Technology
The Future in 10 Years
10 years ago I wrote a post about what I thought the future would be like in 10 years! Well, it’s 10 years later! Let’s check out what I was right and wrong about!
My prediction from 2014- 1) Robots. I already have a robot vacuum cleaner- so I can’t see it being that far off. I think that in 10 years there will be robot maids. The Jetsons totally knew what they were talking about. I bet there will be robots to cook and clean for you and maybe even do the laundry!
Well, besides some new and improved Roombas that mop and vacuum, or the new window cleaning robots, the Jetson’s cleaning robot hasn’t become a household device quite yet. HOWEVER, we did just buy a Dyson V15 this week. And though we still have to control it and DO the vacuuming, the screen and dirt detect technology on this robot is pretty insane. It also cleans SO WELL! We have been shocked at how much dust and dirt it has been picking up, especially in our carpets. There was a conference in Vegas this year that showed off all of 2024’s best robots, and this article talks about the top 10. It looks like the humanoid robots coming out of China are getting quite close to having a “Jetson” style robot in people’s houses soon. As long as the price can stay reasonable, it might be here before we know it. The part of the robot post that I didn’t expect was the AI advances we have made in the last couple years. The stuff AI is doing right now is pretty crazy! This blog even has an AI edit feature I can use before I post! It gives me feedback on what it thought I did well, and what I could improve on!
My prediction from 2014– 2) I think all bulletin boards/ posters are going to be digital. Sometimes I think it would be easier in my classroom if I didn’t have to staple all the kid’s work to the wall. We are already into digital portfolios, so I think the next schools are going to have digital bulletin boards too. Side note: as I was looking for a picture to put with this one- I found out that this already is a real thing apparently…
Another miss on my part. Though interactive white boards are still a thing, I haven’t seen much advancement in terms of TVs, Interactive whiteboards or bulletin boards in schools. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as education tends to move at a slower rate than the business world.
My prediction from 2014– 3) I really think all shopping will be done through phones or mobile devices. I can’t see people carrying big wallets with cash/member cards/etc. I love paying at Starbucks with my Starbucks app and getting rewards right on the phone. I feel like most stores will go that route. But who knows what type of stores there will even be! Maybe everything will be online shopping!
I think I get a bit of a win on this one. I hate to admit it, but I rarely do much in store shopping anymore. It is so so convenient to find sales and do a bit of research online and then buy there. To give you some perspective, Amazon made 19.74 billion in 2014 and at the end of 2023, it was up to 170 billion. Watch this visual representation of how much money that actually is! Obviously there are still retail stores, but I know that even in my city, the storefront stores are dying while more and more people buy things online. One interesting turn that I didn’t realize would happen is that because of the convenience of “online shopping,” I am actually buying more things USED than ever before! I use the app Varage Sale and Facebook Marketplace to purchase things I need that are in my city. So as bad as I feel for doing as much online shopping as I do, I do make myself feel a bit better because of how much I buy secondhand.
My prediction from 2014– 5) I think people will be able to teleport… Or somehow be in a new place doing something without spending 30 hours on a plane. I’m not going to suggest HOW that is going to happen because I have no idea but somehow it will be possible.
Well, I haven’t seen anything wild like this yet. Too bad. That would have been great!
My prediction from 2014– 6) I think body image will get even crazier. It has already got to the point where plastic surgery and those types of procedures are becoming so common that I think it will be a more accessible/fast option in the future. I think there are going to be plastic surgery vending machines where you can go into a booth in a mall and get a nose job, or a quick Botox injection. It will probably be done by a hot looking robot. That, or some skeezy guy with unclean needles.
This was on the right track, but the method was wrong. Shopping malls? HA! Those are dying too. However, botox and other enhancers have definitely become more common place. I’m sure in 2014 I was thinking that Botox was this crazy example to use, but I wasn’t wrong. Botox is definitely more popular and more accessible than 10 years ago. I now have plenty of friends who regularly use botox to fill in wrinkles and lines, I have friends who use lip fillers to make their lips more plump, and I’m sure we all know and have friends and family who are using eyelash extensions as part of their beauty routine. (Where as back in 2014, the fake eyelashes that you had to put on and remove each time would have been the go to).
