The year was 2005, and the argument was about the capital city of Fiji. Try to imagine a bunch of secondary school kids, arguing fervently about the correctness of the answers that were offered. Pride – a lot of it – was involved if I must add. To be found wrong was to lose a few steps on the academic pecking order. Oh yes! It was a big deal.
I knew Fiji like the pages of my trusty, old Atlas map. I knew it was a country made up of a string of islands in the South Pacific Ocean – what is called an archipelago – and is within the vicinity of Australia and New Zealand. My trusty old Atlas showed me that and I believed it. But there was no way to prove it, well, except make a visit to the School Library to consult a copy of the World Map in search of contentious Fiji!
Now fast-forward time to ten years later. This will bring us to 2015, to the same set of people (now young adults), to the same argument, but a completely different recourse to finding the answer. When 10 years prior, all that was available to us was the World Map in the School Library; now, without much of a thought, almost involuntarily, each one would have simply Googled it on the spot!
And what 10 years prior would have taken us 15 minutes to unravel – the time taken to brisk-walk to the library, to each show our library cards, find the World Map, thumb through its pages until we are staring at the blue space that is the South Pacific Ocean, locate Fiji, and the red star (or block) that would indicate her capital city – would now only take us just a fraction of a second depending on the strength of internet connection!
Now in 2016, every other person has an internet-enabled mobile device, and with it, can get access to the internet and its archive of billions of webpages from education blogs, e-learning websites like Nigeria’s passnownow.com, free online courses and many others.
Not only are students now able to speedily settle flimsy arguments like what the capital of Vanuatu is (bet you don’t know that), they are also able to get a hang of how to identify and name those complex, love-to-hate organic compounds in 10 seconds max, and get ample information that will help them gain mastery over any aspect of their education and life!
If you think we live in exciting times already, just try to cast your imagination to another decade from today. Technology will be even more mind-blowing, and education will certainly be in steady lock-step with it; the reason we have a saying in this industry that “E-learning is the Future”. Do not dismiss this as another banal catchphrase, this is no catchphrase, it is prophetic!
And this, people, is the electrifying, teeth-jarring power at the tip of our fingers!! This is inarguably a fantastic time to be a student, and it’s my high hope that the present crop of students knows just how good they’ve got it.
