Well this intrigues me. I just couldn't help but wonder how drastically would the student's life change in the coming generations. I don't claim that my psychic powers parallel that of Nostradamus, nor do I have a double-Ph.d degree in clairvoyancy. All I can do is merely speculate on some of the possibilities the future has in store for the "student" like me.
We could have the science-fiction view of the big-brained human having a proportionately smaller body endowed with extrasensory perception and biologically-powered chips implanted in the brain for telepathic abilities(will it promote cheating during exams??). Or we could have a more realistic view on which I would be expressing my ideas. I see the social networking scene, to be embedded deeply in our lifestyle which would be less cluttered, and be more dynamic and automated, which will filter the content actually required to ensure maximum value to the individual student preferences. The university or the school infrastructure of which the student is a part of will be an active community linked to each student's life via his social network profile consisting of GPS info, address, calendars activities. It would become mandatory for students to electronically record the relevant details of the day-to-day life as required by the institution to monitor and ensure that each student gets the type of attention he needs. All this is possible with a new Global social networking platform which is integrated with various web-services(Google + ?anyone read the New Google Policy?)
Also in the future we would have an extreme demand for specialized people in certain fields. So it may be possible that the unified primary, secondary and high-school architecture present worldwide now gets split into different branches like "The School Of Computers", or "The School Of Automobiles". The students would be mentally-conditioned from childhood, or at least until they are 10 or so till they gain their basic life-foundation, to think in the way their chosen field requires them to think. Indeed this would eliminate the need to study bullshit we don't really give a damn about in school. You may be asking yourselves, is it healthy to have such a system? Wouldn't we become too narrow-minded? Now let me ask you. Is the current education system really that great? How many times have you felt out-of-place studying about something you don't care about? NO I don't need to know who is the third wife of Akbar, I don't need to know whether God exists or not(humanities), I don't give a crap about what happens when you mix chemical "abc" with "xyz". It is a different thing to be informed about the world, I have the internet, newspapers, media but why the hell should I know about something which does not coincide with my life goals and aspirations?
How can I forget virtual classrooms? No, I am not talking about video-conferencing, I am talking about the real deal, an ACTUAL virtual classroom. Excited? Imagine the possibilities. Imagine a scenario, where the students are away for the summer vacations, professor wants to take a class. Put on the "virtual gear", relax on the couch, find yourself in the classroom and voila!! There you are, right in the classroom, interacting with your friends, cracking jokes, asking doubts face-to face. By extension there can be virtual devices in the virtual worlds. That would be REVOLUTIONARY, GAME-CHANGING. Imagine operating the various devices in the particle-physics laboratory without actually touching them, and if your somehow able to link these actions to the real world, these changes we made in the virtual world could be carried on the to the real world! Add Deus Ex style augmented reality into the picture and you have a perfect neat little package! Maybe I am taking things too far(or not?).
Lets end the first part of my vision of the "future student" with a hope that we do not get consumed by technology but consume technology healthily in a balanced way. The next part will be all about the role of technology in the "future student's" life. Stay hooked :)
