While I am fortunate enough to work in an environment where most of our necessities are provided for us, sometimes teachers can dream — especially in the middle of summer break.

Before I start, let me put the word “dream” in context: My “dream” house is a giant 3+ story tall circular complex with a glass elevator in the center of the house… and this glass elevator is completely encompassed inside of a huge aquarium filled with exotic sea creatures including sharks and giant squid.1 Something like the AquaDom in Berlin, but with WAYYY more aquarium:2

In other words: Think back to whenever your parents and/or teachers taught you to “dream big”. Then multiply by a thousand.3

So here are a few things that I wish dream that my profession would provide for us — none of which are even remotely necessary. Just like the dream house with a glass-elevator-inside-sea-world, none of these will ever happen.

A font budget

Hey, some of the nicer fonts in life aren’t free.4 Thankfully, typography has advanced to the point where there are quite the number of free fonts available — especially for educational purposes.

(If you’re thoroughly confused, see: Font Control)

An art department

Give me a group of artists that could scrounge up custom clip-art or comic illustrations on demand. Heck, a single artist would do. Especially when putting together basic tutorial videos, every now and then I’ve thought to myself something like, “Gosh I really wish I had a picture of a kid rolling a pair of pig dice!”

(A multimedia / video production team in a similar vein would be nice too…)

Unlimited supply of nice purple pens tagged with GPS trackers

(To be clear: it’s not the “purple pens” part that makes this one a “dream”.)

If you’ve been in my class, you’d understand.5 The GPS trackers / theft alarms would be for whenever a kid decides to accidentally walk off with one. My ink of choice for the classroom are the Pilot G2’s, and them things are not cheap.

Multiple 20-foot 4K video walls

Our current LCD projectors are nice. But when I review multiple versions of assignments side-by-side on the same screen, bigger screens and more pixels — for improved readability — wouldn’t hurt. 1024 by 768 is serviceable… but in practice, limited, especially when trying to show a full page of work at one time.6

3D Holographic Projectors

If you’ve seen the TV show “Bones”, that’s what I’m talking about:

While not immediately as useful in Statistics, I’ve always thought we should have something like this for modeling 3-D graphs and figures in geometry and calculus. Heck, even conic sections in Algebra II.7

And finally…

Genetic clone(s) of myself

This way, I could literally be in two (or more) places at once. Of course, one would have to deal with what to do with said genetic clone(s) when you don’t need them… but we can cross that bridge if we ever get there.8

---

Not quite “dreamy” enough

Other items that crossed my mind:

• The ability to choose our computer / laptop model for work use.9
• The ability to use Dropbox at work. Grrr.10
• Free coffee.

(I’ll stop there.)

And it is quite plausible that I add to this list at multiple points in the future.

---

In a few mere days, I depart for my annual “clear-my-head-before-the-new-season” getaway. Given the way these past couple of weeks have rolled, it couldn’t have come soon enough.

1. Hey! Seemingly ridiculous dreams give advancements in engineering a raison d’être! [↩]
2. Yes, big enough for sharks and GIANT squid! [↩]
3. Another “dream” I had as a kid was that I wanted to be the first Asian player in the NBA. That one didn’t quite pan out… something about me not being tall enough, or athletic enough, or… yeah. [↩]
4. As you can see, some cost almost as much as a smartphone! [↩]
5. I use purple pens for students to grade their own work with. Why purple? Because as a color, it is less psychologically menacing than red, and stands out more from pencil than green. [↩]
6. I gather 1080p would work decently… but that wouldn’t sufficiently put it in “dream” status. And yes, I realize that 4K screens require computers with quite beefy specs. Mac Pros for the classroom?! [↩]
7. Or is it Precal now? -_- [↩]
8. The practical fall-back would be one or more competent TA’s. Hmmmmmmm. [↩]
9. Sorry, Dell. [↩]
10. Don’t get me started on this one. [↩]