Introduction

Online learning is in its infancy. As pioneers struggle with new technologies and new practises, the discipline evolves almost daily. An online course that was considered state of the art twelve months ago is today considered to be out of date. Technology employed only by early adopters last fall is this summer in wide circulation and in danger of becoming obsolete by the fall semester.

Yet despite the rapid change, trends may be identified, trends which point to the future of online learning. What will be is not as radically different from current models as may be conceived, however, some significant shifts in the nature of online learning, and learning in general, may be identified.

This Essay does not attempt to describe what ought to be, but rather, what will happen. Although I am a deep supporter of online learning for many reasons, I have chosen instead to focus on prediction rather than prescription.

The reason for this is that, if we are aware of where the field will take us, we are more able to shape the manner in which we will travel and the environment in which we will reside. Knowing the future helps us to a significant degree become shapers of the future.

Future Technology

Technology, they say, should not drive content. However, when technology is the bottleneck through which instruction must be delivered, then technology, if it does not drive content, most certainly limits content. Today, institutions offering online learning must live with the reality that instructional material must be delivered through narrow pipes to underpowered computers running dubious software. In the future, this will all change.

Bandwidth will in the future be essentially unlimited. By bandwidth, we mean the amount of information which may be delivered from a server site, such as an educational institution, to a receiver site, such as a student's computer. Today the standard falls at around 28,800 bits per second, or in other words, roughly a page of text, a medium sized image, or a few video frames. Bandwidth limitations preclude the use, in many settings, of innovative Java applets, multimedia, video and videoconferencing.

This will change, and it will change sooner rather than later. In many Canadian and American cities, high speed access is offered by cable television services. Telcos are responding with better data compression technologies, such as ADSL. In the last year, networks of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites have been launched. Towers supporting digital wireless internet are springing up. It is not unreasonable to state that, in the face of these innovations, that bandwidth will be ubiquitous and cheap.