Classroom of the Future

This video left me wondering about a lot of things. It made me think of the past - my past growing up and being educated, my children's elementary and high school days and what is in store for the future.

This video made me think back to sitting in my classroom in the 70's and when the teacher would bring in a movie - on the very old fashioned projector and reel and show it on any flat wall in the classroom. There would always be a clip before the movie began and the voice sounded exactly like the voice in the video - Classroom of the Future. The clip would usually be about something that was progressive - a new invention - like the "telephone" (only kidding) - but something that was being introduced to our society to make our lives easier. Now - we are getting new classrooms complete with flat screen televisions, computers at every station, and state of the art furniture. Wow - where are the blackboards, the manipulatives, the things we used to see in school - where are the children - have they been replaced with robots? Yes, I know technology has taken us to a point that we are not using slate tablets instead of paper - but we never replaced a human teacher with a video!

The video actually made me think about how obsolete humans are becoming - how "Jetson" like our world is - we no longer need to have phone operators, or speak to a human when we need our calls directed - a machine can do that for us. We no longer need to talk - we can tweet (and who really cares if we are walking down the street or washing our hands (who has the time to type this stuff in anyway), or leave a voice mail or maybe have our voice mail leave a message for a friend's voice mail. You no longer have to have "my people call your people" - you don't need people any more - the phone will do it. WHAT WOULD WE DO IF WE DID NOT HAVE A PHONE....HOW MANY PHONES ACCOMPANY THEIR OWNERS TO THE BATHROOM?
I even sometimes forget that when I use a LAN line I don't have to press SEND. We even have toilets that flush for us and sinks that the water turns on. You just wave your hand and the paper towel comes out.

I know I may sound insane - but did you really ever stop and think about all of this stuff? What are we creating in the name of technology? What kind of human beings are we molding - those who cannot exist unless instantly gratified - is it technology that excites them or is it they cannot do without it because they are incapable?

Are we creating a society that will become mental vegetables because every THING "thinks" for us and we don't have to do it for ourselves?

What will the new classrooms be like - according to the video - technology rules - will there be a master teacher sitting somewhere in "SPACE" and the teacher in the classroom -will just roam around (like the ROOMBA) making sure everyone is on task!

I just don't get where we are going - is the technology that is created by humans going to outsource the creators?