Forbes’ Bernard Marr, made some interesting assertions about the direction of 5 tech trends that could disrupt education in 2020 in his article, “The Top 5 Tech Trends That Will Disrupt Education In 2020 – The EdTech Innovations Everyone Should Watch”. I think his term “disruption” meaning more of a dynamic shift from the traditional classroom to the digital-friendly spaces many classrooms are moving toward. In adult education, we see how accessibility to e-books versus traditional textbooks has opened access to many students who may pursue digital learning through online courses. Electronic textbooks can be formatted to address a variety of accessibility issues and with the use of various digital readers and translators, can further bridge the gap left behind with hardbacks. For those programs using online LMS and assessments, we can already see the benefit of data-driven insights into a learner’s performance. Those insights are also accessible to the learner and can help to empower a learner in their educational journey and give a focus to areas needing mastery.

Customization of education is appealing to adult learners and I’m sure will be to learners of all age groups. To focus on those areas specific to your individual needs, means less time wasted on subjects a learner has mastered. I find that this trend follows naturally from the workforce driven direction that adult education and k-12 has gravitated to. Streamlining your education aligns to many practices we see in the workplace with reduction of wasted time and resources. I would hazard to say that this trend is already evident in adult education. As adults, we pay for classes or take ones that meet our needs at the time we need them. Marr also mentions the rise of immersive education which would encompass such things as virtual reality in a classroom, using voice assistant technologies (Alexa, Siri, Bixby, Google) to aide in homework or chatbots to gain information. Many of these are used for knowledge gathering and sharing in both adults and young learners. I most look forward to see how this could help to shape materials or lessons in a classroom.

Overall, pretty interesting insights. I would argue that the future he describes is already present in some areas. However, access to funds for such technology can be big issues both for k-12 and adults. How does a school with limited funds best utilize their technologies to stay abreast of these trends? Many LMS systems offer an array of assessments and tracking capabilities but at such rates that many small or non-profit programs would be hard pressed to afford. It should be interesting to look back in five years to see if these trends become more prevalent in both the public and private school setting.