Teacher Bytes

Trying to predict the future can be tricky thing to do, even Jedi Master Yoda had trouble when he tried. Yet, there are times when you have take a guess at what will happen, especially when you work with education technology. The other day after finishing my class on wikis, one of the participants asked me where all this technology was going. It lead to an interesting discussion in which nobody left.

I told the group that, in my opinion, one direction technology is taking us is our classes will be radically different. Teachers in the future will not have all of their students in one physical location all of the time. My statement led one teacher to ask, “Will technology eventually replace teachers?” “No,” I replied, “It will help ease an anticipated teacher shortage but there will always be a need for teachers.” The United States Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says that educational services jobs will grow by 10.7%  and add 1.4 million new jobs through the year 2016. According to a Yahoo website, education followed only healthcare and information technology as top career prospects in the future. I think there will be plenty of work for everyone.

One of the trends that leads me to make my claim about the future of teaching is the growth of online education. Insight School of South Carolina will be starting operations next year. This venture is an accredited public high school where students can earn a diploma, all online. Any South Carolina student who is accepted into the program are allowed to participate tuition free as well. This is not the first time high school students could earn high school credit online. Bluffton High School in Bluffton, South Carolina had offered a few courses in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Education. Online summer school classes are becoming more popular each year.

Another trend might be an indirect consequence of the No Child Left Behind law. Our district uses NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests during the year to help teachers prepare students for state-mandated tests. The great thing about MAP tests is they pinpoint students’ strengths and weaknesses. With this data, teachers know how to prepare lessons for individual students to help them achieve higher scores on the important year-end tests. However, these tests could also pinpoint teachers’s strengths and weaknesses. On the surface this may sound like a bad thing for teachers but we must realize we cannot be perfect in everything (even if parents, principals, superintendents, and school boards expect it). The answer here is that students and their weaknesses could be matched up with teachers whose strengths could help. If they are in the same building, great. Thanks to technology and distance learning, students and teachers could be in different buildings if that is the match-up that best helps the student. At different times of day or week, students will head to computers in the room to work with their teachers while the classroom teacher is at their interactive whiteboard working with students from other schools.

In either case, teachers will be needed to provide the human interaction needed in education whether it is a few feet or thousands of miles that separates them from their students. I did tell the group that teachers who are comfortable with technology will be the ones who will succeed in the future. At least this is my vision of the future of education. Please share your ideas of where the technology will take education in the future.

Recently Cathy Jo Nelson, author of the Techno Tuesday blog wrote a post entitled “Do you recognize these southern voices?” In this blog post Cathy lists several blogs from South Carolina she recommends everyone should read for a variety of reasons. I am honored that my blog is included in this select list. More importantly, Cathy reminded me that blogging is a network community in which we can share, laugh, cry, rant, praise, inform, and educate about our passions. I did not recognize all the bloggers on her list but you can be sure I will be checking them out.

Thanks Cathy!