I am technolgy the destroyer of teachers? Everyday that I go into work, I wonder when I will be replaced by some form of automatron. I know many factory works have this same fear but with the advances in technology as a teacher am I working to create my replacement? Videos are 80 years old, but it's only now that they can be created with such ease and made accessible for everyone. Whenever I am out of the building, and need a substitute I use a program called Screen-o-matic:
to create a video for my students so that they can still learn what we are scheduled to learn that day. They still take notes, they still hear my voice, they still work on problems and homework, but I’m not there. With the videos I know they can’t ask questions but they can replay the video and go over a section again as if I was repeating my concept.
There are often times when students don’t understand something in class, or want some more example problems. At the bottom of all of my calendars are links to math help website: sites such as kahacadamy https://www.khanacademy.org/ , photomath https://photomath.net/en/ , youtube https://www.youtube.com . These sites allow students to search topics we're covering and find more examples and possibly allow them for a different way of explaining things to them. Most students don’t want to come get extra help, they want to figure it out on their own and these sites let them. How long before thats all they will need to do, is go to a site to learn math, reading, science or english?
Google hangout allows people to be somewhere without actually being there. I’ve had students who were to sick to come to school but were well enough to focus for 50 minutes so they had a friend link them to our class via google hangouts.
They showed me their HW, they asked questions, talked with their partner they learned math all from the comfort of their own couch. Lots of districts are strapped for cash, what if CPS goes bankrupt and they can't pay any of their teachers salaries? They could give each student a Chromebook then have them google hangout and learn math in my classroom. I could have a classroom of 30 physical students and 100 google hangout students all in the room learning Algebra 2. If a student becomes loud or obnoxious they can simply be muted, or kicked off google hangout. Our school already has electronic core classes called ELO (Expanding Learning Opportunities) where students take Algebra 2 entirely from videos and links. They can still email a teacher and ask for clarification but think about the logistics of 2-3 teacher covering all 700 Algebra 2 students instead of the 10. That’s millions of dollars in salary savings per year, not to mentions, materials, and physical space. A whole school could be run out of a large basement, instead of a 500,000 square foot building. Ultimately I feel that teachers will always be needed to help convey information, guide and inspire students, but with some of these technological advances and society’s feelings about teachers, summers off and pension systems it possible that teacher roles could be thinned or phased out.
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