The Year 2020

Scene from "Back to the Future 2. Courtesy of Google images:
http://www.realliving.com.ph/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/hillvallweynew1.jpg


It's crazy to think that 2020 is a mere 10 years, 5 months and 26 days away... but hey...who's counting?!? A great deal of predictions may be done through looking at the exponential growth of technology and populations...but enough of how one might predict what is going to happen...What do I think will happen?

2020 evokes images of flying cars and holograms - Back to the Future 2 showed this as the future in 2015 back in the late 80's. Do I think we will have flying cars and hover boards? Maybe...but will they be common - doubtful.

There is a great deal of talk in looking at traditional classroom settings and labeling them obsolete by the room 2020. While I feel that a good deal of learning may be done on-line or in a virtual classroom setting, I feel that the classroom will still hold purpose. Humans are social creatures and inherently like to be around other people - why else do people huddle in droves on a patch of beach in the middle of July to watch explosions in the sky? We can already podcast fireworks and we've been able to watch them on TV for the last 15 or 20 years - but yet every year thousands of people happily clamor to a densely packed area to see them in real life. Ah, but I digress.

True, we text. True, we skype. True we blog and keep in touch with others through social networking sites, but these virtual conversations can never fully replace real conversation in person...can they?!?

I picture students more responsible for personal learning in the year 2020. I think that lessons may be given by experts through video web conferences; maybe even through holographic images. I believe students will still go to school, though time spent in the actual classroom may be diminished. Children will attend class not necessarily for lectures - but for types of hands-on learning and field studies that may not be accomplished through computers and the web. Books, in paper form, will be all but obsolete and students will instead be responsible for reading assignments on hand-held devices similar to iPhones, only more powerful and capable of holding much more information. I don't think students will need computers in the traditional sense because they will all have this technology on their phones and this will be the primary portal of communication and of payment. Money will be close to obsolete and people will use the info on their phones to pay for everything.

I feel homework will be in the form of real-world projects and applications and the primary languages spoken in schools will be Spanish, Mandarin and English.

Just a few thoughts - we will see and of course there is the cliche - only time will tell.

Brief chat on movie ideas

My first day of school - life as a Biology Teacher...

So, this was my first year teaching sans a cooperating teacher! I came into the classroom super excited and scared all at once. I didn't quite know what to expect. The last time I was in a high school for the first day of school was 10 years ago, when I was a senior in high school. 

Unfortunately, trying to remember back to my own high school experience was not going to really help me with working with 9th graders. I started off with playing music as the kids entered the room; greeted them at the door and handed them a numbered index card (to assign them groups). I felt that the randomness involved was as fair a way as any, knowing that I didn't know them and they didn't know me :) 

I introduced myself and tried using different ice breakers to get to know the kids and get them to know each other. The kids seemed pretty stoked about the music and my expectations for their year in Biology.

Overall, I felt the day went well - but I only got to meet 1 of 4 of my classes because the school is on a block schedule and so that Tuesday, while exciting and new, was sort of anticlimactic. I would return to school the next day with a whole new set of faces and do it all over again.

I would say that my first taste of teaching without the training wheels was pretty sweet, and while over the year that followed I would fall and scrape my knee occasionally, I was happy to get back on the bike and ride again:) I think teaching was an excellent career choice for me and wherever I end up next year, as long as I'm in a classroom full of kids to entertain me, I know I'll be happy:)