E-learning experts are warning that speedy technological changes, and the speed with which children can access information and communities online, will soon render traditional teaching methods obsolete.
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Technology expert Andrew Douch has taken a year of leave from his role at Wanganui Park School in Victoria's northern city of Shepparton, to preach the e-learning message to fellow educators.
''I think this is a really crucial time for education and I've got the opportunity to be speaking at a lot of conferences, so the decision was easy,'' Mr Douch said. ''We're at a time in history now that it's never been so critical that we change our teaching and the way we define classrooms.''
An American study of technology experts and stakeholders, published in February, showed respondents were split about whether unfettered access to the internet and immediate communication would help or hinder the children.
Of the sample of more than 1000 people, 42 per cent agreed that by 2020 young people's learning would be ''wired'' differently, lacking ''deep-thinking capabilities''.
Mr Douch was not so sure.
''I don't know whether their attention spans have shortened but I do think that students will go home and they will have immediate and constant access to all their friends, and if they want to learn something they can go on YouTube, and if they want to download music they can; it's all at their fingertips,'' he said.
''They've got immediate access to knowledge, immediate access to their friends. So I think there's this great expectation among young people that content should be accessible on demand.''
He advocates teachers pod-casting their classroom talks, so primary and high school students can listen to them at home, to rely more on YouTube and teaching online critical research skills.
''The tools to change are so easy for us now, really, that the only things stopping teachers from using these things are the teachers themselves,'' he said. ''If we don't address the way that we're teaching we will become increasingly irrelevant to the lives of the children that we're teaching. And the longer that we wait before we all start adapting to learning on demand the more irrelevant we will be.''
Mr Douch will speak at Independent Schools Queensland's Innovation Forum next week, which will encourage teachers to adapt to cultural and social changes sparked by technological advancements.