I anticipate by 2020 students will still attend school in what we know today as a school building, but classrooms and learning will have a new look.  This will be a necessity because parents will still need to leave the home to arrive at their place of employment.  The younger student will still need supervision.  Students will no longer be grouped by age, but by interests. The ability of the student will no longer be the major determining factor for grade level placement.    Students will still have to master certain curriculum, but once an assessment of  “passing” has been achieved the student can move forward in the educational process.  No longer must a student wait on the rest of the class to master subject matter, as the curriculum will have shifted to allow a student to work at his/her own pace.  If a student begins studying the planet Mars and finds a real interest there, they can delve into it more while other students may simply learn the basics and move on to another subject.  A sixth grade class will not exist anymore, as students will be assigned to classrooms with a variety of academic levels.  All students will be at different levels of learning.  Teachers will no longer have students for a semester or year, as movement to another teacher will be dictated by mastery of a certain level of learning.  Furthermore, the school year will no longer be 180 days long, as it will move to a year-round calendar in order to meet the needs of the student.  This allows students and teachers to pace their own learning.  The curriculum within this new education endeavor will be project based and paperless. Collaboration will be a dominate theme in the future school system. Many of the new web 2.0 technologies were created with group work in mind.  I believe wikis will be around, but in an even easier to use format.  The future will consider computers as crucial to a complete learning experience.

Schools will change their English curriculum to focus on a different type of writing.  Instead of putting most of its writing focus on proper paper and paragraph form, students will concentrate on communication skills.  The world is “flattening” as the saying goes.  Video phone calls, presentations, and speech will be more important than the written word.

Computers will no longer be a computer as we know it.  It was just a short 15 years ago when I had a bag phone and antenna in my car.  Now, I have a cell phone that fits in my pocket with a camera, alarm clock, calculator, calendar, games and internet. Laptop computers are not far behind the cell phones in their advancement and ease of use. Computers will not need a keyboard because voice activated programs will be the norm.  Schools will not need the electricity to run all the computers because batteries will last all day.

Schools will finally recognize not all students are college bound and will begin to cater the curriculum to the students interests. Since the projects are student driven, students will become ready immediately for the workforce.  Education professionals must realize everything is computer driven.  Many of the blue collar jobs will convert to computer aided systems and public schools will take the place of traditional trade schools or junior colleges.  As the students become more focused on their vocational careers earlier, schools will be expected to make them job ready.

Business trends are already moving away from the travel expense.  Meetings, seminars, and collaborations are online. As the world becomes more “greener,” saving our resources will become more of a focus.  This will trickle down to the school systems.  Socially, people will meet and greet online.  Schools will still have their extra-curricular activities, but some new computer-related clubs and/or teams will be developed.  All athletic events will be webcast, so parents and anyone anywhere can watch their local sports teams.  Schools athletics will be funded by web and uniform advertising, because attendance will drop.  School funding is already in dire need of changing and will have see major changes by the year 2020.  No longer will property taxes be enough to foot the bill.  Consolidation will have to be considered, as there is only so much money to go around for educational expenses.  Currently in Illinois, there are too many schools and consolidation is necessary anyway.  The financial pie is only so big, which leads one to believe that fewer schools would allow for more financial assistance per school.  With the curriculum becoming more focused through virtual presentation, consolidation will also allow for there to be less administrative, faculty, and staff expense.   To keep up with the technology and cost of such, school funding assistance will also need to come from other community partners.  With technology being the driving force in the educational world, companies such as Apple, Dell, and Hewlett Packard will need to compete for school contracts.  This will be similar to what we see today with Coke and Pepsi competing for exclusive rights to sell their soft drink in a school system.  I don’t know the answer to educational funding, but I do know it is going to change and will need to change in order to support the curriculum and technology  necessary to educate our society.

In the next 10 to 15 years, the educational field will go through a major overhaul.  The curriculum is going to become less and less teacher driven and more technology driven.  This is going to force our school communities and governmental entities to look at curriculum offerings, technology provided, staffing of educational personnel, and funding issues. I look forward to participating in the implementation of many changes to the educational landscape.

This program would be great for many of the vocational classes in a high school.  Tech, design, interior design, and art are just of few classes a teacher could seamlessly incorporate Sketchup.  I haven’t explored its application to Google earth, but the program’s description mentions their ease of use together.

