Are you kidding me? There are twenty-five THOUSAND (OK, slight exaggeration, still innumerable) trends to choose from. Every time I'm on the Internet I read about some new technology trend. It makes my head spin! No, really. I can hardly keep them straight.
Here is a list of new trends highlighted on "Pam's Instructional Technology Blog" I found just the other day:
- SafeAssign-an anti-plagiarism tool included on Blackboard
- Video coursework made by professors (a la Dr. Tutty)
- Using YouTube to teach an entire semester's class
- Amazon's portable Kindle, an ebook reader with lots of extra features
- TurningPoint Student Response Systems-instant handheld response
- Wimba Voice Tools-vocal interaction opportunities embedded on web pages
- Jing-instantly capture images and video and share it with the world
- Open University-free access to University course materials
Which brings me to the first trend I see in Educational Technology: the overwhelming nature of the field. Educational Technology includes such a mind-boggling wealth of topics, to some it is paralyzing. I see a lot of people who are overwhelmed and afraid of technology, so much so that it makes it nearly insurmountable for them to understand and learn let alone integrate it into an educational setting.
On one of my searches, I stumbled across this slideshow on SlideShare
a kind of YouTube for sharing slideshows. Of course, once you view this show, you are bombarded with all of the related presentations available for viewing.
Which actually leads me to what I see as another of the biggest trends in educational technology: the make your own media and share it with the world phenomenon. Whether with YouTube or Wimba Voice Tools, anybody can capture videos, sound, and images and share their own creations with anybody else. All they need is access. (Which is another trend we could speak about.) These tools can be valuable in delivering educational content as well as in assessing knowledge.
Finally, where would trends in Educational Technology be without the purpose for whom education began? The students.
Simply said, the students in today's quickly changing world are paramount when talking Educational Technology trends. Students today are tech saavy; they know ipods, laptops, YouTube, and more. Additionally, they will use these tools (well, probably not these tools, which will soon become obsolete) in their everyday lives. Out of necessity today's students will need to be competent in a huge variety of technology areas to be successful in the future. Many will depend on their technology saavy to earn their salary.
Check out this video to get an artistic appreciation of what I mean.
Need I say more?
4 comments:
I loved the video. The changes from when our grandparents went to school to now are huge. Of course the changes from their grandparents was also huge. I think it is important to prepare students to enter the work force who are critical thinkers, creative, and willing to continue learning, not cookie cutter robots. These are skills that can be applied to any of the up to 14 job they may hold in their lifetime.
Never mind the changes from our grandparents, let's talk about the changes from when I went to school. And I'm not even thatold. I mean, I graduated high school in 1980 (which makes me 40 something). No computers in classrooms, no cell phones, iPods. We're talking Space Invaders, here. That was BIG. I took a computer programming class my senior year. We programmed in BASIC language and ran programs on a teletype-looking computer. Sometimes we were allowed to use the fancy computer with the dot matrix printer. Oohh.
I fully agree that students need critical thinking and lifelong learning skills. I teach 2nd and 3rd graders who oftentimes get so frustrated with me because I am constantly asking them to substantiate their ideas. My favorite question: How do you know?
I love the video. I do not remember who said it but, I once heard it said that we are teaching and training students for jobs that do not currently exist. More importantly are we teaching students now for jobs that will not or do not exist? I try really hard to remember this when I am teaching. Yes, there are standards they need to learn in science, but I try to teach them so much more. I try to teach them how to think. (They can google photosynthesis if they really want to know.)
Technology has changed a lot since I was in high school almost ten years ago now. The question I ask is has school changed since then? When I was in high school we did not have cell phones, Blogs, wikis, iPods, or even the Internet. I remember getting the Internet for the first time when I was a junior in high school. Technology has changed a lot since I was in high school, but has high school changed a lot when I was in high school? I try in my classroom to make it so that it has.
Rachel, I agree with you 100 %. I heard it also (I think on another YouTube video) that we are teaching kids to prepare for jobs that do not yet exist. It probably goes without saying that today's students will be using technology in their jobs that does not even exist today. In fact, some of them will be inventing that very technology of the future.
In fact, that's the whole point. Perhaps I left it unsaid. The world of today's students is changing so rapidly that we MUST teach them to think critically, adapt to change, solve problems, and to be life-long learners. Technology -and the standards-are simply vehicles to help students master these important life skills.
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