Joelle Pitts is an Instructional Design Librarian and Associate Professor at Kansas State University Libraries. She is responsible for the creation and maintenance of web-based learning objects and environments aimed at improving the information literacy of the Kansas State University community. She leads the New Literacies Alliance, an inter-institutional information literacy consortium. Her research interests include distance education and e-learning theory and design, library user experience (UX), as well as the design and implementation of games-based learning environments.
Top 10 Education Technologies that Will Be Dead and Gone in the Next Decade
In our 2016 Teaching with Technology survey, faculty members offered their predictions on what the future holds for technology in teaching — including what hardware and systems will bite the dust over the next 10 years.
But it gets even more interesting when virtual and augmented reality meet the Internet of Things
when Second Life began, there was a lot of interest, but the toolset was limited — just because of the timeframe, not that the toolset wasn’t a good one for that period. But, things matured. I think it was, in particular, the ability to work in HD that improved things a lot. Then came the ability to bring in datasets — creating dashboards and ways for people to access other data that they could bring into the virtual reality experiment. I think those two things were real forces for change.
A dashboard could pop up, and you could select among several tools, and you could get a feed from somewhere on the Internet — maybe a video or a presentation. And you can use these things as you move through this hyper reality: The datasets you select can be manipulated and be part of the entire experience.
So, the hyper reality experience became deeper, richer with tools and data via the IoT; and with HD it became more real.
We can’t deny the fact that curriculum and the way we teach is becoming unbundled. Some things are going to happen online and in the virtual space, and other things will happen in the classroom. And the expense of education is going to drive how we operate. Virtual reality tools, augmented reality tools, and visualization tools can offer experiences that can be mass-produced and sent out to lots of students, machine to machine, at a lower cost. Virtual field trips and other kinds of virtual learning experiences will become much more commonplace in the next 5 years.
High Impact ePortfolio Practice and the New Digital Ecosystem
A regional ePortfolio conference jointly sponsored by AAEEBL, City University of New York and Pace University, ReBundling Higher Education will offer sessions that highlight best practices, evidence of impact, and exciting innovations.
In March, 2017, the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), the City University of New York (CUNY) and Pace University invite you to a conference exploring and discussing ePortfolio practice and its role in the future of higher education. Use the links above to review the Call for Proposals (which outlines the themes of the conference), to register for the conference or to submit a proposal.
Conference proposals are due Dec. 2, 2016, and notification will take place by January 15, 2017.
Special note: Due to recent budget cuts to NYC area colleges, registration fees will be kept to a minimum for this conference. Students (graduate or undergraduate) will be admitted free, and registration for all others will be $25, payable at the door.
In 2013, Apple bought PrimeSense, which developed motion-sensing technology in Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect gaming system. Purchases of software startups in the field, Metaio Inc. and Flyby Media Inc., followed in 2015 and 2016.
“AR can be really great, and we have been and continue to invest a lot in this,” Cook said in a July 26 conference call with analysts. “We are high on AR for the long run. We think there are great things for customers and a great commercial opportunity.”
EdSim Challenge, the competition is aimed squarely at developing students’ career and technical skills — it’s funded through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 — and calls on developers and ed tech organizations to develop concepts for “computer-generated virtual and augmented reality educational experiences that combine existing and future technologies with skill-building content and assessment. Collaboration is encouraged among the developer community to make aspects of simulations available through open source licenses and low-cost shareable components. ED is most interested in simulations that pair the engagement of commercial games with educational content that transfers academic, technical, and employability skills.”
all five finalists prizes of $50,000 to help them further develop their concepts. Finalists will also receive access to expert mentors to help with the process, along with gear and development tools, including Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy Tab S2 9.7″, Gear S3 watch and Gear VR headset, as well as an Oculus Mobile software developer kit. ED noted that other prizes may also be added later.
