The 80th Installment
Looking Ahead at the Future of Education: What IT Has Brought About in Learning

by Ayano Ohsaki,
Assistant Professor, Master Program of Information Systems Architecture

What comes to mind when you hear the word “learning?”

Those reading this will probably come up with terms like “machine learning” and “deep learning,” which have garnered lots of attention these days, not only in the IT field, but in various others as well. If we look at AI research as something that seeks to find what makes machines intelligent, we can also see that there are various kinds of research being done that looks at how IT-related “learning” can make humans more intelligent. In recent years, AI has become a regular part of our daily lives, and as it becomes even more integral going forward, the focus has been put on training individuals in fields that will be essential to this. With the praises of 21st century skills (*1) being advocated for, classes based on cooperative problem solving through the utilization of IT have been on the rise, even at institutions of higher learning.

As a specialty graduate school, we cater to many working adults looking to further their education. For this reason, for this column, I suppose that readers have a pretty good idea of what they want out of their education. I expect knowing about the “education of tomorrow” would be helpful, so I would like to introduce you to a few topics related to how IT can improve human intelligence.

We can think that, for human intelligence, IT has brought about (1) the devaluation of knowledge, (2) the devaluation of learning, and (3) the diversification of academic evaluation. These are not independent concepts, but rather, inter-related to each other. It is difficult to define exactly when computers became commonplace in education, however, the popularization of computers and networks in the 1980s gave rise to the dawning of a new era, and if we focus on the research and implementation done up to now, we can pretty much organize things into these three categories.

The first is the devaluation of knowledge. Simply put, this means that knowledge is not as important as it used to be. With the advancement of the internet, we can now easily obtain all kinds of information. Of course, expert knowledge that must be retained, such as engineering knowledge, still exists, however, just possessing that knowledge can achieve no more than an internet search engine can. In other words, what you can offer society with that knowledge has become crucial. In an age where you cannot compete with just knowledge alone, we are getting closer and closer to the point where human intelligence is all the more necessary.

The second thing is the devaluation of learning. This means that anyone can now attain expert knowledge anywhere and at any time. With the spread of internet-based MOOCs (*2), knowledge and information can be attained by anyone who wants it via video resources. This can be had free of charge and can be done at your own pace. This phenomenon is connected to change in roles of classroom-based learning which cannot be done anywhere nor at any time. It requires time and money to get there, and participants are restricted to the meeting time of the class. This can all result in missed opportunities, and thus classroom-based learning can be thought of requiring participants to incur many related costs.

Lastly, there is the diversification of academic evaluation. This refers to being able to evaluate the entire learning process. In the old days, academic evaluation mainly involved evaluating what kind of output one could come up with given a certain input. This was primarily done via tests with right and wrong answers, where test-takers were required to write down the correct answer to a question or problem. However, via the utilization of IT, the entire learning process can be easily documented. Thus, teachers are no longer restricted to just being able to see a student’s input and output, but rather, are now able to observe the entire learning process and are therefore able to provide feedback and guidance that is applicable to a particular student’s situation. In recent years, the field of learning analytics has been garnering attention. This field involves the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of various kinds of learning-related data. IT-based academic evaluation is made up of research done from both system-based and evaluation method-based points of view.

IT has changed what and how we should learn. However, it has also provided for learning that is of a higher-quality, yet easier to carry out. The number of options available to learners has also increased. We are steadily approaching a world in which learners can master a number of tools and design their own means of learning.

*1. 21st Century Skills: These are skills thought to be necessary to survive in a global society, and thus advocated by the ATC21s (Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills), which in an international project put together by industry experts and academic researchers from around the world.

*2. MOOC (Massive Open Online Course): These are large-scale online educational programs offered by various educational institutions that provide course via video observation and other methods.