2020 Educational Vision 8-C-1

So what will education look like in 2020? That is a great question and these are just a few of my thoughts on what education might look like in 2020. This by no means all inclusive but will begin to help you reflect on what you might expect to see in the classroom in 2020.

I have been teaching for six years. The changes in education and technology since I have started have increased dramatically. While I teach at a one-to-one school these were few and far between when I first started. In 2020 I think this type of environment will be the norm. Students will have access to the internet in a way I never even dreamed of six years ago. They won’t just have access to it but they will be a major steak holder in the content curation. At one time we most of us just accessed information on the internet. In 2020 I believe the students will create more content then their teachers. Web 2.0 will be 3.0 and transforming into what we may consider web 6+. Technology doesn’t just add to itself it multiplies in leaps and bounds. The more creators we have the more it will be redesigned and reinvented. This initiative will start in the classroom and traverse into industry.

Due to the integration of the internet into our classrooms teachers will now be considered facilitators. Classes will no longer be lead by the sage on the stage. We will be expected to manage our classes in not only a face-to-face role but succinctly in an online format as well. Snow days will be a thing of history, as classes will be held despite the weather conditions.The students will simply work from home. Classes will be “taught” or more likely facilitated 24 hrs a day with due dates that no longer reflect the old school 5 day school week. The students may not live in the district in which they attend, let alone the state or even the country. Students may be enrolling in our classes from Europe, South America, or Africa. The idea of coming to America for an education will be changed to logging into my American school for an education. Students may no longer ever set foot inside the brick and mortar building for their education of the future.

In 2020 textbook companies will employ online technology that facilitates students and instructors creating their own online texts full of multimedia & RSS feeds that will replace the “textbooks” students will only read about on their mobile devices. Wikis will have revolutionized this development. Students will follow the mainstream industry as much as industry follows them. The development of online media will be available to anyone with a mobile device. Processors that are state of the art today will be akin to the floppy disks I used to carry in my backpack with my books. Students who don’t have an instructor available to them will be able to find a class and attend virtually. Workers and students alike will log into virtual reality environments to learn how to complete new tasks and use new machines and tools. Imagine a student from India learning in a virtual reality environment to use a tool or machine of a specific brand and model. They can interact with the machine, learn all of the parts, maintenance and even practice using the machine virtually. They can then physically go and use the machine wherever they are at without ever having an instructor present to teach them.

Paper will be something that is rarely used in the “classroom” of the future. The ability to submit and work collaboratively on items has surpassed my expectations from when I was in high school. This collaboration and the sharing of information will liberate nations in the future as they realize that their leadership has been restricting their knowledge of the outside world. The collaboration will empower the explosion of ideas, technology, and products. Industry will seek out leading “classrooms” of students to critique their designs. Industry may sub out the task of designing new products to leading students who complete the work with their cloud based software. Research for products will be able to be completed by the masses instead of specialized groups of experts with years of training.

The devices of the future will be improving as well. Immediately most of us think of processing speeds and graphics. What if the idea of graphics no longer was limited to the screen. Imagine a world where you no longer went to the movies to see a 3D film. Imagine logging into class, on your device, where your screen is now 3D. What about the possibility of interacting with the 3D holograph to manipulate and use it for learning? Students could learn in a way that was once only possible in person. The idea of being to learn something through touch by interacting with it on my mobile device no matter where I am in the world is exciting. Think about all of the things you have Googled for tutorials. What if you could interact with the tutorial while you are following it step by step. Testing students on their knowledge of subject manner traverses to a new level with this type of capability.

I think about my parents and grandparents. The stories they tell about when they were growing up and going to school. The amount of information that was available to them at that time compared to what is available to the students of today and those of the future. Our notion of what a student is will change in the future as well. It is hard to know what will really be the reality of the future when sometimes I am just trying to keep up with the reality of today. Does it mean that I agree with everything? No, but I want to be informed so that I can make these decisions as I move forward. The challenges we face today will increase as we progress into the world of education in 2020 and the future beyond.

Where do you see us in the year 2020 and beyond? How will the internet and technology impact our schools and lives?

Web Apps 8-A-1

Students at our school are encouraged to take notes in the manner that works best for them. We have a one to one laptop program. This allows the students to use a number of tools to take notes. A drawback is that many students have issues at some point or another where there laptops are not working. Many of these students do not back up their notes and cannot access the school server outside the building. My suggestion for many of my students is to use Google Drive to keep their notes, documents, and pictures.

Google Docs for example has progressed nicely since I have begun to use the program. While the editing features are not as detailed they still contain almost all of the features that I ever really need. As long as you have internet access you can access your documents. If you set your document up correctly you can edit it when you are offline and then it will automatically update when you reconnected updating the changes. The storage space is massive. At times attachments can be too large to send with an email. Instead of attaching items you can simply share and set the rights according to your intentions.

We are limited in creating new accounts and requiring that our students must use. Google education services is something that the students already have school accounts created for them. There are many possibilities for web apps that could be used by students today.