Education Tailor-Made for the Times

The computer in the classroom and computing in the curriculum are the impetus for major changes in higher education during the next decade, The changes needed in the curriculum and in the concepts and practices of instructional delivery, though accepted by most, will be considered radical and unorthodox by some and academic heresy by others. Prescribing a certain amount of contact time between the teacher and the learner as a requirement for the award of a corresponding number of academic credits will be reconsidered and redefined. The need for this artificial barrier to educational advancement no longer exists. The textbook no longer will be viewed as the source of knowledge on certain subjects, and going through the text from cover to cover at a certain pace no longer will be considered the only logical sequence for acquiring the requisite knowledge. Emerging concepts and complex subjects, along with multidimensional processes and systems, will be presented in forms that will achieve the greatest measure of clarity and understanding. Some of the needed forms do not currently exist. The major purpose of computing is going to be to provide insight through visualization. The instructor will need new skills and the traditional subject-matter expert will be inadequate. The teacher will facilitate the students\u27 link to the deluge of words and images of every imaginable kind from literally around the world and will do it at all hours of the day and night. The teacher who thinks he or she is in the business of 50-minute lectures will still be in that business 10 years from now