A lot of my work came from me, and talking to other members of my family. I used websites as well though. The major ones I used are listed below:

Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.com  I think pretty much everyone who has used the Internet has heard of been on this website. Its not the best, but its certainly not the worst. The biggest fault would be that almost anyone can edit the information, so don’t trust it 100%. However, I checked my information with some other websites, and most of it checked in so its fine.

Wired.  http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2005/10/69138  Not a bad site, its a magazine article. however, it related to both my multitasking and futurism posts. The only problem was that it could have been biased by the writer, but after reading it didn’t look like it was, but just in case I only used the facts from it.

Media Information.    http://www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html       Gave me a fair bit of help. Is okay, but a little bit blank in some spots, and in other places a bit too thick. Apart from that, not bad.

Washington Post.    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/25/AR2007022501600.html     Sure its American, but I didn’t care. It helped with information about Teen multitasking in particular. If you take the time to read it you can learn a lot of information.

Hostile Online.  http://www.hostileonline.com      Just a quick mention here. The photo/screenshot in the multitasking post of the error in the chatbox came from Hostile Online, a free text-based RPG. Its not bad if you want to sign up.

All the information in the Old Classrooms post came from my parents, grandparents, and parents of friends. As well as some stuff I already knew, mainly because I visted Halgley Schhol Farm in Grade Six, and there was an Old Style classroom set up, and we experienced just what people then experienced.

o What is a futurist?

o Read the article called “Futurism is Dead”. Warning: This is very one-sided!

o Why are they important within the field of ICT? What benefit do they provide? Does it matter that they don’t always predict correctly?

What is a futurist? A futurist is a person who attempts to predict and analyse what will happen in the future. There are amateur futurists, who just focus on their particular area(s) of interest, and have a normal job. Professional futurists, however, make a living from futurism. The idea of futurism was pioneered by a German, Ossip K. Flechtheim, who said that if we can just determine and plot things that might happen just a decade or two into the future, we would be making valuable information for society to study. A lot of large organizations now employ futurists to try and get above their opposition about trends that will be in society in the near future. Futurists first look at past trends and historical records to see what type of trends people have previously liked, and if they have resurfaced. If they have resurfaced, were they successful or not? How well did the sales (or whatever) perform? However, futurists have to be careful about what predictions they make, mainly because of critics of futurism, plus a professional futurist could lose his or her job. After putting together their general ideas of what will happen over the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years, a futurist often engages in scenario building. This is where they form concrete scenarios and classify them on their likelihood of wether or not they will happen. For example, they could classify them as “likely”, “possible”, or “wild” scenarios. Futurists often have many other names, like a scientist who is working on nanotechnology, if he was to say that in 10 years he could have made a film that you could use to filter water in third world countries, he could be called a futurist. Basically, anyone who looks forward five years or more can be known as a futurist.

The advantage of having futurists in ICT is that they can predict things, and then ICT engineers etc can work on making their ideas happen. If we didn’t have futurists in ICT, there wouldn’t be as much work for people, in terms of inventing new things. If there were no futurists in ICT, we would move forward much more slowly. But with futurists, they predict things and people go to work on them. This means that we start working on new things, that are generally unrelated to what we currently have at the moment, but things should get better, faster, smaller and easier to use. Many people critique futurists and futurism, but it could pave the way for us. Some ideas have been really good. Imagine if people like Charles Babbage hadn’t of had ideas like making the analytical engine or the difference engine. Undoubtedly the world would be a very different place today.

A classroom 30yrs future

1. Smartboard

2. Holographic projection area

3. Stools (rise out of floor)

4. Teachers Desk (has state of art laptop)

5. Individual student cubicles (comps rise from desk when required)

6. Storage for robot aids

7. Door

8. False holographic windows (teacher chooses weather)

More detail on items in the futuristic classroom.

1. Smartboard. Smartboards will be able to display computer screens, and interact with the computer, but you can still draw on them with a normal whiteboard marker. If the teacher wishes, he/she can make the board look like a whiteboard, blackboard, a big peice of old parchment, and his/her own artistic design. When a student wants to display work to the teacher or class, they can wirelessly connect to the smartboard, as long as the teacher okays it. The students information will travel via the teacher’s laptop, but the student can control the display from their own cubicle.

2. Holographic projection area. Holographic projections will just be starting. They will only be able to be projected into a certain area, but basically anything can be projected. Just like the smartboard, students can wirelessly connect to the holographic projector, via the teachers laptop.

3. Stools. These new stools rise out of the floor for the students to sit on so that they can watch the smartboard or holograms. They simply rise out of the floor when the teacher activates a switch on her desk. Not to comfy but not to hard, these chairs can rotate 45° each direction.

4. Teachers desk. Similar to the teacher desks of today, this desk has all the neccesary things that a teacher needs. Their laptops sit in to a slight indent in the desk. The laptop can show the teacher exactly what the students are doing at their cubicles (or on their computers), as well as shutting an individual computer if required.  The teacher can also control items #6, #7, and #8. From his/her desk the teacher can also change the apperance of the classroom, making it look like a 1970′s classroom, or making the cubicles etc disappear so the room can look like a forest with dinosaurs roaming around.

