{"id":4345,"date":"2020-05-15T08:41:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T06:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/?p=4345"},"modified":"2020-05-26T09:30:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T07:30:05","slug":"wondr-the-future-of-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/news\/education-and-e-leadership\/wondr-the-future-of-education\/","title":{"rendered":"WONDR &#8211; The future of Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">1.Hello, please tell me something about you and your work.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Hi there, my name\u2019s Sam Reader. I\u2019m CEO and Co-Founder of an online platform called WONDR.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">WONDR is a community-based learning platform that connects people around topics concerning sustainability and social impact. <a href=\"https:\/\/site.mywondr.co?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/site.mywondr.co?<\/a><br \/>\nWe help people connect with others around the world to collaborate on projects and accelerate their progress.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">2. What needs to change in this industry? How will it evolve?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We support the world\u2019s lifelong learners who are upskilling and developing their knowledge to create impact in the world. This is part of the Online Learning Market, which is set to grow to \u00a3615bn by 2030.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The way people learn, across the world, is changing. As information and content is ubiquitous, learning is now constant and never-ending. The traditional ways of thinking about education, as purely curriculum based with standardised examination, is not fit for purpose and leads to missed opportunities for learners.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The demand for problem solving in society is ever increasing and the pace of innovation within economies is only accelerating. This means that constant access to knowledge has never been more important. However, people are learning alone and can\u2019t access the networks they need.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As the demand for knowledge increases, platforms and communities are needed to facilitate instant knowledge-exchange. Places where people can collaborate and crowdsource information, globally and locally, will become more and more important to our societies and economies.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">3. What are some of your &#8220;big ideas&#8221; for improving digital education?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Education isn\u2019t just about assessment and qualification. It\u2019s also about instilling belief and confidence. Not only are we dedicated to supporting people with the information and access to networks they need. Our vision is to increase a sense of self-efficacy within our community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We already have members who feel \u201cinspired and motivated\u201d to explore their passions and interests. Standardised examination and assessment can lead to damaging one\u2019s sense of lifelong learning or learning at all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019d love to play a role with inspiring generations to tackle local and global problems by supporting why they want to learn in the first place, and accelerate their ability to make that impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">4. What are the key characteristics of an effective e-learning course?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An effective e-learning course is one that bridges gaps in knowledge so that the learner has additional abilities to take action after the course.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I also believe that a course should grow the learner\u2019s curiosity for the subject matter as a whole.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is no one single course or one piece of knowledge that results in success. Learning is a tapestry and courses should bridge certain gaps in that tapestry but also present pathways and threads into new areas for the learner to continue their learning journey and exploration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">5. What are the common misconceptions about e-learning courses?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That this has to be done by yourself and you don\u2019t have access to people teaching the course or the other learners studying the course.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There may well be some platforms that offer poor experiences or which don\u2019t maximise on the opportunity that community and peer-to-peer learning networks offer. However, e-learning can be combined with rich and explorative discussions to expand on the learning experience.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">6. What are the common challenges online teachers face and how to overcome them?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I am not a teacher myself but the biggest pains I\u2019ve learnt of are two-fold: Relationship building and accessibility.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There are many great things that digital platforms can offer; replacing human-interaction is not one of them. It can be more difficult and tiring to develop strong relationships purely online. Body language is harder to interpret, communication is reliant upon a good Internet connection and spontaneous moments are hard to come by.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I have found the best ways to overcome this issue of \u2018distance\u2019 is to create a solid purpose in the teacher-learner relationship. A clear articulation of \u2018why\u2019 learning is going on, that is shared by the group or one-on-one can create strong bonds and motivation. Then, with a schedule, there are plenty of communication platforms that help keep discussion constant and effective such as Hangouts, Teams or Zoom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Secondly access to online material is really a privilege. Over half the world\u2019s population are not connected to the Internet and, in many ways, this disadvantage is a social injustice in itself. The World Economic Forum cites several key reasons such as infrastructure and affordability that relate to this issue, so it\u2019s not an easy one to overcome.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, I see the purpose of education and learning as a means to creating positive impact in the world. What a wonderful use of time for those of us in fortunate positions to be able to collaborate and solve problems together, to create opportunities for others.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>7. What are the key e-learning trends to follow in 2020?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Research from the educational and employment centre ROA revealed that \u201c505 hours a year learning: 494 hours informally, and 21 hours formally, or 96 to 4 percent in terms of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As people\u2019s lives become ever busier and more demanding, the need to take on small pieces of information frequently will become more pronounced. Micro-learning and informal learning will continue to grow as the modern-worker balances upskilling with everyday life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Also, the way we learn will shift from telling people what to learn and more into supporting people with how to learn. People will look to develop diverse and complementary skills towards specific applications in their unique roles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Research from Goldman Sachs, as well as The World Economic Forum, has indicated that there will be more emphasis on Creativity, Critical Thinking, Collaboration and Curiosity than the traditional 3R\u2019s. Automation will replace repetitive tasks and people will be able to teach themselves to quickly upskill and solve their own unique problems as they encounter them.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>8. Finally, is there anything else you wanted to tell us that we have not asked about?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is so much powerful opportunity in collaboration and partnerships. Similarly to learning, where a variety of perspectives and insights enrich the wider whole, working together with others can help organisations tackle problems quicker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We&#8217;re always keen to hear from others who are looking to create a similar impact, to share insights or support each other&#8217;s goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1.Hello, please tell me something about you and your work. Hi there, my name\u2019s Sam Reader. I\u2019m CEO and Co-Founder of an online platform called WONDR. WONDR is a community-based learning platform that connects people around topics concerning sustainability and social impact. https:\/\/site.mywondr.co? We help people connect with others around the world to collaborate on &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1181,"featured_media":4348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditech.media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}