TEACHING STRATEGIES
Three Trends That Will Shape the Future of Curriculum
What we as adults experienced in school, as educators and students, will bear little resemblance to what lies ahead. Here’ s a look at current trends, their implications, and changes to watch for.
The Three Key Trends 1. Digital delivery
No longer shackled to books as their only source of content, educators and students are going online to find reliable, valuable, and up-to-the-minute information. Sites like Shmoop’ s funfocused content on everything from SAT prep to the Civil War; Google’ s Education apps and sources that teachers can use as teaching tools, such as the Sketch-Up design software and Google Earth are just a few of the free, easily accessible sources available online.
Add to that sites like the Khan Academy, a collection of thousands of YouTube videos that teach everything from calculus to the French Revolution, Teacher-Tube’ s collection of content, books that have been turned into YouTube videos, as well as sites from museums and art institutions, sites like NASA and the Smithsonian, TED Talks and the thousands of other educational resources available, and you can start to see how online content will be used as a primary resource.
The open-source movement has further pushed online content to include learners and educators in the actual content-creating process. Wikipedia was one of the first open-source sites, and though many still question the accuracy of Wikipedia entries( note the 2005 study showed that