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.
Your predictions seem logical and plausible. Interesting how you mention the primary languages spoken in school - does that mean the primary languages spoken amongst students? used to teach? languages offered?
ReplyDeleteBack to the Future series are my favorite movies!!
Great connection to all of the 4th of July activities! It's surprising how insight can strike us from even common experiences as sitting and watching fireworks. I completely agree with you that even with all of the advancements we have made with technology with regards to communication (text, skype, etc) I feel that lots of what we know about how to interact with one another comes from our experiences, both in and out of school, actually interacting face to face. I also agree with your point about how homework and even classwork would take the form of real-world projects and applications; hopefully this gap between elementary theory and application will be bridged over the next decade.
ReplyDeleteErin, this is an amazing prediction!!! I look forward to the future if this is what it encompasses. I agree fully that the classroom will still hold a purpose, but to be honest I have been a little skeptical. I love the idea that students will come to the classroom to do hands on activities and not necessarily lecture. I also hope that students will take on more responsibility for their own education. I think that all these resources we have been given/created will really make our classrooms a very exciting place to learn.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your ideas about books being electronic and a smaller paper trail. I also think that there will still be some value in having a classroom with other students. After all, school isn't just about academics, its about social development, too. I hope this world does not turn purely to social networking in the digital age... it might get kind of scary.
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