The Future

The Future of Technology is certainly exciting with many articles and websites being written all about predicting the directions technologies will go. An example of this is is FutureTimeline.net a website all about the future.

But considering that when Back To The Future was made they all thought we would have flying cars by now, predicting what the future will hold is at best a wild guess. It is interesting to note that in the 90’s and before predictions of the future were generally of a positive note with movies and articles all being written along the same lines. These days movies depict an apocalyptic world brought down by our own stupidity. Whether that will be further cemented in the future of if we will once again become positive is anyones guess.

What this will mean for what we teach our future generations in their classrooms and even how we teach it is a complete unknown but I can’t wait to find out.

Apps That Track

Technology is infiltrating every part of our lives these days, with apps for every possible use you could think of. Apps to remind us where we need to be, apps to track our weight goals and diets, apps to literally track every part of your life. But do we really need so much tracking? I understand for some people tracking every calorie you eat is necessary, but for most of us, do we really need an app to tell us if we are eating healthy or not? If we are honest most of us know if we are being good or bad.

Lesson Plans – :(

These days you can generate pretty much anything on the internet. Whether it be a crossword for a revision lesson, a mind map for an introduction or even a reference for an essay. There seems to always be one site out there where you just pop in the information and out comes exactly what you wanted, without causing you a large amount of stress. But lesson plans, especially the ones we need as pre-service teachers with the extreme amount of detail that we need, there is no easy lesson plan generator that fits our own criteria easily. You would think by now some kind of teaching website would have created a lesson plan generator that you could tailor to your own needs that would make sure you never forget anything important such as behaviour strategies.

Oh well maybe I will just have to learn how to use technology and make my own generator one day.

10 Ways Mobiles Are Changing The World

Scott Matteson a writer for TechRepublic and with all this negativity about technology and how it making us more anti-social in an instant gratification society decided to write about ten mostly positive ways smart phones are changing the world we live in.

To read the article follow this link.

There is one of the ten that I disagree with though. Number five, that we are never bored, this is just plain wrong in my opinion. Even if we have ten different devices full of games or various other entertainment options many people complain of still being bored. There are only so many times you can watch a movie or play flappy bird for the thousandth time without becoming bored.

Just because we have more options than we used to doesn’t mean that we aren’t just as bored as the time before smartphones.

Technology and Morals

With artificial intelligence becoming smarter and smarter every year many are beginning to worry about technology and just how smart it will become. Recently a Facebook research team has created AlphaGo an AI (artificial intelligence) specifically designed to learn how to play the Chinese strategy game of “Go”. Go is widely known as the most difficult game in the world.

Recently AlphaGo beat the worlds reining Go champion in a fair match. A feat which had originally been predicted to not occur for another 10 years. You can watch the match on youtube or by following this link.

This has once again brought up the discussion of morals in technology. As they become more intelligent should we be more wary of our computers? Is it even safe to let students so close to this form of technology? A playlist of ted talks deals exactly with this issue and is really quite enlightening.

Ted Talk 

Copyright and The Headaches It Brings

Many of our fellow students have been discussing copyright in their blogs. One student, Chloe I feel has touched upon some important points about how we as humans learn, and how learning about copyright is a journey in itself.

Chloe’s Blog 

While Chloe stated that “touching the stove” was a big learning curve for her, unless the material is going to be used in something that is going to be public or seen by a significant amount of people. I just do not think that many Teachers are going to be all that bothered by breaking the copyright law. The temptation of having all that easy access to those resources just one google click away.

If they didn’t want us to use their resources, then why put it on google?

Telstra Bundle = Prelude To The Apocalypse

Kylie Stewart-Lewis is another of our fellow students. In her blog and one of her most recent posts she comments on the issues many people and businesses have been facing over the past few days when Telstra had issues with their phone and internet lines. I encourage you to read her blog post before continuing on.

Kylie Stewart-Lewis’s Blog Post

Trying to imagine a world without the technology we have today, when most of us can’t remember living in a world without access to it. I would imagine that after a few weeks more developed countries would turn into something like The Walking Dead, but without the zombies to blame for the violence. Countries with less access to technology may fare better and revert back to the days of old. But lets just hope that never happens and this remains just a fun hypothesis.

 

A continuance of a friends musings

Sarah Jensen is one of our fellow students and her blog is very fascinating. However one of her posts has made me consider how far the benefits of todays current technology has taken us and what benefits it will bring in the future. Before continuing on with this post I would highly recommend following the link below and reading Sarah’s post or even her entire blog.

Sarahs Blog

Sarah just focuses on athletes for her example of how ICT is changing the course of peoples lives. But I would like to comment on how ICT is changing the way that education is taught to students who live in remote areas. For example kids who lived on stations or communities in remote Australia would have to rely on governesses and radios for their education, but now with the internet students can meet daily, face to face or screen to screen with more qualified teachers. Students can also attend online classrooms to feel more apart of their cohorts community.

Are You A Teacher?

While going through the background information for week one, the Who are you? You are a teacher? Section really got me thinking. Becoming a teacher was something that always seemed so far away in the future. To already be thinking of myself as a teacher seems so foreign, but to be already more than halfway through my degree, has made the future seem that much closer. To begin thinking of myself as a teacher could only help to get the most out of not only the coursework but the professional experience practicals.