New and Emerging Technologies

The course “New and Emerging Technologies” has introduced me to a few of the technologies that I either wasn’t aware of, or that I would never have made use of in the context of education.

As an example of an online technology that I knew about, but would never have considered as having educational value before taking this course, I would present SecondLife. This free educational technology is modeled after online gaming applications. I know that lots of my students participate in online gaming. My son even does so. First-hand, I know that kids (and adults) will spend literally hours on these games, trying to overcome “obstacles” to attain “goals.” Why, I have always asked myself, would anyone want to dedicate so much of their time to “succeeding” in a virtual environment (which is, after all, nothing but zeros and ones, in the binary sense!) having little or nothing to do with reality? According to Gee (2005) there are sixteen good reasons, all of which can be associated with valid learning principles. They are

(1) Identity (learner takes on new identity: e.g. physicist, biologist)
(2) Interaction (learning is not a passive process)
(3) Production (learners are producers, not just consumers)
(4) Risk taking (learners are willing to try new things, regardless of potential failure)
(5) Customization (learners like to customize a context to fit their learning style)
(6) Agency (learners like to feel in control and have a sense of ownership)
(7) Well-order problems (if problem space is too complex, students will find creative solutions to problems, but will NOT be able to build on that solution in further problems, thereby necessitating order and levels of mastery)
(8) Challenge and Consolidation (learn something new, practice and master it-- consolidate it, then build up on it to meet a new challenge)
(9) “Just in time” and “On demand” (learn details IN context, when needed, or just in time—not out of context and prior to actual need for usage)
(10) Situated meanings (word should be defined in terms of actions, images and dialogues, rather than in the traditional words for words, out of context definitions)
(11) Pleasantly frustrating (learning should occur at the outer edge of competence”
(12) System thinking (learning should encourage thinking in terms of relationships, rather than in terms of isolated events, facts and skills)
(13) Explore, think laterally, explore (learning should encourage thorough lateral exploration rather than linear and rapid progression)
(14) Smart tools and Distributed knowledge (multiple learners pool their skills, knowledge and tools to solve collaborative problems)
(15) Cross-functional teams (learners specialize, but know enough about other learners’ skills that they can collaborate smoothly through integration and coordination)
(16) Performance before competence (learners can perform actions before they gain competence—this is how one “learns by experience” after all)

In light of these sixteen traits—which Gee goes on to state can be used even in the traditional learning environment—I am convinced that SecondLife or some other virtual multu-user environment could be used in a very productive and engaging way to bring 21st century teaching-learning techniques into my curriculum.

As an example of a technology that was completely unknown to me, I’ll describe “Smart Objects” in the context of the Horizon Report (Levine and Smith, 2009). Smart objects are real, physical objects, which have electronic tags on them which have coded traits, characteristics and functions which can be scanned into a virtual environment, and be made to interact in a “smart” way with other smart objects and the virtual environment itself. A scanner, and software to make and encode the desired virtual properties of the physical object, and a platform for creating a virtual environment, are all that is needed. Smart objects, I think, could be used in many creative and engaging ways, in many different courses, to actually incorporate real objects into an interactive virtual environment.

These are only two of the Horizon Report ‘s enumerated emerging technologies. There are many more in the 2009 report, and I am sure that there are many on the way. The fact that I wasn’t aware of the potential (or even existence) of these technologies has further demonstrated to me the need to keep up with the burgeoning growth of these technologies and their applications to education through the use of online peer collaboration, RSS readers, and reading the educational literature.

References:

Gee, J. P. (2005). Good video games and good learning. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 85(2), 33–37.

Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., & Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.