Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology

The digital revolution in education is well under way, with more and more learners plugged into the online world. How can schools make the most of both the technology and the learning potential of today’s “born digital” students? In this new edition of their groundbreaking book, Collins and Halverson argue that new technologies have transformed our workplaces, our lives, and our culture and it is time we take the next step to transform learning—in and out of schools. The authors show how, over time, public schooling was so successful that it became synonymous with education. But new technologies risk making schools obsolete and this book explains why and how today’s educators, policymakers, and communities must adapt to provide all learners with access to the new learning tools of the 21st century.

The insightful, Second Edition:

• Explains how our school systems need to embrace new technologies to address the opportunity gaps we face in our society.
• Advances a new view of the classroom that moves beyond the hopes of technology enthusiasts and the doubts of technology skeptics.
• Traces the explosion of new media learning tools that provide “anytime, anywhere, any topic” access to learning, such as Khan Academy, YouTube, Pinterest, video games, Wikipedia, and citizen science.
• Makes practical suggestions for how schools can support the new technologies to enhance learning for students at all levels, to rethink assessment, and to guide educators and school leaders to reframe education.

Allan Collins is professor emeritus of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, former co-director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Center for Technology in Education, and author of What's Worth Teaching? Rethinking Curriculum in the Age of Technology. Richard Halverson is professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he is co-founder of the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning project and co-director of the Wisconsin Collaborative Education Research Network.

“Allan Collins and Richard Halverson, in the second edition of their already highly impactful book, are pointing to the powerful out-of-school teaching and learning journeys that kids can take today. They are not by any means arguing that teachers or schools should go away. Rather, they are saying that they should open their doors and windows, connect to other real and virtual places, be crucial tour guides, and send their children on flights of fancy through our modern memory palaces.”
—From the Foreword by James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Regents’ Professor, Arizona State University

“The most convincing account I've read about how education will change in the decades ahead—the authors' analyses are impressive, fair-minded, and useful.”
—Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education (from first edition)

Tentative Table of Contents

Foreword by James Paul Gee

Acknowledgments

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Chapter 1. How Education Is Changing
   The Structure of the Book

Chapter 2. The Technology Enthusiast's Argument 
   The Changing World
   Enhanced Capabilities for Educating Learners
   The Enthusiasts' Vision of Schooling

Chapter 3. The Technology Skeptic's Argument 
   Locked in Place?
   Why Education Reforms Fail
   Barriers to Technology Use in Schools
   Synthesis: Incompatibilities Between Schools and Technology
   The Skeptic's Vision of Schooling

Chapter 4. The Development of American Schooling 
   From Apprenticeship to Universal Schooling
   The Establishment of Universal Schooling in America
   The Evolution of a School System
   How the Demands on Schools Have Changed 

Chapter 5. The Seeds of a New System of Education 
   Seeds That Support School Learning
   Interest-Based Learning Environments in the Wild
   Conclusion

Chapter 6. The Three Eras of Education 
   Responsibility: From Parents to the State to Individuals and Parents
   Expectations: From Social Reproduction to Success For All to Individual Choice
   Content: From Practical Skills to Disciplinary Knowledge to Learning How to Learn
   Pedagogy: From Apprenticeship to Didacticism to Interaction
   Assessment: From Observation to Testing to Embedded Assessment
   Location: From Home to School to Anywhere
   Culture: From Adult Culture to Peer Culture to Mixed-Age Culture
   Relationships: From Personal Bonds to Authority Figures to Computer-Mediated Interaction
   Critical Transformations in Education

Chapter 7. What May Be Lost and What May Be Gained 
   What May Be Lost
   What May Be Gained
   Realizing the Promise and Mitigating the Dangers

Chapter 8. How Schools Can Support the New Technologies
   Performance-Based Assessment
   New Curriculum Designs
   New Approaches to Equity in a Digital World

Chapter 9. What Does it All Mean? 
   What Are Kids Learning from Technology?
   How Has Technology Changed Kids' Social Lives and Learning? 
   Where Does This Leave Us?

Chapter 10. Rethinking Education in a Technological World
   Rethinking Learning
   Rethinking Motivation
   Rethinking What is Important to Learn
   Rethinking Careers
   Rethinking the Transitions Between Learning and Work
   Rethinking Educational Leadership
   Rethinking the Role of Government in Education
   Our Vision of the Future 

References 

Index

About the Authors