The Future of Online and Blended Learning

Online and blended learning in 2033 are not as far off as one might think, but almost a decade of technology advancements could be unimaginable with AI at the helm. When considering AI in its current state, it is still riddled with mistakes, unable to tackle math and many other simple tasks, but it's improving constantly. Many companies are investing in it, embedding it into new mainstream cell phones, and updating simple software to include it. Overall, the market is incredibly competitive at this point. If you do not have your hands in AI and you're selling a digital service or running a company, you will most likely fall behind quickly. 

It could be compared to the pandemic when many restaurants were not equipped for food delivery services or online ordering. Businesses went out of business quickly or had to invest money they did not have to produce practices and infrastructure to support food delivery as soon as possible. Owners were losing money by the minute by not being online. Now, when you go out to eat, you will still see many food service workers, and it has become completely normalized and transactional.

The point here is that AI will be something that will not be an option for almost any business in a decade, it will be a way of life. It will be very likely by that point that a high percentage of tasks, routines, etc., will be fully automated and require very little micromanaging of what AI outputs. There will eventually be a point at which AI checks AI, as if it were indeed a human. There is also a high probability that AI could be utilizing its own decision-making when it comes to checking and creating content. What that means for education is that the dream of "Choose your own adventure" will be possible and affordable for developers, as these millions of pathways that would be needed for differentiation to the fullest extent could be serviced all within AI, for what is to be expected a much lower cost than trying to staff a dream like that with humans.

Eventually, learning will be based on user profiles, and each user will have immense amounts of data collected. From there, every single student will be on a different level, pathway, language, verbiage, etc. Something as simple as slang words could be slightly different from one user to the next. Colors, themes, schematics, research, project readings, and interests will all be tailored to the user and will be based not only on initial data but previous profiles saved since birth. It will evolve every second of every day that the learner accesses anything online or connected to a cloud. Things such as fears relayed from childhood or traumas collected over the years could be avoided in their personalized e-learning to avoid triggers.

Students would never be asked to prove mastery again for something they have already proven themselves capable of. There would be no redundancies in education, such as being stuck in a math class doing content below your level or reading books in English that you had to read at your previous school. Everything will be a brand new learning experience, and even better, to tie into previous experiences, AI can help root what will resonate with learners the most and build off that. No longer will teachers or texts be speaking to an experience that does not resonate on any level with the learner. Education will finally feel as if it was meant to be accessed and consumed by everyone, it will be made for everyone, rather than some.

My final thing to add to the future of e-learning will be the importance of micro learning, gamification, and badge/certification awards. Learners already cannot focus on videos over six minutes, and that number is dwindling by the day with quick social media consumption apps, such as TikTok or Instagram. There will be a need to have a huge push towards limiting the amount of time learners spend on absorbing materials, and it will be important to deliver several different modalities. There will need to be plenty of interactive games, mostly likely including VR or other augmented reality. 

Additionally, badges/certificates will come into play, only they will need to serve a real purpose. Learners will need to be shown and told the importance of collecting these badges, as it will help them access or unlock higher-level learning, apply for a larger variety of jobs and, in turn, access more opportunities for higher paying jobs. As it’s most likely by this point, universal income will be a real implementation, and humans will need to leverage themselves against the massive AI education.

Undoubtedly, AI will completely break society, but there is a good chance that when we rebuild ourselves from the shattered pieces, we will be stronger and more resilient than ever. There is also a good chance that we could finally get that four-day workweek. :)