Just in general, paperless classes would be places of great learning.  I think the fusion of face to face and online learning would present unimaginable possibilities.  Creating projects, instead of writing papers, would become  much more poignant with podcasts, animation, links, etc… This would ensure a greater depth of learning.  I mentioned this to my husband and his reaction wasn’t so positive.  He was concerned about documenting their learning.  I don’t really see a problem with documenting their learning.  Students would have a file/portfolio of their work.  The collaboration projects would illustrate and record the students knowledge base.  For the parents sake, more actual work would be available for their viewing pleasure.  We all know most of a high school students work ends up in the circular file.

I believe a paperless classroom would make it easier to build a learning network.  Students recognize the ease in finding information on the internet.  It is their first place to search. Students will refine their sorting skills and build their learning network.  They won’t get bogged down as much by bad searches.  As they become more proficient in the use of these new technologies and become more confident in their opinions, they will contact “experts” to ask their questions.

This shift has not affected my teaching practices to this date, but I think in the near future it will be common place to keep a digital notebook.  In my art class next semester, I plan of taking over the computer lab for a couple of days.  In these days, I will have them create wikis for their own art ideas.  A digital notebook for inspiration will be their topic.  They will be expected to fill it with internet gems.  I think they will like the idea of having  a place to keep interesting pictures, ideas, quotes, stories, etc…  There are many times I have come across lesson plans or cool topics that I want to use in the classroom, but forget about them in a couple of days.  If I have a wiki of my own, that would be a great place to store all of those.  I can access this wiki from any computer, so adding to the notebook would be easy.

I have always been open to technology, so this class hasn’t changed my opinion on its use in the classroom.  This class, for me, is more about learning the new tools available for the classroom. I anticipate my classroom to become even more technology oriented. I have already put a bug in the ear of my principal about additional computers and changing the filter setting to take advantage of the new technologies.

I think Skype could save schools money, especially through mileage reimbursement.  School personnel, whether academic, athletic, or administrative, could be better served to attend a videoconference via Skype instead of having to travel.  Plus it keeps them at the job site, where if an emergency happens they are available to assist.

Nancy Bird, London, 1939 / by unknown photographerOriginally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection

State Library of New South Wales collection ( 2009, January 12) Nancy Bird, London, 1939/ by unknown photographer. Retrieved November 6, 2009 from, http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3192777471/.

I chose this photo because of the lighting. In class, I am always looking for great pictures to draw. Students choose the easiest they can find, so to counter this I usually give them a list of 3-5 to choose from. This would be an example of a photo I might choose for them to draw. Flickr would be a great place for me to find these pictures.

We use pictures all of the time. It would be great to subscribe to a feed with a tag that searches for any new pictures of that topic. Currently flickr is blocked at school, but it is one of the sites I plan to lobby for its opening. There are so many great uses for pictures.

I could use flickr as a field trip tool. I am sure people have posted pictures of their trips to Italy. We could take a trip to see the cathedrals. Flickr would have endless field trip possibilities.

Rachel Whiteread \”Ghost\”

This podcast would work in my sculpture class.  I like to show students different sculptures and how they are made.    This podcast illustrates the difficulty of creating art.  She talks about the time and money involved, but most importantly, I feel the perseverance angle she discusses  would illustrate a great  teaching  point.   I am always trying to get across to my students that art takes time, effort, energy, and perseverance.

I was drawn to the track wiki.  I found it a simple idea, but a perfect use for a wiki.  I was thinking about how a wiki is different then a basic web page.  They really are not much different, except with a public wiki anyone can contribute to the content.  What a great way to follow a high school sports team.  Many parents take pictures of the athletes, why shouldn’t they have a place to post them?  In this case, someone would have to monitor the content being placed on the site very close.  I have seen some high school chat rooms become cluttered with negative posts from rival school athletes, which takes away from the intent.

The most challenging thing about creating a wiki was that I did not know where to start.  It took a leap of faith to begin posting.  The group members quickly put their two cents in and we got rolling.   Working in groups has a trust factor.  I knew my group members were fellow educators, which eased my mind.  I knew they would get the job finished.

Wikipedia is an awesome site.  I had no idea how large and how accurate it really is.  Basically, it had a bad wrap.  I did not trust it or understand it.  I won’t use Wikipedia as an only source, but will use it to get started on most research I do.

I really haven’t used them in the classroom yet, but I am mulling some ideas over.  I don’t anticipate opposition.  My principal is open to using new technology in the classroom. I feel he will back me, if some resistance arises.