5. Individual student cubicles. There is one cubicle per student, so a classroom like the one above would only be able to accomodate 20 students. Each cubicle has a desk, from which a computer monitor can rise when the student needs to do work on a computer. The cubicles have storage space for all the student books, pens etc.

6. Storage for robot aids. This is where 10 robots are stored when not in use. The robots go around and aid the indivudal students. There is one robot per two students. Each robot has programming for each student so they can assist any student at any given time. The teacher can control each robot from his/her laptop, and send them anywhere within the school boundaries if required. In the storage space each robot can recharge and have new programs/programming installed.

7. Doorway. Kinda obvious what this is. You walk into the classroom via this, and you exit the classroom via this. The teacher can lock and unlock the door remotely from their desk. In case of an emergency the teacher can seal the classroom with an explosion proof door.

8. False holographic windows (teacher chooses weather). This way a classroom can be built in a totally enclosed room. The teacher can chose if the windows appear, or if they look like a brick wall or something. Or it can be an apparent window, with the teacher chosing what appears outside, and what type of  weather it is. This is controlled from the teachers desk.

Multitasking definitions:

• Computer multitasking – the apparent simultaneous performance of two or more tasks by a computer’s central processing unit
• Media multitasking – could involve using a computer, mp3, or any other media in conjunction with another
• Human multitasking – The ability of a person to perform more than one task at the same time

(from wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitasking])
First off, is multitasking more efficent? I think it is, because I can play online games at the same time as doing my schoolwork. (Not that I would ever do that). Also I can text while listening to the teacher talk about boring stuff. (not that I do that either). Also, if I have alot of work to do I can do two different projects at once. I can listen to music while reading a book, and surf the Internet at the same time. So multitasking is more efficent if you know how to do it.

However, if you are not that great at multitasking it can easily result in errors in what you are doing.

For example, look at the fourth and fifth line in the image. Random Hunter was attempting to play two online text RPGs at once, which explains why he stuuffed up. He was meant to say “Mail Vengance”, but had copied the wrong thing from the other game, and instead said “mail Threatning Staff members in other game”. These sorts of errors are common in people with slightly lower IQ, attention spans and people who do not commonly multitask. Sometimes these errors could be serious. Say you are applying for a job by email, and at the same time you are listening to thge radio. If you don’t often multitask you could easily accidently write what the radio host is saying, which could result in your email being discarded/ignored.

Did You Know?? Research has shown that females appear to be more efficent at multitasking than males.

Computer multitasking: Computers are often multitasking. Right now as I am typing this I have Firefox, Microsoft Word, My Computer, Adobe Fireworks open, all at the same time. However, this hasn’t always been the way. The first computers were massive, slow, and unable to multitask at all. In fact, they took a long time to do just one thing. Now, however, computers often do two things at once. How many people Open more than one thing on their computer at once? A lot I reckon. It wouldn’t surprise me if soon computers are able to do dozens of things at once without slowing down.

Media Multitasking: This is quite simple really. Ever used an MP3 player while on the computer? Thats media multitasking. Or using the USB to connect the MP3 to the computer and listening to the music from the computers better speakers?? That is also media multitasking. Media Multitasking is increasingly more common, particularly amost younger people. A lot of different forms of multitasking lead off media multitasking, but I won’t go into detail here.

How has the classroom changed since your parents were at school?

When my parents were at school the classrooms would have been rather different. For one thing if they misbehaved they got the threat of the cane. No classroom would have a computer, or a TV/DVD/video. Teachers used to write on a chalkboard/blackboard. Now they use whiteboards, or even smartboards connected to the computer, or laptops for most teachers. The desks would have been doubles, so you sat next to some one else.

Nowdays most classrooms have single desks, sometimes apart, sometimes next to each other. You can sit next to your friends (usually), students expect cool graphics and moving animations, while some of the older teachers have no idea how to use a computer. Students pay more attention to their mobile phones and emails than listening to the teachers. Most students always try to complete their work on the computer, using fancy programs like Fireworks (Adobe), ect to make cool looking pictures, posters ect. What ever happened to the art of neat handwriting. A lot of teenagers now can’t spell and write properly because they always txt type in the emails 2 othr ppl. This style of writing can also b hard 4 some to udrstd. If you misbehave at high school you commonly end up with a suspension. I do not think this is an appropiate punishment, because a lot of students think suspension is more like a holiday from school.

Maybe schools should start looking at things from the past. Students in older schools always behaved, and a lot were neater writers, better spellers etc.

What are the plans for new classrooms? Will there be students sitting down at their state of the art laptops, with the teachers slowly becoming outdated? Take warning and dont let the future control us, we control the future.

Reference: All my information came from myself, my Mum and my Dad. Plus a little bit after txting my Nan and my Pop.