This post encompasses two of the recordings we were able to listen to for this assignment. Both the recordings for the question, “Do you have a prediction on the next major trend or innovation in the educational technology field” and, “As you look back on your career in research, what would you have liked to know from the start” interested me for a few different reasons.
I think that predictions are fun if they’re for fun, kind of like making a time capsule. There is a lot of money thrown at predictions, like Dr. Veletsianos pointed out in his prediction recording. In my post on the Metaverse recently, I mused on how we might form Fully Online Learning Communities (FOLC) in a Metaverse-type community (Houldsworth, 2021). We could have everything from economy to learning in one place, which is also what Facebook is proposing (Newton, 2021). It’s an interesting thought, but I’ve always said that if I had any talent at making predictions at all, I’d be retired on a private island after selling the patent to that technology. I agree that we’re not there yet and should often focus on the non-tech solutions, like Dr. Veletsianos discussed in his other response about what he wishes he would have known.
In answer to the question about what Dr. Veletsianos would have liked to have known from the start, his comments about access to education (high cost, personal background doesn’t encourage educational opportunities, physical location) really resonated with me. I left post-secondary school after a two-year program because I was able to avoid student debt. I always intended on going back at some point, but like many learners, found that life took over. I also fell prey to the temptations of the resource-based economy like many people after I moved to Alberta. As Dr. Veletsianos discussed, post-secondary education in Canada is expensive and a learner’s culture may not encourage more education. My own experience has been that, in Alberta at least, a resource-based economy has meant that higher education is not as necessary to be able to make a good living (when that economy is doing well). For example, as of the 2006 census in Canada, when the Alberta economy was doing well (The Daily, 2006), Alberta tradespersons were on track to earn disproportionately (>4 times) more money than those with similar qualifications on average in Canada (Berger et al., 2009). In Alberta, the economy has demanded “backs, not brains”, which has been a common topic of conversation in my personal and professional spaces. All this is to say that I agree with Dr. Veletsianos. Education needs to meet people where they’re at and sometimes that means not using technology because your audience may not be ready or able to use it.
These recordings were interesting, and it was tough to narrow down my thoughts to make a blog post that wasn’t the length of a dissertation. I am looking forward to our next course and digging into some of these topics.
References:
Berger, J, Motte, A & Parkin, A (eds) 2009, The price of knowledge: access and student finance in Canada, 4th edn, Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, Montreal, viewed 16 Aug 2021, <http://www.yorku.ca/pathways/literature/Access/The%20Price%20of%20Knowledge%202009.pdf>.
Houldsworth, C. (2021, May 8). One week (or maybe a Fortnite?). Cories Blog. https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0208/one-week-or-maybe-a-fortnite/.
Newton, C. (2021, July 22). Mark Zuckerberg is betting Facebook’s future on the metaverse. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview
The Daily, Thursday, September 14, 2006. Study: The Alberta economic juggernaut. (n.d.). Retrieved August 15, 2021, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/060914/dq060914c-eng.htm