For many, school is seen as a “ticket” to a better life. Be a good student, do your work, listen in school, get good grades, take all your mathematics and sciences, get a good job and then you will be happy. Do we really want our students to wait that long to have positive experiences? Do we want them to define their self-worth by their grades? Maybe this formula worked for you or perhaps it has not. Either way, it is hard to imagine that the schooling experienced could be entirely different than the one we have lived. It might be hard to imagine that you could select courses enter them and exit them as you pleased whenever you need it or want it. Try to think about yourself travelling to the other side of the world to visit a friend's hometown with an entire class. Let's push our reflexion and continue the journey even further to a different planet and turn off the gravity to see what happens. This might sound like science fiction but the challenges might not be what you think. This year, I had an experience that completely transformed my vision of pedagogy by opening my mind to how students can learn and develop their competencies in a positive, creative, collaborative, innovative and safe environment. I had tried virtual reality with Google cardboard glasses but it is not comparable to the HTC Vive. It's hard to express how real the experience feels. These new high-end VR systems succeed at convincing your brain that you are having the experience therefore you feel real emotions, fear, empathy, joy, excitement, etc. Moreover, you can live surreal experiences like walk the plank from a 60-story building, repair the international space station, dive into the abyss, play a jelly bean piano, etc. In these virtual worlds that are completely immersive, we can watch, hear and interact with our hands, our movements and even our face. Pedagogical links have exponentially multiplied in my mind ever since. When I read the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, where all students can attend school in a virtual world, I could picture how education could truly empower learners. Providing them with quests, challenges, rewards, social networks, libraries, etc. This is not a perfect model but it certainly makes me wonder how we could improve our own system. I know this technology is still in its infancy and is expensive at the moment, but I believe there is infinite potential for us and the world of education and we need to explore it both to teach learning content and to develop global skills, math strategies, literacy, etc. Our world is changing rapidly, the technology is there and the learners are ready. With the right mindset for innovation, tools, research, and expert support, schools can keep up and influence real technological change. ReferencesAchieving excellence: A renewed vision for education in Ontario. Ministry of Education. Retrieved fromhttp://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/excellent.html
Corbett, M. (2004) "It was fine, if you wanted to leave": Educational ambivalence in a NovaScotia coastal community. Anthropology and Education Quarterly. 35(4), 451-471.DOI: 10.1525/aeq.2004.35.4.451 Collins, R. (2002). Credential inflation and the future of universities. The future of the city of intellect: The changing American university, 23-46. Ernest Cline (2011). Ready Player One. Fullan, M. (2009). Large scale reform comes of age. Journal of Educational Change, 10, 101-113. doi: 10.1007/s10833-009-9108-z Hargreaves, A. (2007). The long and short of educational change. Education Canada, 47(3), 16-23. Hargreaves, A. (2012). Singapore: The Fourth Way in action? Educational Research for Policy and Practice,11(1), 7-17. McAfee, A. (2017). 'Those jobs are gone'. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 63(35). Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/apps/doc/A495033262/AONE?u=ko_acd_uoo&sid=AONE&xid=54079f20 Noddings, N. (2001). Care and coercion in school reform. Journal of Educational Change, 2(1), 35-43.
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