Sixth Sense

First WOW! I can’t help but wonder what this means for education as a whole in the future. Obviously, the technology being described to us and which is actually in development goes way beyond anything that traditional classrooms can offer. As it is, we have access to so much information all the time that certain traditional components of the curricula we have taught for probably a century or more is no longer necessary for the tech savvy student of today. In fact, I have changed focus over the last few years when teaching research techniques to English I and Communication Skills II students from seeking out resources, although I still do teach this in part, to teaching students to critically evaluate all sources. computer generated or not. I suspect in the near future students will learn critical analysis, critical reading, critical thinking, and critical writing skills as early as, perhaps, third grade in order for them to navigate the resources intelligently which they already know how to access.

I picture a totally different classroom in twenty years. Students already “plugged in”, outfitted in computer fashion wear, sending signals to each other by looking at the person and transmitting silent signals which only that person can hear, except, of course if another “hacker” student is able to break the password or whatever and transmit it to the entire class. Imagine the little love trysts in the high school classroom with this scenario. I can also imagine the curriculum. “Good morning students. Today we are going to begin a unit on creating differnt types of relationships outside of the home, such as how to meet and talk to another child playing in the sandbox or asking someone how to use the cyberphone when the help screen is down on your pocket computer. Now remember last week when we talked about how to ask your parents face to face if you could go to Danny’s virtual party….” So in these future classrooms we will teach communication skills in face to face relationships instead of subject content which will be literally with them all the time. A few of my students could already use such a class.

Having attempted to show my mother a computer a few years back I can also see a whole new career choice for students. Teachers and advocates for people whose age or simple disinclination to learn further technolgy prevents them from being able to function in society. This is a real possibly with the speed at which we are moving with technology. Exciting, but for those of us who are getting older, also a little scary.