In the article Reading the Future , the author highlights some of the trends in technology and how these trends will affect the future of education. The technological trends stated in this article from 1998 have for the most part been holding true. The author states that technology will continue to allow for a rapid increase in information. This information will not always be accurate since the internet allows anyone to post information. Students and teachers will have to learn the skills of recognizing good and bad sources of information. Along with the growth of information, the time gap between the discovery of information and the application of it is shrinking. New discoveries in science or technology are being used to form new products right away. This means that students will be using tools in their everyday adult life that do not exist yet. Computers continue to become more powerful and cheaper. Internet access is increasing in speed so that larger amounts of information can be sent faster and faster. This allows easier access to streaming video and other multimedia forms on the internet.

These technological trends will require education to reshape some of its curriculum standards. Students will not only have to acquire skills in reading and math, but will need to know how to locate and evaluate information, be familiar with technological terminology, and have the skills to be life long learners. Students will have to be able to use technology as easily as reading a book. Schools will have to try and prepare students for jobs that have not even been invented yet. Students will have to have the skills to teach themselves, to be self directed learners. This will allow them to adapt and learn the new technologies that will be around in their adult lives, which we can not for see.

The trends stated in the article were interesting and have been holding true so far. I am not sure how much longer computer’s will continue to increase in speed since microchips are reaching their physical limits. Nanotechnology will have to be used for molecular computing. This is where individual molecules are used as circuits. This technology would allow computers to continue to increase in speed and power. I agree with the author that students need to learn how to use technology, especially in terms of finding, retrieving, communicating, and evaluating information. With the amount of information growing so quickly, students need to know how to find information instead of memorizing facts.

The one part of the article that I disagree somewhat with is how the author says that technology will require students to be life-long learners. I agree with that statement, but the author makes it seem as though schools do not have this as a goal already. Most schools have the educational goal for students to become self-sufficient, life long learners. Technology is one of several reasons this educational goal has become common place in our schools today.
 
 
 
 

Thornburg, David. (1998). Reading the Future. Electronic School, [online] June 5, 2002, from http://www.electronic-school.com/0698f1.html