Here is what I learned in ECMP today, and my thoughts on each topic:
#1 Smart Phones
Phones are getting smarter and much more practical. Some people seem to think that phones are going to see a rapid increase in technology and use, and that our desktop computers are going to see a rapid decline in use and practicality. Google, which was once known to us as a simple search engine, has now embarked in the cell phone market, and they are succeeding. Google phones are one of the ’smartest’ phones on the market right now. One of the more interesting applications is the Google maps navigation, or ‘Google street view’ which is like a GPS/navigation system for your car but it actually shows you the street that your driving on by connecting to a magnet on the cars phone dock. Maybe if I were tech savvy enough to figure out how to use the Google phone (and rich enough to afford it), I may actually try to use it someday. Who knows it may very well come in handy.
While I’m on the topic of phones I’d like to enlighten everyone to something cool I discovered this weekend. There’s an anonymous person in the city of Regina who is doing a service to its citizens by notifying people about stop checks, police radar, backed up traffic, car accidents etc. Everything that may inconvenience your driving in the city, this anonymous tipper let’s you know almost as soon as something happens. You text your name and number to this 306 number, and you are added to their ‘list’ and will receive notifications right away. Definitely saved me some inconvenience this weekend.
#2 ‘Cloud’ Computing/Technology
Basically the ‘cloud’ is space on the web where we store our stuff (for lack of a better word). When something isn’t stored or saved on your computer it’s up in “the cloud”. One such example of this technology is dropbox.com, where you can have the same file across all the computers you are using to work or share this file. Again, neat stuff.
#3 Geo Tagging
Sorry to say I didn’t fully grasp this concept. I think it’s something along the lines of, if your posting something on a website you are able to tag yourself geographically so that people know where you’re posting from (don’t quote me on that one). I look forward to seeing how this technology could be used in the classroom someday.
# 4 Open Content /Open Courseware
Favourite topic of interest for the day right here! The concept behind open content is no textbooks. That’s right students, NO TEXTBOOKS! Instead of textbooks, all the course content is put online, and for free. FREE! MIT is one of the University’s ahead of the game for using open content. Stanford on iTunes is another example. Basically you can download class lectures from your professors on iTunes, so if you miss a class it’s available to you there. Even people who aren’t students can download entire courses worth of classes. I truly wish the U of R had something like this. How much do I spend on textbooks each semester? Hundreds of dollars, and so by the time I graduate I will have thousands of dollars worth of textbooks and little to no use for them. Not to mention, how many textbooks I bought and seldom used. If more University’s had this technology, more people could afford to attend [at least some] classes. Students have enough expenses as is, if we eliminated the cost of textbooks, that would relieve at least one added stress off our shoulders. Can I get a Hallelujah for open courseware?
#5 eBooks
eBooks, such as Kindle are turning books into technology. Basically, you read books on a computer-like device the size of a book. You buy your books online for cheaper than an actual book, and your eBook stores them all, saving you money and space. This would be fantastic technology to incorporate into the classroom. There would never be a limited number of textbooks. If textbooks are digital, you can have as many copies as you need and you don’t have to worry about losing copies etc. In a perfect world all schools would have eBooks.
#6 Augmented Reality
By far, the coolest thing I learned in this lecture. I’m not sure how well I will be at explaining this technology but I’ll do my best. Augmented reality is to “superimpose a virtual reality on top of another reality”. In the video we watched in class it was described as “simple technology that will change the way we see the world”. For instance, Books in 3d where images leap off the page; storytelling will never be the same again. I mean not just books, but whole classrooms are could be transformed with this kind of technology. Augmented Reality has all kinds of interactive tools (revolutionized computers) that could in essence, change the way children learn. As teachers we are learning that children learn in different ways. It’s fair to say that if children are engaged, and maybe even having fun, they are more apt to learn. Let’s get this technology in our classrooms NOW! Again, only in a perfect world right? Will augmented reality ever be a part of the everyday real world? In Regina, probably not for a long time.
#7 Gesture Based Technology/Computing
Gesture based technology is best described as hands on technology, like computers you touch such as the Microsoft Light Table, which is a computer screen table (i.e. Microsoft Second Light) which responds to multiple points of interaction, and can be touched [with two fingers for example] to rotate and expand. It allows projection through the screen, which means it can magnify the digital screen so that you can actually view a different image than is being projected by the computer. Another great tool we could use in the classroom, absolutely.
#8 Personal Web
Personal Web is the whole idea of your digital footprint and because we have personalized our web (i.e. through Twitter and Facebook) we can also search the all of what is happening, right now. We can now do a search that deals with what’s happening at any particular moment or “Real Time Search”, as opposed to news that happened hours ago. Real time news may not be as ‘nice’ to read, but it can be superior to actual news in many other ways. Check out Spezify, see for yourself.
#9 Virtual Worlds (Second Life)
Second life is a 3D virtual world, where people create Avatars and interact in this other world. There are definitely some people who use this technology for reasons that are un-educational, so if you’re going to use it, use Teen Second Life, a much safer version of the technology. How could we use this in education? Well Regina public has their own island they are developing, for example. Even NASA has their own island where people can actually learn educational things. It’s tough to know if this kind of technology is actually safe to use with children. It raises some ethical issues, such as adults who use the program to dress up as children, and can engage in perverse fantasies. As a teacher, I would be sceptical to introduce my students to such a program. The barrier between the perverse world and educational world can be very close, so you’d just have to use it with extreme caution. However, one thing I learnt about this technology that I found really inspiring was how people with impaired motor skills can make use of it. For example, there’s a man who doesn’t have use of his fine motor skills, that created a bar on Second Life called “wheelies”. The bar is place where he and others with handicaps can dance. For many individuals with the desire to dance, but who physically cannot dance, Second Life is a place where they can possibly feel more themselves than in real life. So the lesson learned here is that technologies like Second Life, which at a glance may seem unsafe and impractical aren’t without their benefits.
Thanks for reading.
