Education can contribute significantly to the promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance.

It takes a wide range of different communication styles to get across to all the different learning styles that exist, but as our modern world evolves and becomes more sophisticated, so must our learning institutions.

Technology enthusiasts have long heralded the power of technology—from the printing press, to blackboards, to the laptop—to transform education.

The potential of technology to help improve education has significance beyond teaching children reading and math.

Quality education plays an important role in promoting economic development, improving health and nutrition and reducing maternal and infant mortality rates. Economic growth, for example, can be directly impacted by the quality of the education systems in developing countries.

Our first problem is that the internet is not always accessible by all learners and teachers. The second problem is though English all over the world is taught widely as a second language its is the primary language of the internet.

As a result in most of the non-English speaking parts of the world the internet it is only a tool for educational activities.

In my previous post in this series we looked at Communication.

I ended that post by stating that Education is Communication.

With most of the world deprived of any Internet connection we are WiFi our way to a digital divide that will have more than serious consequences for those countries but for all of us. 

Of course, education has used technology for centuries, from blackboards to textbooks, yet in recent history very little has changed in how education is delivered.

Modern information and communications technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach communities. But it is highly unlikely that this will happen.

Many emerging and developing nations will be left out of the internet revolution entirely.

Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe.

Here are a few examples.

About half of online Chinese (52%) have used the internet to buy products in the past 12 months.

Majorities of internet users in Bangladesh (62%) and India (55%) say they have looked for a job online in the past year.

54% of internet users across emerging and developing countries use the internet to get political news and information.

In Venezuela, three-quarters of cell phone owners (who constitute 88% of the adult population) use their device to take pictures or video.

More than six-in-ten internet users in Poland (64%) say they have gotten health information online in the past 12 months.

Over half of the reduction in child mortality worldwide since 1970 is linked to “increased educational attainment in women of reproductive age.”

Back to Education.

Four years ago the iPad didn’t even exist.

We don’t know what will be the current technology in another four. Perhaps it will be wearable devices such as Google Glass.

You don’t have to be a genius or a clairvoyant to see that Education as we know it is rapidly becoming obsolete.

So what is the future?

On the possibilities of recent forms of technology, often known as Information Communication Technology (ICT). ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is generally used to describe most technology uses and can cover anything from radios, to mobile phones, to laptops.

The future is about access, anywhere learning and collaboration, both locally and globally.

But the questions are:

What will education be? Who or what will be doing the Education? For what purpose?  Is it desirable that we all end up being educated by the cloud if the future of education technology is all about the cloud and anywhere access. 

Thanks to the cloud and mobile devices, technology will be integrated into every part of school. In fact, it won’t just be the classrooms that will change. Games fields, gyms and school trips will all change. Whether offsite or on site the school, teachers, students and support staff will all be connected.

In my ideal world, all classrooms will be paperless.

Unfortunately educators working in and with developing countries rarely have an expertise or even a basic grounding in the wide range of technological innovations and their potential uses for education.

Even the most seasoned education expert is likely to stare blankly if terms such as ‘cloud computing’, ‘m-learning’, or ‘total cost of ownership’ are introduced into the conversation.

Students will take ownership of their own learning. Rather than being ‘taught.’

Students can learn independently and in their own way. They could be in the same room or in different countries.

Will this form of education be mass brainwashing?

The cloud will set, collect and grade work online. Students will have instant access to grades, comments and work via a computer, smart phone or tablet.

The great disadvantage will be the lack of oral communication.

The iPads and other mobile technology are the ‘now’.

Reflecting western style democracy.

Schools of the future could have a traditional cohort of students, as well as online only students who live across the country or even the world. Things are already starting to move this way with the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Infrastructure is paramount to the future of technology in education.

This should be happening now.

Teaching and learning is going to be social but people are even more leery of the internet’s effect on morality. It is should be driven by the question: How is this changing your capacity to engage the world effectively?

Universities should teach students how to deal with a world in constant motion, a world that doesn’t come labeled and arranged for you, a world in which you have to work with a lot of other people both because you need their help and because they need to understand why you think what you’re doing makes sense.

This is what is going to be importance to our world which is reminding us so every day of the week that Inequality is at the source of all our troubles.

We’ve lost sight of this, but we can reclaim it through education. 

It is possible to say that technology is not a purpose but only a tool for all humanistic necessities. This at the moment is totally untrue.

If you don’t believe me, look a Wall Street.

Wall Street : Every trillionth of a second shares, stock, currency, futures, are bought and sold for profit by Computer programs.

It’s no wonder that a median of only 29% say the internet is a good influence on morality, while 42% say it is a bad influence.

There’s still a way to go to ensure all schools are ready for the future of technology.

So go now, and look with your newly educated eyes at this world.

If students aren’t proficient in their studies to begin with and technology is used incorrectly, a whole mess of problems will arise.