As the world progresses towards a more online life, where does that leave educators in the future. With sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, and other Web 2.0 tools, why is there a need for students to sit in a classroom or lecture hall and listen to a teacher give their lecture? Leave questions for beginner students like, will there be a job for a teacher in the up coming years? Will there be a need for me? If other jobs can become automated, or a robot can be created to do tasks of some jobs, what says that a robot can't be created to become a teacher, or at least a "babysitter" while students do their own research and pursue an online education. I know if I need to learn something, or teach myself some skill, I turn to the internet, look it up and follow the YouTube guide. The majority of the students doing the 20% project are learning their skills with the help of the internet, at least with the research portion of the project. So where does that leave us as educators? I feel as educators, we better get on board, learn to adapt, and figure out ways to make ourselves irreplaceable. We need to figure out how to use the new technology in our "bag of tricks" and be a guide to our students through out their own learning process. Allow the students to use all resources available to them, even if it means allowing them to use it on a test. Again, if I do not know an answer to a questions, I can find about 200 million answers to the question in about 0.41 seconds with a simple Google search. Students will do this when they get job, why are we expecting them to memorize what DNA polymerase does exactly? I feel that we should teach the students to use the tools they need to be better problem solvers, rather than teach them how to memorize information that they will later dump once they take a test. That will be the only way we as teachers will be kept, and not replaced by automated baby sitters in the future.
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May 2015
Kyle HutchinsTeacher Candidate at Cal State San Marcos. Currently doing clinical practice at Orange Glen High School in Escondido. Categories |