Teacher Academy Visit

A highlight of the year is when Mike Neri invites me to his Teacher Academy Class to talk about technology and education. Given the fact that these kidoes won’t be in the classroom for a 1/2 a decade of so, the talk is usually a bit of exercise in predicting the future and identifying trends – subjects I always find fun. Today I’ll be going over a slightly tweaked version of my 2014 OETC presentation: Will I be Replaced by a Robot.

The Gist

I want explore how the digital revolution and the growth in the capacity of machines to perform larger cognitive tasks will affect the teaching profession. A fear frequently expressed by technology reluctant educators is that technology may displace many of their functions as a teacher. We’ll examine the validity of this fear by viewing past and current trends in technology and how these trends have impacted various careers. We will raise questions about future job opportunities for students as well.

The Presentation

References

Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy

By Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee: A fairly concise book that explores the relationship between technological advances and its impact on society, particularly the job market.

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

Follow up to Race Against the Machine.

Welcome Robot Overlords. Please Don’t Fire Us?

A variation of the Brynjolfsson and McAfee arguments. Excellent demonstration of Moore’s Law. Also does a pretty solid job of explaining income growth tied to capital.

Coming to an Office Near You

Economist article outlining the impact of technological advances on all jobs.

Fun Follow Up

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts

An image of a whiteboard with faint traces of previous writings and diagrams, creating a visually distracting pattern. The whiteboard is in an office

Attention on a Hazzy Whiteboard

Switching attention leaves residue. Sometimes I feel like I’m swimming through that residue. The schemas I’m holding need focused and sustained attention, and the cludgy remnants of previous mental states and distractions makes the thinking I enjoy turn into thinking that is exhausting (and poorly done).

Read More »