Students will explore educationally significant emerging technologies and will examine aspects of change in education . Students will be provided opportunities to develop frameworks for handling technology selection and implementation, absorption of new pedagogies, sustainable change, and emerging challenges in education. Using a Gamified Learning Environment, students will select topics to investigate applications, benefits and challenges inherent in specific emerging technology and pedagogy deployment.
We could jump around as we pleased but I was very quickly attracted to the Emerging Technologies quests. As I read through many of the articles, I wanted to create something that displayed all my findings in an organized way. I created this Prezi! I chose the categories by what I found to be the most interesting in education now. In each section, you will find a description of what it is exactly, a video and some readings.
As I started reading through all the articles that were provided to us, I was ecstatic about the direction that schools are moving. Creating this piece of evidence was actually a little overwhelming at times! There is so much out there that I was discovering that I couldn't decide what to share. I actually had a really difficult time putting limits on what to include.
There is something about these emerging technologies that really drew me in. I am often the first to try out a new product to see how it might improve my work or life so this project brought that passion into the classrooms of fellow educators and I got to see just a glimpse of what the future is going to look like.
I know many of you will not have time to go through every aspect of my presentation so pick and choose ones that interest you then you too might get inspired to explore ones that you have not ever thought about using in the classroom. If you are to watch any video at all, my suggestion would be the introduction video in the first bubble. It is an amazing video that brings to us a vision of what the future could look like in a typical classroom very soon.
Reflection to Support Evidence
I am currently a non practicing teacher and the tools that teachers have at their fingertips completely took over my curiosity and had me wanting to get back into a school environment. I knew that schools were using tablets and cloud computing and such, but to the extent that teachers can use the emerging technologies to facilitate individual learning in students is endless and truly inspiring.
There was a moment during this project that was a stand out moment for me. I was watching the videos and thinking to myself
"I have only been out of teaching for 2 years. How come I have never seen any of these things in action?"
Yes, we all know technology is moving at a rapid rate but I do not believe that all of these things have come in the last 2 years. This question that kept running through my mind was very upsetting to me. How come teachers are not taking advantage of all the tools out there? Are they so stuck in their old ways that they don't want to try new things? Is it a lack of training? Could it be because they are simply happy with how their classrooms are running now so why change?
I have been pondering this for a while now and I unfortunately do not have an answer to this huge question. Because of this course, and this project in particular, I would like to find out what the problem really is. I am going to ask the tough question of teachers and try to help inspire them in whatever way possible. I want all educators to be as excited as I am about the awesomeness of technology in the classroom. Maybe they will find my prezi online and they too will choose to take a leap into the technological era of education.
OLTD 509 "Choose Your Own Adventure" Blog
OLTD Program Learning Outcome Addressed
Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to emerging technologies.
Evidence to Support Outcome
As I was learning throughout this course, I created several blogs to respond to articles that I had read. They fell into three categories:
Amidst the many choices we had to read were blogs, scholarly articles, journals and more. The best way I thought to organize my reflections on these articles were in these blogs. As I read though the articles, there was always something that made me reflect on my own personal experiences and encouraged my academic growth. The best part about this assignment was that our professor gave us the option to read the articles that we were interested in and to respond in a very personal way! Not only was I learning about the future of education, I could respond in a way that I am comfortable with and that allowed me to express myself in my most natural form. The professor approached this assignment in the most fair way possible and I think a lot of educators can learn from this.. I know I did!
The articles themselves were all based on technology and where it is taking the education system. Some were about struggles but most of the ones I read were about all the cool things that teachers are doing with their students to bring them into the future of learning. To be honest, they were so diverse that the best way to really understand my findings and my personal reflections is to go ahead and read them.
Here is a list of my favorites if you only have time for a few:
This assignment (or choice of assignments) was excellent for a masters program. Having the "Choose Your Own Adventure" type of learning was ideal for a student like me. I personally have a very difficult time relating to materials that I am not interested in and thus need to drag myself through assignments if they are required. I loved the gamified learning and the freedom of applying yourself when you could rather than as dictated by a professor as well as the ability to choose your own direction.
This choose you own adventure format is a tool that I am definitely going to take into my professional teaching career. I believe that if educators are given choice, they are more apt to apply themselves as I am. To share knowledge with other educators is very important to me and I have been looking for a way to do it in an organized way. I think this might just be it!