What the Future Will Be Like...

 What's next?  Who knows really.  All we have are assumptions, and little hints of what is in store for us.  From a technological stand point?  That is even more of a mystery.  Technology surprises me everyday, in more ways than one.  Years and years ago I thought that the Sega Genesis was the most amazing piece of technology out there!  Playing Sonic the Hedgehog and Power Rangers all day was my idea of the pinnacle of the tech age (I had no idea what pinnacle meant back then).  Then, time goes on, and better video game systems emerged.  Ipods became available and wow were those things the next big thing.  Then every day something new comes out.

  The Horizon report highlights a few directions in which it thinks technology might go towards.  Personally, I found one extremely interesting portion of this report to be about... wait for it... you've all heard of it... dun dun dun... the cloud (Oooooo..... awwwww).  Yes, 'the cloud.'  What is the cloud.  It is this magical online storage space, where for you to access, doesn't involve chords (good... I hate them).  Things are moving towards this storage capacity, and there isn't a thing we can do about it!  Everything seems to be connected to some form of 'cloud' someway or another.  My iPad uses the cloud, and so does my iPhone.  My laptop tried to use it (getting a little old), and so do all of the applications that I have.  The cloud sort of scared me in the beginning.  Why?  Storing everything somewhere, where millions of other people store their stuff... pretty sure I wouldn't store my wallet in a changing room locker with even 8 other people.  Nuh uh.  So i was hesitant.  Then... I realized that I didn't have to carry around all of my stuff with me everywhere I went.  Quite handy if you ask me, because I carry around enough textbooks that sometimes my laptop is an afterthought.

  Schools may start to do this more too.  Why not allow kids to save over the cloud, so they can access their work from anywhere?  First of all, it doesn't give students the excuse of "Oh... well I forgot all of my stuff in my locker... soooooo didn't do it."  With the cloud, we as teachers can say "HA!  you could have accessed it from home, so don't give me that."  (I would say it nicer that that of course, but for dramatic effect I thought it would suffice).  Use the cloud, and use it well.  Online courses will benefit from it, and so will many other things.  I just hope that it doesn't get to the point where students think they don't have to come to school because they can now do everything at home, because we don't want it to start looking like this...

I've had so many classes here... It is actually quite sad knowing this may be the very last time I am sitting in this spot.

It won't though... right?  No one can actually say for certain.  It is scary to think that it may.  The internet and technology is just so influential, that it is impossible to predict it's influence a decade from now.  Here is to hoping that the picture above never happens, because we need that personal connection, no matter how many other ways there are to talk with people.  Until next time... CHEERS!!!