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Applications for K-12 Education
The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly pushed education into the mass adoption of technology to aid in the delivery of classroom curriculum; this is an innovation that will not go back in the box. With the implementation of 5G networks, and their improved speed, bandwidth, and latency, schools will be at the forefront of educating students alongside the newest advancements in technology so that they have the skills required to participate in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
What is the 4th Industrial Revolution?
Source: https://www.deloitte.com/content/dam/assets-shared/legacy/docs/research/2022/gx-preparing-tomorrow-workforce-for-4IR.pdf
The term 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) was first coined by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. He stated that 4IR will be a fusion of technologies that blurs the lines between the physical, digital, and biological realms. 4IR will likely impact “...almost every aspect of daily life, affecting how individuals interact with technology, and transforming where and how work is done” Deloitte (2018). But this progress will not be for everyone; its potential will be dependent on countries and cultures that embrace the Internet of Things and technologies advancing that platform, such as 5G networks.
"To create truly sustainable impact through technology enabled learning, it is important to consider context-specific challenges—for example, inconsistent electricity or Internet connectivity—as well as deliver hands-on, immersive, personalized learning and teacher training to meaningfully empower both teachers and students."
- Deloitte (2018, p. 22)
5G Applications for K to 12 Education
As 5G networks become more prevalent in classrooms, the employment of technologies like augmented and virtual reality will allow for more collaboration and interaction between students and educators. Classes from across the school, or across the country, can interact with each other in a virtual classroom, without leaving their own physical spaces. Please check out the video on Microsoft Mesh and contemplate the ways this technology could be transferred to the existing classroom setting.
"The economies of scale associated with digital technology are a major factor in its increasing implementation throughout education. Moreover, it is proving effective in terms of increasing the quantity and diversity of education that take place."
- Neil Selwyn (2016)
The Digital divide
The Digital divide
Although widely adopting new 5G network technology will be expensive, 5G's inherent advantages will also empower lower-cost devices with the capabilities to undertake operations that were previously only accomplished by higher-cost devices; thus helping to shrink the digital divide and enabling schools to spread their often limited technology budgets further. Equipping more students with capable devices in their hands will only benefit them as they learn skills for 4IR (Telus, 2021).
“Without quality education, little can be achieved when connecting education and labor force.”
- Eduardo Velez Bustillo, former World Bank Education sector manager and leader for LAC and EAP, current adjunct professor at Georgetown University and Kobe University (Deloitte, 2019)
With the advantages of lower latency and much faster data speeds, more reliability and availability, and drastically increased network capacity, 5G networks will allow for the transformation of classrooms into more individualized places of learning. A poignant example is the model of the flipped classroom. In this type of instruction, students access lectures at home through their virtual class, then work on their "homework", labs, assignments, and assessments at school. This essentially transforms the teacher's role from a lecturer to a room of students, to a facilitator who can work individually with students and differentiate for their needs (Hertz, 2015).
Also, by being multi-modal, teachers are individualizing the curriculum for their classes; students can choose how they receive their content. They can also suggest other materials that may be pertinent to various subject matters by pushing them back to the teacher; thus making the learning a partnership between facilitator and learner instead of the traditional one-way model of teacher and student.
example Scenario
example Scenario
A student accesses the class lecture in their virtual classroom. They put on their virtual reality goggles and immerse themselves in a virtual mock-up of the science experiment that they will be attempting.
Before class, they scan the virtual class on their phone to see if there are any last-minute additions to the materials they needed to review before class begins.
In class, students work together collaboratively as they work through an experiment in their virtual reality laboratory. The teacher enters each group's "Lab" as a hologram and facilitates and helps when they are needed.
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