Ephemeralization and Education

Dino Joey L. Cordova, Ed.D.

Dean, School of Teacher Education
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research
Dipolog Medical Center College Foundation

One of the major roles of any government is to educate people because the future of economic
growth relies on how educated the people could become. The backbone of any growth is education.
Ephemeralization boosts any economic and even daily human activities and it is the way for educators to
rethink or redesign academic offering and classroom instruction to be able to prepare the learners for the
future. Ephemeralization is coined by an American visionary and philosopher, Buckminster Fuller, which sees
the tendency of technology to do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything
with nothing. Back in the old days, computers were huge machines that occupied big spaces but with limited
storage and processing capacity. In the present time, not all that come in big size is considered powerful.
Sometimes, the smallest becomes the most powerful. Considering the smartphone nowadays that you can
simply put in your pocket, it is a small device but it becomes more powerful and is able to do more things
year after year. The smartphones are also able to integrate all other functions and the best example of
ephemeralization wherein almost all the functions are
very important to your daily activities and mostly your
daily activities are done or enhanced thru the use of
device applications that can be downloaded for a price or
pro bono. Leaving your smartphones at home for a day
may have the tendency to make you feel that your day
becomes incomplete. You would worry a lot if somebody
has texted you or sent you an email or maybe have the
thought that you cannot timely monitor your Facebook
and Instagram notifications. Smartphones and other
device have dramatically affected the lives of people day
by day. The presence of ephemeralization has greatly
influenced the humanity and also education and our way
of communication. Students become more active to
respond messages sent thru social media. Sometimes,
more students have their academic consultations thru
messenger and only few go to the faculty room
physically. They would be able to read announcement
on time or even real time when posted in social media
than posting it at the bulletin board. In a technologically-driven society, the students like to do things
virtually. This is just the way of life for the present generation. They are becoming more dependent to
technology and are able to do more with just one click, swipe, and through the fingertips. In a modern world
where human beings are not just the only mainstream, robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are gaining so
much popularity wherein its capacity to recognize and do things is equated with humans or even could do
more. The rise of AI delivers the impact of ephemeralization to the human lives and how it affects the
capacity of the human brains. AI is the reality today and at the same time the challenge in education
especially in rethinking the future of learning. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has exponentially grown in the past
decades and it has affected our lives and ways consciously and unconsciously. AI is one of the major scientific
breakthroughs in the 21st century and it has extended also its reach to the field of education. AI has given
every person the power to probe on something using different approaches and has the strongest potential to
bring change at present and in the future.

The present generations of learners are exposed to Blended Learning techniques which somehow
prepares them for the future. However, not all educators in the present time are adept to using such
technique in classroom instruction; thus, the gap between the skills delivered by the current educational
system and the one being required by the digital economy widens. The changing nature of today’s workforce
that comes with the rise of automation and technology in workplaces will make the future career more
complicated for the learners that are not prepared as of today to face the future with the widespread
existence of Artificial Intelligence; hence, all these drive an increase in the need for education to reshape the
instruction and learning. Ephemeralization through the utilization of AI in classroom instruction is not
supposed to threaten the eradication of the presence of teachers in the classroom but to encourage every
teacher to re-skill and up-skill themselves to effectively prepare their students in the rise of industrialization
and the coming of a more inclined-to-AI society. The world is never going back to the past but is becoming
more advanced. More than anything else, teachers need to understand how the students want to learn
especially if they belong to the Generation Z because this is where the future is taking the humanity and the
whole world. Several kids (less than 10 years old) have been interviewed on how they want to learn today
and in the next 5 years. Their responses are shocking but doable for the teachers with an open-mind and a
heart to embrace technology as something that could enhance his or her pedagogical skills.

I want to learn in school using computers in all subjects and connected to the internet so that I can
learn new information. – Diana, 9 years old, Cambodia
 I want to have robots in the class where they can answer all my questions and when I don’t
understand about anything. – Rocky, 8 years old, USA

I want to have books that are so alive and when I press on something, the examples will come out like
a hologram. - Shey, 9 years old, Philippines

I like to have a classroom with a huge talking board and I can just click on the things I want to learn
and something will pop-out and explain to me. – George, 7 years old, Mexico

I like a class that have tablets instead of books and I can read stories and I can play a bit when I’m
tired and then answer all of activities in computers. – Kaye, 6 years old, Vietnam

I want a big wall that I can just click a button and the topic will come out with pictures and answer the
activities with fun and the wall will explain to me what I do not know. - Angelo, 6 years old, Canada

While the idea of integrating technology in the classroom is not new and with the coming of the so
many alternative schools and the gaining of prominence of home school programs where curriculum can be
customized based on the learning needs, pace, and ability of a child, the future of learning is something that
can be truly designed and repackaged and most importantly be enhanced by the presence of technology
around in all forms. So if education prepares our students to be able to keep up with the challenges today,
how about tomorrow? This is the greatest challenge for conventional schools wherein curriculum is
seemingly fixed and essentialist in nature. The current educational system might consider as well reshaping
the offering to effectively get the teachers in the present time ready for the future and to be able to teach
and prepare the students to face the future which make them deal effectively the challenges in the
workplaces. Education only becomes better when personalization and technology are combined together
especially in this highly industrialized world.

References:

"Artificial Intelligence." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

"Public Education in the United States." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

“Preparing for a Future with Artificial Intelligence by Robin Winsor”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7dhOHMX0js

accessed on September 23, 2019

https://www.useoftechnology.com/future-technology-education/ accessed on September 25, 2019