Right now, in America, the public education system is going through a bit of a Renaissance. Sure, there is restructuring—the system does need an overhaul—but more importantly, students and educators alike recognize the need to incorporate a more global and modern approach to teaching and training our country’s (and world’s) next generation of leaders and innovators.
For one, the education system has been more focused on using technology to improve educational efficacy. This provides prospective students of any age and any level of experience to have better access to not only classes but also the assistance they might need to improve their grades. But using technology to teach also helps people to better learn to use technology as a whole. When we use technology to learn, we also learn to use technology and, more importantly, we learn to think in terms of how we can continue to improve technology to improve our world.
One major example of how technology is improving education lies in the sharing of resources. At least at the elementary and secondary levels, teachers often have to spend their own money—and similarly invest a lot of time—to develop specialized tools or inventive methods for teaching. With new online resources like Teachers Pay Teachers, though, teachers can share (and sell) the ideas they have developed which have been most effective. Not only does this help teachers better address student needs, though, but it also encourages teachers to develop sharing communities in an industry which has, for a very long time, often burned them out for feeling they are alone in their struggles.
But, secondly, technology—or, rather, the internet—has helped to diversify the way young people see their place in the world. This has led to a new mentality over college education: students and professor alike are now looking for more ways to improve diversity on college campuses across the United States.
Students at the University of Illinois, for example, are urging administrators to encourage the development of curriculum that shares the perspective, history, and culture of minorities and non-western people.
At this school, in particular, students are already required to take a Western/Comparative Culture course as well as at least one Non-Western or US Minority course. The students are proposing that a new graduation requirement should involve all three of these (Western/Comparative Culture, Non-Western, and US Minority) courses.
Regardless how we use technology to improve education, though, it is quite apparent that students expect technology will be a crucial component at all stages, and that diversifying education—in many ways—will lead to more success.