Emerging Instructional Technologies.
Yet another worth-while course included in the Educational Technology minor at Athens State University! This course focused on being on top emerging trends in education. It is not surprising that ALL of the current emerging trends are related to technology in some way! ED 407 introduced me to some of the most useful techniques and resources for the math classroom your students visit daily!
Minority and Horizon Reports.
The Minority Report is a film produced by Steven Spielberg in 2002. The movie is based upon an experimental crime prevention unit in the Washington D.C. police department in 2054. The unit uses the visions "pre-cogs" to predict murders, and stops the criminal before he/she commits the murder. The movie exhibits many technologies that the year 2054 might have- Spielberg actually hired a team of researchers to create 'think tanks,' which attempted to accurately predict what the world would be like in the future and what technologies we would have. The use of the think tanks provided the creators of the movie to produce a film about the future which did not have an "Inspector Gadget" tone about the future, but a realistic one. Some of the many technologies, presented in the film, which stood out to me were the digital newspapers, gesture based computing, facial recognition, and self driving cars. These predictions are already in the process of production, so the think tanks were pretty spot on! I think that these technologies will also help advance the educational world! The digital newspapers can be used in the classroom. Their ability to update continuously will provide for less space of storage, less paper wasted, and a more relevant education for your students! Gesture based computing, seen in Wii and X-box Kinect programs, can also be used in the classroom for projects- this is a great way to involve movement and benefit kinesthetic learners in the classroom! The facial recognition and self-driving vehicle technology will help improve the safety of our building! If facial recognition were used for access to the building, then only persons who are allowed access can enter; thus, keeping your students safer! The self-driving cars will also keep the drop-off lines and parking lots safe, as they are programmed to prevent accidents! All-in-all, the technologies predicted, which are well on their way to implementation, are the future of education!
The Horizon Report is an educational predictor produced by the NMC organization. The report predicts emerging technologies in education, along with their associated trends and challenges. View my presentation above on the emerging technologies predicted by the 2014 Horizon Report! If you would like to know more about the trends and challenges in this edition of the Horizon Report, you can view that presentation as well!
Programming.
If you have a student in the computer science program at our school, you already know about the fascinating abilities of coding! Programming is the language that produces algorithms, which are instructions for a computer to complete. You can program something as simple as a button on a page that opens a new window, or as complex as solving a Rubik's Cube! If you would like to take a shot at beginner level coding, check out Scratch!
Augmented Reality.
My students may not remember the show Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide (but, I'll show my age!). Cookie, Ned's best friend created these glasses that could view the world around him, recognize visuals and commands, and enhance Cookie's view with more information. No one around him knew it, but he was sporting Augmented Reality before Augmented Reality was cool!
AR is a technology that combines the physical world with the virtual world. Any device that is considered AR has camera footage of reality and access to information to enhance it! One of the many crazes of this century which exhibited an AR environment, was Pokemon Go. The app displayed a view of reality, but enhanced it with the actual Pokemon characters on the screen- as if they were walking around town. If you didn't know what AR was before, you should have gotten the idea by now!
But why is my kid's math teacher making me read about this? Because educational technology! AR is the gateway to a cutting-edge education! Your son or daughter is a digital native, and the regular world around them is not interesting. With augmented reality, we can enhance that world and open them up to a whole new way of learning (yes, even mathematics!). Have you ever needed measurements of a room to purchase paint, flooring, etc.? With AR this could be possible- so would the possibility of enhancing units in mathematics such as area, perimeter, volume, etc. !! Stay tuned for an AR story coming from a math student near you!
AR is a technology that combines the physical world with the virtual world. Any device that is considered AR has camera footage of reality and access to information to enhance it! One of the many crazes of this century which exhibited an AR environment, was Pokemon Go. The app displayed a view of reality, but enhanced it with the actual Pokemon characters on the screen- as if they were walking around town. If you didn't know what AR was before, you should have gotten the idea by now!
But why is my kid's math teacher making me read about this? Because educational technology! AR is the gateway to a cutting-edge education! Your son or daughter is a digital native, and the regular world around them is not interesting. With augmented reality, we can enhance that world and open them up to a whole new way of learning (yes, even mathematics!). Have you ever needed measurements of a room to purchase paint, flooring, etc.? With AR this could be possible- so would the possibility of enhancing units in mathematics such as area, perimeter, volume, etc. !! Stay tuned for an AR story coming from a math student near you!
Other Emerging Technologies.
There are so many technological possibilities with education, I could go on and on and on and... But I won't! I'll let your mouse pad take you where it may. Feel free to check out my presentations of some new educational trends and any of the links below on educational agents!
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