MY VISION 2020

What is your vision of what the world could be like in 2020? How will changes in the world affect education, and how will changes in education affect the world? How will your choices and innovations in the classroom affect others? How will being a teacher be different in 2020 than it is today?

My vision of what the world will be like in 2020 is much different from what I would like the world to be like in 2020.  I believe that in 2020 the growth of new technology will continue to have people doing more online and less face-to-face.  I believe social networking will continue to grow and children will continue to participate in the networking sites at very young ages.  I believe privacy will no longer exist, as people continue to post personal information online.  I think teachers will continue to have to monitor students for safe Internet use, possibly even closer than they’ve ever monitored children.   I believe people without these skills will be less valuable in professional jobs and find it more challenging to obtain a professional title. 

On a positive note, I believe that technology will continue to grow, making life more convenient for people.  As noted in Module 1, businesses, journalism, media and education will reap the benefits of these new technologies as they make their professional lives easier.  Businesses can more easily connect with other businesses, allowing growth and learning opportunities to occur.  Rather than waiting for the Sunday newspaper, journalists can post news online and we can view it through RSS feeds, as discussed in Module 3.  Educators will continue to use blogs, as discussed in Module 2, to share ideas and to learn from each other.  Wikis, as discussed in Module 4 will be used to collaborate both within the school district and with educators outside of the district.  Wikis will be used to gather information while actual dictionaries and encyclopedias become extinct. In the world of education, I believe that as the older teachers begin to retire and the younger, more tech-savy teachers get older, technology will be an even bigger part of the classroom.  I think technology will begin to be even more prevalent as new inventions emerge.  Changes in education, such as the new teacher evaluation process will hold teachers accountable.  I think this will have a positive effect on the world because students will be more likely to get what they should be getting and therefore, will be successful as they continue into the world.  Our students will continue to teach us about technology.  They will continue to pick up a device and intuitively know how to use it.

My choices in the classroom will affect my students in that if I don’t choose to expose them to technology, they will be missing out on a year’s worth of tech skills that could give them the edge over another prospect in a future job.  By keeping up with innovations, my students will keep up with the growing changes in the world and therefore be informed and better able to utilize these resources and be prepared for conquering life in the real world.  Also, with a whole year with students, I have the responsibility to teach my students Internet safety.  Each year, I have the opportunity to teach Internet safety, which some children may not get at home so I think this is very important for me to teach.  My choices regarding technology in the classroom will effect families in that I need to communicate with them so that they know what their child is being exposed to.  Although my daughter has only been exposed to a few websites at school, it’s important to me to know what she’s doing so that I know what kind of sites she’s visiting.  I look into them to be sure they are private accounts and to see what type of communicate is happening or available in that site.  This gives me the chance to talk to her about the possibility of someone contacting her online and about what to do in certain online situations.  My choices regarding technology will affect my school district in that I need to keep my students on safe, reliable sites that reflect what we’re learning.  My choices could also effect myself.  I need to make sure that I’m choosing educational sites that will benefit my students.

Being a teacher in 2020 will be different than it is today, because technology is constantly changing.  We don’t know today what we will be exposed to in 2020.  Things grow and change so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up with it all.  By taking these courses, getting RSS feeds and visiting social networking sites, we are better able to see what’s new and emerging.  In 2020, I would imagine there would be even more sites that we will need to manage and teach our students about.  I would also imagine that new devices will come out for us to practice and learn about and be able to teach our students about.  I think that although there will always be new things to learn about, the gap will slowly begin to close as the tech-savy generation emerges.  The tech-savy generation will be more easily able to apply technology, applications and websites to teaching because they are growing up with these things.  Teachers that have been teaching for many years will be learning from the net-generation. 

In conclusion, I think that we need to embrace the new changes and new direction that the technology world is heading, while also keeping our core values.  We, as teachers and parents, need to stay abreast of new social networks so that we can stay in tune with our students and keep our children and our students safe.  We need to look at the positives of these new changes and teach our kids to utilize the new tools in a positive, productive way.