best thing to reality.

This article enlightens us about the future of education, which is absolutely fascinating. Please read it, print it out and bookmark it . Absolutely Juicy!