My prediction from 2014– 7) I think the future is going to have new foods that engineers have invented or redesigned. I think there are going to be super foods that will be kind of like medicine. You can just eat a banapple and get rid of your cold at the same time!
I don’t know of any superfoods that work as medicine, but here is an updated list of Canada’s genetically modified foods right now.
My prediction from 2014- 8) I like the idea of hovercraft cars- I just hate the idea of writing it, because it sounds so cliche! But yeah- lets just get it over with and say it… In 10 years there will be hover cars everywhere.
Well, they aren’t everywhere. But they are definitely on their way?? Read this article that talks about the newest models of flying vehicles. While full on hover CARS aren’t popular, hover BOARDS are! Sure, they still have contact with the ground, but it is neat that the hovering concept has made its way to 2024.
My prediction from 2014– 9) 3D printers will be used for everything. Want a piece of toast? 3D printer it. Want a new tech gadget? Just print it. New baby brother? Done.
I think I was being a bit facetious with the new baby brother comment, but 3D printing has made some cool advancements. The Bio-printing (printing tissue, organs, and body parts) is the one that interests me the most. But it looks like in 2024, the biggest 3D printing innovation is in large scale printing. Huge pieces of metal are being able to be 3D printed. Though these advancements are very exciting, it sounds like there is a shift in trying to push for more sustainable 3D printing mechanisms as the technology forges ahead.
At the end of my blog post from ten years ago, I commented how we would not know what the future holds. To be honest, it does feel a bit weird being “in the future” in this regard. I remember writing this post, and I’m not sure how ten years JUST HAPPENED!! Maybe one of the biggest shocks from re-reading this post was that it doesn’t feel like that long ago! I’m not sure how time goes by so fast. Now that I have done this exercise once, stay tuned as I will have to write another prediction post of what I think the world will be like in 10 years from now! I DEFINITELY did not have a world wide pandemic on my bingo card from this post ten years ago. Stay tuned!
I Got Rid of My Social Media
This is my story about my positive experience getting rid of social media and taking a big step back from technology in general.
It all started after I was part of a local summer festival. I was doing a lot of the behind the scenes tech work; the social media accounts, emails, scheduling etc. I was on my phone A LOT. I had even downloaded an app called Moment a week before, because I wanted to know just how much I was using it. Here are my stats for that week:
Yep, you got it. The LEAST amount of time I was on my phone was 4 hours 31 minutes. Isn’t that gross? Yes, I was doing “work,” but I didn’t love what I saw. I decided that I needed a technology break. I was going to get off my social media accounts, try to use my phone much less, and have a breather.
Time to Quit- Photo credit: Marco Verch via Flickr
So what happened? Well first off, I realized I had fallen into some BAD habits. I wouldn’t call it a full fledged addiction, but it could have been pretty close! For the first week, I clicked on my “social” category at least 5-6 times a day, only to realize that I had deleted the social media apps. I kept the Twitter app, as I am a teacher and I have a class account that I tweet from, but I deleted my personal account from the app so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it. Gone was my Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. I decided to keep my Timehop app as it basically just brought up baby pictures of my daughter from the last two years which I love. I kept my Messenger app as I am part of some communities (like our small group from church) that only uses Messenger to communicate. I also kept my Pinterest app which I don’t use for social networking… More for the rare lesson plan idea. I am on Pinterest so minimally, I wasn’t worried about needing to delete it. But the goal was to not just be off those apps, but to be off my phone more period.
This week marks one month since I’ve been off social media, and honestly, I am feeling great! I do not miss Facebook as much as I thought I would, even though I was spending quite a bit of time on there a day. I would mostly read articles that interested me, and then scroll scroll scroll through the newsfeed. I have quite a varied group of people on my Facebook, due to my desire to not surround myself with an echo chamber. See my post on that here. But I’m sorry to say friends, you guys just aren’t THAT interesting. Not enough to be spending the time I was on there, at least.
