"Food for Thought"

Are we getting closer to a universal teaching machine? Can ICT revolutionize education?

    There is an increasing number of "experts" who claim that we are rapidly approaching a point where a well calibrated computer is going to achieve the status of a personal tutor, Students will work-through a well structured lesson in their own pace, receiving immediate and personal feedback and all of that without the interference of a meddlesome and expensive Teacher. Despite all the data that points to that direction, a basic skimming of literature, podcasts, wiki's and blog's points out that although there has been distinct evolution in many sectors in our modern lives, education remains by and large the same. Learners are still being taught in groups by a single teacher.  And even though most of us would jump to the conclusion of  blaming "the digital divide" or our inherent fear for the "unknown" my recent experience on an MA course in ELT with a specialism in ICT/MM allowed me to form a much different approach. In a nutshell, the reason ICT or anything else for that matter can't revolutionize education is something that can be attributed to the very heart of its nature. The list of questions seem endless. For example is animation better than static graphics or can the gamefication of classes lead to increased output. All studies that attempted to address this issue conclude that "If the content is the same then the learning outcomes are the same regardless the media being used". What really limits learning is the processes taking place in the learners mind. Building upon that notion research has indicated that pictures integrated with static materials help learners achieve a better understanding as long as we limit extraneous information. So in other words relevance and simplicity are key issues. So they only way a teacher can be characterised as obsolete is by regarding him as a "fountain of all knowledge" which has the sole responsibility to transmit data to his students. The shift of paradigm which has transformed teachers into mediators and learners into users-explorers suggests that the use of ICT in the classroom constitutes a most definite evolution and not a revolution by any means.