July 20, 2006 – Dr. Ray Kurzweil and Charmaine Brooks

After listening to Dr. Kurzweil’s videotaped presentation, my first thought was what a Star-Trek type progression of humanity he foresees in the next fifty years. Through many graphical representations, Dr. Kurzweil clearly showed how information technology is increasing exponentially. From my observations of the younger generation, the digital natives, this is rather obvious. However, I do not feel that his predictions for the future where people simply ‘upload’ information directly into nanotechnical neuroreceptors in their brains to learn something is feasible. Simply getting the knowledge of something is not enough to know it. There are physical skills to learning anything. (For example: uploading basketball skills yet not being able to play because you don’t have the physical ability to play.) Dr. Kurzweil’s comments to our question of the challenges facing education in relation to technology indicated that he sees teachers as simply mentors or guides as the students will be able to simply upload the required knowledge. He also predicts that students will be meeting together in a virtual world. I don’t believe his futuristic uploading theory, however, I do believe virtual classrooms will become the norm.

Charmaine Brooks gave us a look into ICT in Alberta with her presentation, however it was her questions of ‘How do we measure the influence of ICT on student learning?’ and ‘How are the students when they get away from school?’ that really got me thinking of the students in my school. We may not have as many iPods and MP3 players coming into our rural school as compared to the city schools, but the students are really very techno-savvy. What we as teachers need to do is to make sure that the technology is infused with the curriculum to keep student interest in the content.