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.

Watson!

I can't be the only Futurist out there watching (well, following...since I'm always at work @ 4:30) Watson roll over the brilliant human competition on Jeopardy this week. Not only is it entertaining, but for a librarian it is scary--this machine is able to more often than not bring back correct answers to clever questions.

On the Smarter Planet blog, Steve Canepa says "The DeepQA technology that powers Watson signals a new age in computing and information analytics"--and this new age certainly has implications for information-finding librarians! At our Futurist meetings we agree that one of our long term, value-added services is that we can help people to find the "right" information for their needs. One of the reasons this service is unique is because librarians, being humans, know how to understand another human's question, the nuances of it, word connotations, and context. Will further improved DeepQA technology (remember, Watson the Jeopardy champ is the first big-time prototype to my knowledge) make this human-to-human service obsolete? How should librarians reinvent themselves if people can speak into a machine ("I like the Harry Potter series, Watson, so what kind of tattoo should I get?") and get a "right" answer (What is "a snitch")?

What do you guys think?

Learn more:

• PBSNews Hour's story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr7IxQeXr7g
• I especially enjoy the comment @ 2m19s
• And 2m55s too...interesting....
  
• Learn more about ol' Watson here: http://www.jeopardy.com/minisites/watson/
• IBM's A Smarter Planet blog: http://asmarterplanet.com/

Kids analyzing obsolete technology

On a recent Mental Floss blog post, Adorable Kids With Obsolete Technology, an embedded YouTube video of French school children (the video is subtitled in English) shows them analyzing what some tools from the 1980s and 1990s are. Floppy disks are thought to be cameras or tools used in banking. One girl asks if a Planet of the Apes laserdisc is a carpet.

Other tools they are given will be recognizable to us, but this has me wondering what little kids in 2025 will think of our iPads and our handheld Nintendo DS video game consoles? Will they think the Nintendo DS is a phone? What will the iPad be?

What is the future of technology for us? We'll be discussing this soon in our meetings, but I'd love to hear input from others. What technology do you think will be outdated by then? Where do you see technology going? What do you hope for when it comes to technology?