Did You Know? Video

The "Did You Now?" video that we watched in class, which can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWTLA8WecI , has too much information for me to write a coherent response so I am going to raise a few issues I found interesting/important/scary.

First of all, the video's view of the future job market is eye-opening at the very least. According to Former Secretary of Education Richard Riley, the top ten jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. The video also goes on to say that we are preparing our students for jobs that do not exist, to solve problems that we do not know are problems, using technology that has not been invented. So, what should we be teaching our students? To me, it seems the important skills needed are the abilities to adapt, be reflective, remain open-minded, think critically, and solve problems. The actual content appears to be, for the most part, irrelevant since the majority of it will be obsolete by the time our children get jobs. Some core topics should transcend time as we move toward a global, technology-based economy. I believe some of these are basic mathematics, communication skills, and world languages. However, many of the other courses taught in schools seem like they may be unnecessary if this vision of the future is indeed accurate.

Another aspect of the video that shook me was the prediction that by 2013, there will be a supercomputer that will exceed the computational capability of the human brain. I find this thought to be quite frightening and confusing. How can we program a computer to be more complex than our own brains? How can a machine exceed the thought capacity of its designer? Does this computer have the ability to learn on its own? Does it start out simpler than the human brain and then adapt itself to become more complex? At what point does the adaptation stop? What else can this computer do? Is it safe? Does it make decisions? Does it understand ethics or just logic? I can't seem to wrap my mind around this one. It just seems to be a very scary proposition to me.

The idea of technology is pervasive throughout the video. I am currently a teacher that uses very little technology within the classroom. I always felt that I could explain the content well enough using conventional techniques for my students to understand. It seems to me that perhaps WHAT I am teaching is not nearly as important as HOW I am teaching. Using technology and allowing students to become familiar with different programs could end up being more useful to them than the material at hand. It is certainly a view of teaching that I never considered until now.

Overall, this video completely blew my mind. I think this is further proof of how must be a reflective process in order to be successful. It is possible that those teachers who teach the way they learned yesterday, trying to prepare their students for today, may be crippling them tomorrow.