Abstract:

Ten years ago, Twitter & Facebook didn't exist. Ten years before that, we didn't have the Web. Students don’t ask their teachers, they google and wikipead. So who knows what the future of education will be like a decade from now?
When we look to the future we are confronted with many uncertainties about the world our children will live in. Our children are the adults of the future and we must take the time to understand and share their world now. It is already clear that their early formative years will be dominated by technology in a way that will influence how they will lead their lives as teenagers and adults. Youngsters today are completely different than previous generations (physically and neurologically). All of the research shows that the brains of the digital generation are changed physically and chemically; they are wired differently than we are and interact with content differently (hyperlinked mind - Neuroplastic)....constantly creating new thinking patterns vs. being primarily set in stone at early age. Images processed 60,000 x faster than text and they read differently than older generations. As professional educators, we need to determine HOW to work most effectively with this new type of student and how to prepare them for future jobs.
Our society and our educational institutions need to consider the impact of technology wisely. We need to try to understand how growing up with technology will affect the future relationships that our children will have with the rest of the world.
This paper examines how technology is shaping the future of education and raises several questions like: How much will technology affect how they learn and process information? How will the digital generation acquire the skills to interact with older people and into the workplace? And how will the educational institutions adapt to our digital generation?

Keywords:

Uncertainties, digital generation, technology, institutions.