Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Educators - 21 things that will be obsolete by 2020

Since we're focusing on education this month, I thought this article was interesting - 21 Things That Will Be Obsolete by 2020.

The article lists 21 things that will no longer be around in terms of education, or at least our idea of them will be different than today.

Some things listed are things we've been talking about, like number three, mobile computing. By 2020 I do think computing will be almost all mobile, so what do we need to do right now in education to prepare us for this?

One of the items on the list I hope comes true, number five, the role of standardized tests in college admissions. I actually hope this will transition to high school, too, and that the focus won't be on standardized testing but on creative and critical thinking.

Number eleven is interesting - IT departments will be a thing of the past, or at least what they do now will be a thing of the past. With cloud computing being the norm, IT departments that currently focus on software and upgrades and security will have their focus completely shifted.

I also love the idea of number nineteen, outsourced graphic and web design. Graphic and web design won't need to be outsourced anymore because we should let the kids do it. Isn't that a novel idea! We've been letting kids paint murals on school walls for a long time now, but are we letting the computer class design the school website? Let's give up some of the control and let them learn by doing. Another article I recently read reported on a study stating K-12 schools aren't adequately preparing students for tech-based skills they need to use in business. Letting them do things like this could certainly help with that.

And, of course, an item in this list states that we'll all be reading from handheld devices in ten years time. Sigh. I still have no desire to read this way, but I recognize that things are going this way. I still won't buy an ereader until I have to, but maybe by 2020 (or earlier) I'll have to.

1 comment:

  1. The fourth item on the list that predicts the disappearance of "the traditional temporal boundaries between home and school" jumped out at me. Recent news reports, though they may be anecdotal, indicate adults being more stressed about work now that they have 24/7 access to the office coupled with the expectation that they continuously check in.

    NBC's Education Nation features just highlighted "Race to Nowhere" which indicates kids are stressed, burned out, and not engaged. Perhaps 24/7 access to school using the technology they choose will combat this - or perhaps it will just increase their stress load.

    An interesting list, though, it will be fascinating to see how it plays out.

    ReplyDelete