One technology
that I find interesting but I believe will not take off is the Game
Based learning. I don't believe this will take off in the direction
that people think it has because we have had game based learning for
a long period of time already. But I do believe that mobile devices
and electronic books will provide to be very useful in the class
room. Just like you would integrate study habits into your schedule
if you implement the class work into the students mobile devices then
it is much easier for them to assimilate the class and their life.
How often to people check their phones? How often are they online?
How often are they on facebook? If you tie the classroom to facebook
via a group or class discussion you have an instant connection with
the student. You have brought the class to their life. The gesture
based hardware is a great addition but I don't know if we have seen
the potential of it yet. Just the studies and experiements that
people have been able to do with the kinect. An example is as
follows; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWmVrfjDCyw
. It will take someone really creative to break new ground and do
something that we haven't even thought of yet. Also we have to keep
in mind that our technology has been growing at a faster rate in the
past 100 years, the amount of information available now is
incredible. So in some ways we have become difficult to impress with
the amount of information that we are subjected to on a daily basis.
Most peoples phone's are smarter than the computer that I had when I
grew up.
It is an
exciting time in education and the world in general in regards to
technology but we would have a hard time estimating on what people
will come up with next.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ
here is another example of a wii remote that is hacked to turn into
a very cheap multi-touch whiteboard.
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I posted this answer to a discussion question from my class because I think it embodies a bigger question or way of looking at technology in the classroom. What is next? I don't think anyone can answer that. But! I think we can ask, "what do we have available and how can we use it?" This, to me, is how we take the next step. Or "what do we want to accomplish?". Anything to think outside of the box and have distance education and traditional education take the next step.
-Matt
