Simplifying teacher expertise is no big deal– heck, textbooks are an old tech version of that, saving us all from the trouble of coming up with our own materials. I actually have spent some time thinking about this, resulting in my decision a few years ago to stop using the grammar textbooks my school bought for our classes. I dumped them because they kept my teaching tied to their pace, their ideas, their examples, and their limited practice materials; I decided I would rather take my cue from my students and what they needed and how they could best be helped to understand. Could i have done this when I first started out? Probably not enough hours in the day– and the fact that I can type materials up on a computer and have them printed out on a machine on the other side of the building certainly helps, so I guess I both object to and agree with Arnett’s point.
Or maybe my point is that if you aren’t very careful, labor-saving (or labor-transferring) technology will tell you how to do your job instead of helping you do it.
I do believe that technology will be coming for almost all jobs, including teachers. How soon? It could be 30 years off. Or, it could be 10. Alexa and Siri still can only answers half the time, but they are improving.
An extensive review of employee teams at Google found that the most successful were those with a high level of psychological safety. In other words, when employees felt safe enough to take risks (and make mistakes) without being shamed or criticized, they did better work. “The wisdom of learning from failure is incontrovertible. Yet organizations that…
The McKinsey Global Institute cautions that as many as 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030 due to automation. The work most at risk of automation includes physical jobs in predictable environments, such as operating machinery or preparing fast food. Data collection and processing is also in the crosshairs, with implications…
It wasn’t Nineteen Eighty-Four that had the most to say about the America of the 1980s, but rather Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. “In Huxley’s vision,” Postman noted, “no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history.” Instead: “People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that…
Can we get real? There are a lot of well-intentioned assignments and projects that frankly have very little LEARNING that goes with them. Create a poster of the solar system. The kid spends a lot of time (and money on supplies) with the outcome that they can (hopefully) identify the 7 planets. This is a DOK…
Looks like Facebook is turning that top space in your News Feed into something a little more useful than “It’s spring time!” or “Have a nice day!” In a blog post, the company said it will be adding alert to an “educational tool” when users log onto the service, which will provide tips for spotting…
During a professional development session a while back I thought I killed someone. He didn’t respond when his name was called. He didn’t respond I tapped his shoulder. Finally, he responded when I shook him a bit harder. Lucky for me (and him) he was just asleep. But it was a wake up call to…
