Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2007
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2007
Well no, not really. But it got your attention. He did manage to mention Viagra and condoms a couple of times during a keynote today.
I’m at EduComm 2007 in Anaheim CA this week where I gave a talk, “Creating Community-Oriented Learning Spaces: Using Second Life in the Classroom”. This morning David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times, delivered his key note speech in which he listed off five technologies that he thinks educators should watch.
1. VOIP
2. TV on demand
3. Hi-Def
4. RFID
5. Web 2.0 – participatory web
Now, I like David Pogue. He’s a fellow Dummies author, really the king of the Dummies, and his column and tv show, “It’s Geek to Me,” are some of my favorites. And though he was funny and well informed, I felt like Pogue held back. Maybe your reaction to his list was like mine: “Well, duh!” It would be a good list if it were a year or two old but come on, David, you know more than this. My guess is that Pogue assumed that educators aren’t as techy and that he should cover only larger generalized categories of technology. If you were to make your list of five technologies to watch in the next year what would be on your list?
I agree with Pogue about VOIP. Telephone lines simply aren’t the commodity they used to be. At least not for carrying phone calls. It’s all about data now. It doesn’t matter if it’s data for a picture, data for a phone call, or data for a video. All bits are the same and this means the death of the LAN line.
Web 2.0 is certainly a technology to watch but it’s such a generic term that it doesn’t really direct our attention to any specific movement. Rather, I’d direct us to watch social, immersive, and participatory web technologies which are my #2, #3, and #4.
Last, but not least, I’d say we should watch mobile technologies and wearable computers. The implications of having the power of a desktop in our pockets goes far beyond phone calls and text messages. Technology that allows us to learn and work anywhere will change the ways businesses and universities work and the way we see students and classrooms.
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I enjoyed reading your post and since I like scandalous dish, the title certainly provoked me to click – although I would have anyway!
In response to the speaker implying that teachers may not be very techie, I disagree with him. I’m in my mid thirties and teach Supervision and Leadership online to second year college students. I designed a management role-play simulation to deploy in Second Life (SL) for my students. Out of 25 students, only three signed up. Out of the three, only one had a computer robust enough to handle SL. What surprised me most was the total disinterest from my students! I promoted the heck out of this project, posted screen shots, provided links to the SL website and SL resources, and told them how cool it is, etc, etc. Not one of my students ever made it beyond Orientation Island. My reaction to SL the first time I logged in was total awe! I don’t think I did much for the first four months of my virtual birth expect explore SL.
My students just didn’t get it and I was disappointed by the reaction. I’m aware of many educators who use SL quite successfully as a teaching tool such as you and Beth Ritter-Guth and many others. I am wondering if it’s because I teach online?
The other issue that some of my students reported to me was that their computers couldn’t handle SL. The college I teach for set up Second Campus in SL. They haven’t opened it yet because they can’t figure out how to effectively solve technology limitations, such as students not having fast enough computers with better graphics cards.
I would love to incorporate SL and other tools, such as Twitter, wiki’s, and blogs into my MGT 337 curriculum and it’s not for my lack of technical savvy.
I enjoyed your post, Sarah!