Page 37 - Looking_after_school

1. Today's discourse: why should the student be at the center of education?

The long-held assumption here is that the ambition of education has
always been to focus on the student, but due to a lack of available
means and technology this dream was never fully realised. The new
digital information and communication technologies, however, could
succeed.
The problem that is denounced time and again is that modern schools,
and thus also modern forms of learning, are always bound by prede-
termined times and locations, and that education and learning are
indiscernible. According to this view, it is primarily a cost-efficient
way to organise education in large groups in schools and classrooms,
and to centralise the knowledge in the teacher. One-on-one education
may be the best option from a pedagogic view, but it was too costly
and difficult to organise, and thus not realistic in the physical world.
A digital world, however, alters the conditions. Very striking for this
discourse is the already mentioned communication of the European
Commission Opening up Education: Innovative teaching and learning for
all through new Technologies and Open Educational Resources:

“The potential benefits of the digital revolution in education are multiple:
individuals can easily seek and acquire knowledge from sources other
than their teachers and institutions, often for free; new groups of learn-
ers can be reached because learning is no longer confined to specific
classroom timetables or methods and can be personalised; new educa-
tion providers emerge; teachers may easily share and create content with
colleagues and learners from different countries; and a much wider range
of educational resources can be accessed. Open technologies allow All
individuals to learn, Anywhere, Anytime, through Any device, with the support
of Anyone.” (European Commission, 2013, p. 3, italics taken from original)

It is stressed that the digital world, especially the internet, is able to take
over many of the basic functions of education (and does this mostly
free of charge): it makes knowledge available, with easy access, so that
distance and transport do not matter; it allows students to choose the
time and the methods for learning, and to choose between different
education providers. In so far as the traditional teacher still has a func-
tion, they can make use of the digital world in order to extend their
means and to find resources and support. Its argument is that physical

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