The Promise of Emerging Technologies

I am trying something new today. The hyperlink below should get us to YouTube and an item called the ISchool Initiative. Try to cut and paste the link below to your browser and access the site. Then watch the short video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KgAcx_9jU

Now that you viewed the clip, what do you think?

The reason for sharing this with all of you is obvious(as per the video). As an educational institution, public schools in America are changing ever so slowly in order to adopt to the emerging new technologies driving today's society. Too slowly, perhaps. With state budgets shrinking dramatically public schools are pressed to extract additional savings from existing budgets. With technology accelerating the rate of information that our youth will need to absorb and learn schools face a huge dilemma. How can we meet the new demands of a global learning community with ever-shrinking resources?

The solution: There appears to be untapped potential when we explore the proliferation of cell phones and handheld devices regarding access to the internet and computing capacity of such devices for educational purposes.

The video was very clear on the power of eductional applications embedded in these handheld "computing devices". Let's face it, cell phones have evolved into very powerful devices that rival laptops and netbooks in their ability to run multiple platforms and operating systems such as Windows. The audio and video, texting, interactive applications and internet capacity of today's cell phones make them attractive alternatives to traditional school pc's and laptops. Cell phones are far more powerful than the last generation of cell phones and light years away from the original ones released in the mid 1990's.

Cell phones may just be viable alternatives and true computer options for schools. The facts bear out the notion that mobile technologies demonstrate enormous untapped educational potential for schools and for teaching today's generation of youth brought up on these technologies. The development of modern applications have allowed more hands on engagement replacing what was traditionally accomplished with pen and pencil with animation and color, audio and video, in more depth and complexity than ever before. If school teachers and educational professionals are able to capitalize on the quantity and quality of applications that have made it into the learning environment then the students of today's schools may experience interactive education that is much more relevant to their learning styles.

There perhaps is no device more prevalent that plays a more active role in the lives of youth than cell phones. When we develop the capability and capacity to utilize mobile solutions, students will be able to download assignments, research related documents, explore teacher-created podcasts and galleries, contribute to an expansive knowledge base, retreive feedback and evaluative (formative) data from teachers, and collaborate in a real-time learning environment 24/7. Now we just need to get America's teachers to do the same.

This is in my opinion the new curve and cutting edge of teaching and learning for the 21st century and our schools must explore the revolution that emerging technologies are creating for young learners. If we fail to embrace cost effective and efficient ways to deliver enhanced curriculum and participative educational engagement to our youth then we may just fail ourselves in this new technological century of global possibilities.