The Future of Education

'Sikkok Bataion' (in English: Teachers' Window) is an educational content sharing platform for the teachers of primary, secondary and higher secondary levels in Bangladesh. The platform has already more than two hundred ninety-five thousand users (as per 26th March 2018), yet it does not stretch expected results for knowledge sharing activities within the teacher and student communities.  This research evaluates 'Sikkok Bataion' based on its current facilities and suggests future improvements, so that the platform can be more useful for teachers and students of Bangladesh. To achieve the aim, main benefits of 'Sikkok Bataion' web portal are identified and besides that scarcity of the system are pointed to suggest future improvement of it. The preferred research methodology is qualitative case study research method. To achieve the aim of the research, a semi-structured interview was performed with the teachers' trainers, stockholders and decision makers at different occasions in Stockholm during their visit in Sweden for ICT training arranged by Live Academy and Stockholm University and funded by SIDA. An online survey was also performed. It was an anonymous survey and was shared with all the users of the 'Sikkok Bataion' system. Data collected both from the semi-structured interviews as well as from the survey were coded and the code segments were analyzed to find out the relevant comments related to this research. Relevant scientific papers were reviewed, and the results are discussed with respect to these papers. This research found that the current content sharing platform is already supporting teachers' professional development and students' knowledge enhancement process. The platform has many multimedia contents for different levels of education from primary to higher secondary level. Teachers and students with internet connectivity in their computers and mobile devices can access the portal to read and download multimedia contents to enhance their knowledge within their area of interest. A few modifications and by adding few new features to the existing system with proper planning would increase the efficiency of the system. Also, proper IT infrastructure, ICT recourses and training are needed to be available for more use of the system all over the country.

Keywords: Teaching, learning, teacher professional development, multimedia educational content, Communities of Practice, ICT in education;