Digital Revolution

Scenario for The Future of Technology in Secondary Education in 2020


By the end of 2007, there are two main factors that enhance secondary education all over the world. First, the majority of the governments decides eventually to support the educational system not only with frothy speeches but also by increasing the spending on education. The governments realize that economic growth may achieved by high-level of education. Furthermore, since the utilization of technology in education becomes more and more critical more money should be invested in order to support that. Until 2010 there is a noteworthy increase of spending on education, especially in Europe and the United States, which is also supported by private funds. Secondly the broadband penetration in daily life is a fact, and till the end of 2012 high internet connectivity and WiFi access points are a commodity. Both factors are really important for a significant growth of utilizing technology in secondary education, and together with the general governmental support leads the market for educational software and hardware to maturity by the end of 2015. Not only have they sold many pieces of educational software in schools but they also invest a large amount of money to develop added-value services and applications. During this period and due to technological breakthroughs, some online “coursewares”, which offers high quality learning possibilities, are introduced at the end of 2012. However, these online coursewares are only available at certain universities and are only accessable for students at that university. For outsiders it is practically impossible to get access to these online coursewares. At the beginning of 2014 video glasses and 3D Holograms start to get utilized in several schools in the US, China and Europe. These kinds of technologies provide students with the ability to watch 3D interactive videos and presentations, stimulating their curiosity and their willingness to learn, and actually it illustrates how technology helps and facilitates motivation during the process of learning. Even though, those kinds of technologies are definitely adding value to the learning process, the lack of sufficient teacher’s training as well as the restrictive curriculums prevent the wide use of these devices and their further improvement.

At the same time that the high internet connectivity all over the world is established, a dramatic progress of the open-source community takes place, which causes the wide use and design of wikis not only over the entire internet but also over educational intranets. A new tendency emerges, and the learning process starts to move from teacher-to-student towards student-to-student. This interaction among students enables new patterns of learning to be developed, and encourages the collectively generated and managed knowledge within schools. The progress of the open-source community together with the market maturity leads to the development of a high quality, user-friendly virtual school following the example of second life, at the beginning of 2015. Two years later and even though the pilot programs are finished with great success, there are still legislation issues postponing the use of the virtual environment in real life, and politics who are having doubts whether a student can get a certified secondary education degree online.

At the beginning of 2020 US ministry of education is ready to legalize the acquisition of a secondary degree online, and a new era in secondary education is about to rise. Moreover, the progress of the open-source community as well as the governmental support causes further improvements on the $100 laptop during 2013 to 2016 and it is distributed to more children in developing countries. The $100 laptop together with the worldwide broadband penetration and governmental support, leads to an increasing use of technology in secondary education at the developing countries at the end of 2020.