The Future of Education

Driven by the belief that learners of the future generation are a generation which grows up in an environment surrounded with digital facilities, also known as digital natives [1], and would be actively using technology for their studies many educational institutions have embarked on adopting technology in the classrooms.  These initiatives take several forms ranging from a basic Learning Management System to blending the teaching and learning activities with other “new” interactive and multimedia technologies (such as blogs, facebook, instant messaging and You-Tube).  Past researches in the western context have reported although these digital natives are relatively apt users of technology the use of technology varied significantly amongst users of similar age group [2] [3].  Meanwhile, previous studies in the Asian context suggested there seemed lack of evidence to confirm the uses of appropriate technology for educational purposes, rather much of the activities were on watching movies or playing games [4][5].

This study aims to investigate the learners and facilitators (teachers) perception of the teaching and learning environment that would be appropriate for the next generation. As one of the country’s leading private universities, UNITAR International University (UNITAR) is positioned, amongst others, to lead innovative teaching and learning in the social science field.  It is imperative that the University fully understands the level of readiness of both learners and facilitators in order to craft more effective strategic plans moving forward. By means of focus groups and questionnaire surveys as data collection methods used for this study, this paper reports a research in progress as part of an overall research work to ultimately propose a next generation education framework – the UNITAR model.