Have fun while you learn: The future of learning

Okay, everyone knows studying and going to school can be REALLY boring sometimes, even for those of us who like learning new things. Even the word studying sounds boring, because that’s what sitting in class day after day can be – boring! But all that’s about to change. Completely!. Learning things – even those seemingly useless Maths formulae and outdated history dates – is about to become much easier. And WAY more fun!

Imagine this: you’re sitting at your computer, and decide you’re in the mood for geography today. In no time, you’ve got your lesson on your screen. And not just any boring old lesson, but one that’s full of pictures, videos and things that go ‘bump’ when you click them. Imagine something like ‘Age of Empires’ or ‘Civilization’ but where you can control the whole world, and figure out how it works too! You could decide that you want to see how a volcano REALLY works, and create one yourself. Or you could play God, and make it rain. And, in case Maths is something you actually like, you could make Mr. A go to point X and see how long he really takes.

Let’s take that idea a little further, okay? Anyone who’s ever played ‘World of Warcraft’ knows how addictive it can be. You log onto the internet and enter a whole new world. You explore endless different places, do all sorts of things to make your online character special, and go on all sorts of adventures. Now imagine something like ‘World of Schoolcraft’. School? While gaming? Yes! Now wouldn’t that be really cool? It could be like a virtual world in which you could make ANYTHING happen, if you just know the right formula, or English phrase, can identify colours or even solve a Maths puzzle. At the end of the day, you could say “I went to school and learnt that Chemical A + Chemical B = BOOM, and that calling people names earns me an online slap”. And your teacher won’t even scold you for it!

Yes, the future of education is here. A few years from now, everyone will be walking around with their phones, laptops and other gizmos connected wirelessly to everything else. Something like a real-world, hi-tech ‘Assassin’s Creed’, where you instantly get to know EVERYTHING about the place you happen to be in. The building next door will talk to your phone, in case you want to find out how it was built, or how the lift works or which side is North. The road will talk to your laptop, to let you know where you’ll end up if you follow it. The library will transport you virtually inside a book and you can even be one of the characters in the story! If reading and watching Harry Potter was fun, imagine how cool it would be to ‘be’ Harry Potter or even Voldemort! You could even do your homework while sitting under a tree or in your local coffee bar.

The iLearning concept of LearnNext is just the first step towards the future of learning. The possibilities are endless…

Why don’t you too let your imagination run wild and tell us how you would like learning to evolve?