The world of learning technology is constantly changing as new
applications are introduced. What is being practiced today in teaching and
learning may be unrecognisable in a few years time.
Digital paper and electronic books, for example, could soon be on the market.
Nanotechnologies and virtual reality systems (VR)
are being developed should significantly impact upon educational practice. A
variety of forms of social (Web 2.0) software, notably wikis, e-portfolios and
'blogs, are already being widely used in education. Use the links below to find
out more:
It is very dangerous to predict the future of technology. We can certainly see
no farther than a year or so down the road. Read what people have
said about the future of communication technology:
"One day, every town in America will have its own telephone" (U.S. Mayor, 1880)
The mayor of the small town was so impressed by the new telephone technology
that he predicted its widespread use. Unfortunately, although he was correct,
and every town does have its own telephone, he was also wide of the
mark. He could not foresee that one day most of the inhabitants of the USA
would also carry one around in their pockets!! Here's another quote:
"I foresee a world market for maybe 5 computers" (Thomas Watson, IBM, 1943)
Watson was hypothesising on the basis of what he knew then. Computers were the
size of large rooms, and were extremely expensive and complex to construct. If
he had known about transistorisation,
large scale intregrated circuitry and the Internet, perhaps he would have
revised his figures upwards a little!
To see where we may be going with new technologies, it is often useful to look
back over time. The following link is an extremely useful and comprehensive
guide to the development of web based technologies and in particular, the
Internet.
A
History of the Internet
You may also like to check out the next generation of computer applications -
the kind we will be wearing in the future at:
According to Wikipedia, a
disruptive technology is "a new technological innovation, product, or
service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology in the
market, despite the fact that the disruptive technology is both radically
different than the leading technology and that it often initially performs
worse than the leading technology according to existing measures of performance".
The Internet is a classic example of a disruptive technology - it has changed
the way we live, work and do business, buy and sell, study, interact and use
our leisure time. One disruptive technology that is predicted to affect many
millions of people radically over the next few years is
Open Source Software , one example being the
Linux operating system.
Electronic Paper Project (MIT)