The craziest part is that I thought I would get off tech for a month and then go back on, but I’m not ready! I am going to slowly re-introduce my social media accounts back into my life. Yesterday I did re-add my personal Twitter account again. It’s funny to me that I missed Twitter the most. I don’t even know if “missed” is the right word. Maybe I felt like it was the most useful? My Twitter account is mostly for professional use, and I follow a lot of awesome teachers who share neat, encouraging ideas. Either way, it’s what I’m starting with. Maybe next month, I will add something else back in, although I am getting used to being off of it… Hmm, my life might just be changed forever!
Have you ever gone off grid? How did you like it? Anything you missed too much? Anything that changed the way you interact with your digital world? Leave a comment!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Feedback Considerations
It was great to hear the positive feedback around our Genius Hour course prototype. Our group had a lot of fun putting together the online Genius Hour course, and we wanted it to be as practical and usable as possible.
Initially, we had the course set for grades 3-8. I am a grade two teacher, and tried to 
make my course content accessible and readable enough for grade two students. However, one of the comments and feedback we received quite often was that people were worried about the content level and reading level for the youngest (grade 3) students. Our group took this into consideration and decided to change our grade level to 5-8. The course can be adapted if need be to the younger grades, but people were right; some of the modules would be a little difficult for those young ones. It was a simple change that our group was happy to do.
Our group chose blogging as the “thread” that would tie all our modules together. We 
each had different content, and we figured blogging would be a good way to root the students in something similar throughout all of them. We had decided that the teacher who was doing this online course would have taught the students how to blog before starting this course, but I guess we didn’t quite make that clear enough. We have now added this into our course. If for some reason the student missed the class where they learned how to set up their own blog, they can watch the video and make one for themselves.
One of the comments that we got was that our Google Classroom set up was very easy to follow. This took me a very long time to do, but I am glad I did it. Our whole group just put in assignments as we finished them, and our stream was pretty chaotic. We had 
videos and assignments from different modules all over the place. Once everyone had all of their content in Google Classroom, I went through and reverse organized them. In the top right hand corner of each assignment it says move to top. So I started at the last assignment and moved it to the top. I then worked backwards all the way until the very first assignment, so that the first assignment you see is the Introduction 1.1, and then 1.2 etc. This only works if you can import all of your content before the students start the online module. If you are adding content daily with students, this option is not available.
Someone suggested that the last video and slideshow in my module are a little bit 
difficult (content wise) for young students. They are totally right. I only added those in because I didn’t feel like I gave the “works cited” portion of my module enough learning time. So that said, I’ve decided to change the instructions so that the videos/slides can be for those students who are interested in going above and beyond. Perhaps they want to move from a “meeting” to “established” knowledge of digital citizenship.
The only other feedback I would like to comment on would be how the content is organized. I think as people get used to Google Classroom, they would realize that we had two ways to view content. You could click on the “Topics” tab, and see each of our
individual units/modules as a cluster, or you could follow the
stream in order from 1.1 to 5.5 which included the assessments and evaluations.
Overall, I find that the peer feedback was an excellent way to improve this course. It makes me wish I would have actually filled out more course evaluations during my University career haha! Teachers give great feedback, and our group was happy to change our course to make it more accessible, available, and appropriately levelled. Thanks to everyone who had a chance to give us some feedback! I would love to share our module with others who would like to use this online Genius Hour course in their class!
Here are all the blogposts about our course prototype.
If you would like to check out our course prototype, please go to Google Classroom and use the class code: ku6m8y The course outline is under the “About” section.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )How to subtitle? Well I just don’t know!
I had quite the experience trying to learn how to subtitle a video I had made with Tellagami. By watching YouTube music videos, you would think it should be no problem at all! Well, I was humbled to say the least! I tried two different software platforms, and couldn’t figure out either! After at least 3 hours of trying, I ended up going to a platform I was familiar with and just making it work.
Maybe someone knows what I was doing wrong, and wants to comment below? That would be awesome!
Here’s my journey…
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Authentic online spaces: Good or bad?
This blog prompt comes at an interesting time for me as I have had a couple great conversations around this topic just recently. Both have to do with blogging and the conversations that occur because someone shared their thoughts/opinions/knowledge online; good, bad, or otherwise!
