- what would you say is the most influential piece of educational technology?
- what would you say is the most frustrating piece of educational technology?
- what would you say is next in the field of educational technology?
Feel free to answer one, two or all three of the questions. We look forward to your contributions!
For me, the most frustrating piece of technology is the computer at school. It has so much potential when everything works properly. You have everything planned, you want to use computers for a class or even individual student practice, and once again it is not connected online or it doesn't start up right, or, or or..... Sometimes, I end up spending so much precious time around computer issues, that I wonder if it is worth it.
ReplyDeleteJoy
Hi all
ReplyDeleteThe most frustrating piece of educational technology is the computer. When it works it is wonderful but when it doesn't well it drives me and our staff to distraction. My frustration is different from the teachers on staff. The teachers on staff sometimes get to the point where they just avoid them due to issues; the server is down, the computers are old and slow, all computers do not have the same programs loaded, I can't print, it takes forever for the techie from the board to respond. The list of frustrations is endless sometimes and overwhelming. This leads to my frustration. Teachers tend to avoid using computers and miss the opportunities the computer open up to them and their students.
Valerie Wells
I believe that the next field of Educational Technology will come in the area of expanded cloud computing. I think this links to McLuhan's idea that the medium overpowers specific content or messages (or devices imo). With cloud computing, the medium is huge and almost limitless in size, with speed, engagemnet and connectivity that is unrivaled.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Doug
At this point I would say that the most influential piece of educational technology is also the most frustrating: the computer. When I say computer I include the fact that it access the Internet and has a variety of educational programs installed on it (or at least has the ability to access such programs).
ReplyDeleteTechnology is a wonderful thing...when it works. The current problem with computers is that although they grant access to so many possibilities and sources of information, they spend an immense amount of time requiring fixing. I say this because, most often, the computers that are being utilized are not the newest or most up to date, rather they are what was affordable a few years ago. With this difficulty they cause frustration from speed, crashing, connection issues and other things.
When these issues are resolved, computers can help people of all ages to utilize technology successfully and to learn from it. The information that can be obtained from them is incredible, you just need to ensure that they work first!
-Meggan
I'd agree with Doug that what is coming next (or the piece of what is already here that will grow the fastest) is something like cloud technology - or other technologies where things are stored and accessed online rather than on the home computer for access from anywhere. Along with this growth will come changes and concerns that will need to be solved in the areas of:
ReplyDelete1. Privacy/security - who has access to the information that we store online and what will they do with it?
2. Copyright/ownership/legal issues as remixing rather than creating from scratch becomes more and more prevalent. I was interested and intrigued by one of the discussion threads in Vista (sorry - can't remember to whom to give credit!) where they related hyperlinks in online documents to in-text citing in written documents.
Thanks DLG 6 for the thoughtful questions and great presentation,
Janet