Before reading Chapter 31 “Emerging Instructional Technologies: The Near Future” I had never heard of some of the new technology advances. This chapter proved to be a real eye opener for me as an educator. As technology rapidly advances, one must wonder what the future holds. I thought that as long as humans continued to have children, my job would always be secure. However, advanced technologies such as technology-based training, smartcards, electronic training jackets, and cognitive science are evolving at a pace that as educators our choices are to accept, embrace or hope that our jobs will not phase out.
Out of all the technology advances, I was most fascinated with advance performance tracking. The authors used an example of a person trying to improve their tennis serve. According to the authors using an advanced performance tracking system, a person would be able to slip into a leotard type suit that covers their body from head to toe. The suit would be made of an intricate electric grid that transmits body position and movement information to a personal computer. The PC is attached to a flat 3-D panel display system. This system provides verbal and visual feedback after you have actually served the ball a few times. This type of tracking could be useful in many settings. As a young 3’s teacher, I was amazed at how many students’ gross motor skills were not well developed. The thought of a technology tool that could help access and aide in the development of motor skills would benefit many students. This tool could also be helpful to athletes. As a basketball fan of Shaquel O’Neal, this tool could help him with free-throw shots. However, I still wonder about the side-effects of such tools. Would this be medically safe for the human body? Prior to using such tools, more research must be conducted to ensure that we are not destroying our bodies.
Even though technology is on the cutting edge and new creation and advancements are phenomenon, I ponder over the questions of what happens to human interaction when there is a technology glitch or a computer hacker gains access to important documents. Can your identity be erased or changed? Can others access you personal health information? Can human socialization be a thing of the past? As technology advances, things such as privacy, ethics and human interaction should highly be taken into consideration.
My overall experience in this course has been great. I have really enjoyed all of the assignments and projects. I must say that Blogger and Google Maps are my favorites by far. I have successfully introduced blogging to my coworkers and they are starting to use blogger to post monthly newsletters. During the presidential election, Google maps helped us to keep track of both candidates’ locations. I have shown some of the upper elementary teachers how to incorporate Google maps into their geography lessons. Even though, my current students are too young to benefit from some of the new technology tools I have learned, other teachers have informed me that they appreciate me sharing the technology tools learned.
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In my opinion, there is no need to worry about an educators job being phased out. The computers and mechanical devices will never be able to encourage a student like a teacher can. Think about how your students respond when you put a smiley face on their papers or you give out a compliment or any of the other positive things all teachers do a million times a day. No machine will ever be able to match that.
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