Photo credit: Will Lion via Flickr
The first story happened in the last couple of weeks for me. I have been blogging my reading responses for my other Masters class, EC&I 814 Critical Perspectives of Pre-school Ed
ucation. We have been diving into topics around how to de-pathologize curriculum and re-situate early childhood education into an asset oriented perspective. It goes along nicely with the anti-oppressive education work I have been doing this last year of my life. In these posts, I often quote Luigi Iannacci who is one of the authors of our textbook, Early Childhood Curricula and the De-pathologizing of Childhood. I got an unexpected surprise one day last week when Iannacci emailed me through my blog’s ‘About page’ (which as a side note is why it’s important to have a contact form on your blog) and commented on my blog post. He was very encouraging…
This led to me emailing him back, and we have had a little conversation back and forth for the last couple weeks. He has been very open and genuine, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask him if he wanted to Skype/Facetime in with our class during my presentation coming up on March 28th. He was more than happy to do it, and we have been figuring out exactly what that will look like.
But what can I say? What an amazing opportunity for myself and my classmates to actually talk to the human behind the stories and theory represented in our text. This opportunity happened BECAUSE I blogged my reading response for the world rather than wrote it for my professor. No, our conversation didn’t happen in the comment section of my blog or in a discussion forum, but none the less, it happened because of my blogging platform.
What do I take from this?
- Teachers need to give their students opportunities to write for someone other than themselves.
- Authenticity is inspired in others when it starts with me.
The second story happened to a friend of mine, Claire Kreuger. By the way, she has given me permission to tell this story. She has been blogging her thesis– HALLELUJAH! (I am so glad that this is starting to become a thing.) And she has had some interesting conversations around some of her posts. The story she told me yesterday was where her authentic online space did not go over so well.
Through her thesis, she has been actively trying to disrupt her own understanding of Whiteness, colonial spaces, and privilege. Her thesis is an Auto-ethnography, which involves her using stories from her own family, classroom and experiences. In her post, H is for Headdress, she explains why it is unacceptable for non-indigenous people, children included, to be wearing and making headdresses. Though this issue has been brought to light multiple times in the media, and in education, it still seems to be happening quite frequently. Claire mentions how even her own daughter made a feather headdress in class last year. This is actually where the authenticity/openness of her blogging takes a turn for the worst.
Shortly after mentioning her daughter’s craft in her blog post, Claire got an email from her child’s teacher with the principal cc’d. The teacher wanted Claire to come in and chat… Uh oh! Anytime a teacher is willing to schedule a meeting on Friday after school, you know it’s not to talk about some awesome answer the child gave in Science that day. Sure enough, the teacher and principal wanted to speak about her blog post. The teacher
“Blog With Authenticity Without Getting Fired” photo credit: Search Engine People Blog via Flickr
felt like Claire attacked her in the blog posts, and was telling others that she was a bad teacher. She had printed off pages from Claire’s blog (kind of ironic, right?) and challenged Claire on what she had written. Claire had to do damage control and explain the situation. She told the elementary teacher that she thought she was an awesome teacher, but that Claire did have issues with that craft in particular, and how Indigenous people were being (mis)represented on a classroom and even school level. She tried to
apologize to the teacher and principal and explain that she was not trying to condemn the teacher per se, but rather address what her daughter had shared in conversation at home. Her daughter’s lack of knowledge and language around First Nations people was actually more of an issue than the craft itself, especially since Claire is actively trying to educate her own children about First Nations content at home. It is a symptom of the bigger systemic issue, and Claire clearly pointed that out in the blog, or at least she thought she did. Though the conversation was awkward, it was one that probably needed to happen on both accounts.
In this case, Claire being open and authentic in her blog caused tension with her face to face relationships. She was forced to stand behind her convictions and call somebody out on their racially insensitive actions. Though she was pressured to censor her opinions and thoughts, she found a way to adjust her blog’s comments, but not erase the story itself.
“Blogging Readiness” photo credit: Cambodia4kids.org via Flickr
In either story, the good news is that the blogging platform brought out conversation, good or bad. The public nature of the writing brought on discussion. The openness of the content spurred on more conversation. It can’t always guarantee that other’s will be authentic or genuine, but it sure helps when you know the writer is starting from that place.
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