School Technology Future - Looking Back

On Wednesday I attended the graduation of the kindergarten students in my school. The kids were all dressed up and we watched a slideshow of their past year in school and most parents cried.

Meanwhile, there I was thinking about their future.

These students will graduate in the year 2022 and we have no idea what their future will look like, which is why 21st Century Skills are so important. I don't know what school technology will look like in 12 years, let alone what jobs and careers there will be for these young students.

Then I started to think back 12 years ago -- about thing we use everyday today that were not even invented when today's high school graduates were in kindergarten (1998). Things like...

DVDs - we were still using VHS tapes.
Broadband Internet - all we had was dial-up.
GPS Navigation - we used an Atlas that was usually lost in the trunk of our car.
iPod / iPhone - cell phones didn't even have cameras on them yet.
Google - although it was being worked on, most people used Yahoo and Netscape.
WiFi - again, all we had was dial-up.

Get the point?

This was just off the top of my head. Wow! How the world has changed.

Which is why I do not chase technology in my tech class, instead, I focus on skills. Skills like creativity and innovation are timeless and do not expire. Teaching a child to be creative and innovative will get them employed no matter what the latest technology is.  Which is why you will hear me say over and over again in my workshops that we need to teach skills and not technology.