New Years is a time for reflection and prediction, including in education. In some cases, the events of 2012 will help shape our 2013. In others, new and emerging ideas and innovations will finally make their mark on a large scale. Here are five trends to look for in 2013:
The marriage of BYOD and flipped instruction
The concepts of flipping your classroom and BYOD (bring your own device) really go hand-in-hand since a key requirement to flipping is access to technology outside of school. With more districts interested in the cost savings that a well-conceived BYOD program can bring and more teachers interested in the saved time that a flipped classroom can bring, you will see these two worlds collide in 2013. This should maximize the potential of both concepts.
Where are the apps?
Schools were in such a hurry to adopt iPads last year that they forgot to notice that some supplemental curriculum solutions were lagging behind in building apps for them. The software industry has never seen such a fast adoption process as the one currently taking place with tablets and was caught flat-footed. Naturally, demand for app-based solutions will increase so expect the software designers to meet that demand and finally unlock the complete potential of our new toys.
Education companies and the Common Core
Teachers and administrators have been living and breathing Common Corepreparation for years, but software and other companies are just now trying to figure out how their solutions align with the new standards. As 2013 is the last year before widespread adoption, this gap will close quickly.
MOOCs and secondary education
The biggest acronym in higher education right now is MOOC, or Massively Open Online Course, which is a non-credit course made available online for free. Their popularity is making traditional higher education reconsider its online offerings. Because colleges and universities can no longer control who takes their classes, you will see a lot more secondary students taking advantage of MOOCs, either for themselves or because a teacher is using the content and adopting their professorial colleagues’ lectures in order to flip their classrooms.
Authentic gamification and socialization
Educational software has been trying to make activities more like the games kids play at home for years. They have also been trying recently to recreate social networking in their own safe, secure sandboxes. Both of these efforts have met unpredictable success. Instead, more teachers are trying to meld their educational goals with the games and social networks that the kids already use in an effort to make the learning more authentic to them. While it takes a very creative teacher to tie “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” to their curriculum, anyone can start using Twitter with great results.
It will be interesting to see what actually becomes important to educators in 2013. What trends do you think will be significant to education in the coming year?
For further reading:
1 Certainty & 25 Possibilities: What To Expect From Education In 2013
10 Predictions for Blended Learning in 2013
Related reading:
The Flipped Classroom: A Pedagogy for Differentiating Instruction and Teaching Essential Skills
10 Big Benefits of Using iPads in Schools
