I have been trying to imagine what teaching will be like in the future. I am starting with the premise that I can do everything that I used to do when teaching in person, together with everything that I can now do over Zoom.
So it’s sort of a combination of super-powers. On the one hand, there is the super-power of true physical presence. This includes, among other things, eye contact, body language, the comraderie of physical gathering and the ability to “read a room”.
On the other hand, there is the super-power of being able to present an entire world, as well as scribble on and program that world, right before your students’ eyes. When you get the hang of it, Zoom can be a very powerful tool for doing that.
I’m assuming that some time in the next five years or so, the technology will have matured to the point where I can seamlessly combine together those two sorts of super-powers. I am looking forward to that.
One notion that kind of amazes me is the idea that the next generation may one day be growing up and learning on a planet that we’ve never visited, but we could still be their teachers from here on Earth. If they are living without many resources and in close contact to each other (at least IRL), our life lessons might be very important to them. What lessons should be be providing them? What should we be learning from them?