A Lesson in Education Technology From a Very, Very Old Tradition

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In Okinawa, Japan, ladies had been diving for pearls for over 2,000 years. Traditionally wearing best a loincloth, they could dive to depths as deep as a hundred and twenty toes to locate the oysters and mussels that produce pearls. Girls largely carried out these paintings because they could better bear the cold of the depths where they were diving (Women’s bodies distribute fat more evenly than men). The paintings became very risky, as you may assume, exposing them to predators, harsh environments, and shallow water blackouts.

In the 1960s, they were approached by a company that promoted scuba equipment. A metropolis recommend became called, and all and sundry mentioned the pros and cons of purchasing scuba gear. The organization tested that one individual with the proper gear should collect as many oysters as an entire village of ladies in an afternoon. The consequences were attractive, but they raised substantial questions, including which girls might use the equipment and how the profits could be divided. Ultimately, the decision is to reject using scuba and keep with their lifestyle.

Education Technology

Today, as they’re called, these Ama Divers dive for pearls, although largely for the gain of vacationers instead of for the pearls they gather. Even scuba divers could not compete with the improvements in the pearl subculture. Heaps of oysters can be grown in shallow depths and tricked into growing pearls in a restricted region wherein they can be harvested without problems.

So what does this ought to do with schooling? Look just about anywhere within the education industry, and you’ll locate wholesale tries to introduce a lot of generations into the lecture room as quickly as possible. Even watchdog businesses file on the college forums, which can perform the quickest to interact with these techniques. Blog after weblog extols the virtues of employing the present-day technological masterpiece, while slower individuals are regarded as archaic and anachronistic. Some programs have proper empirical statistics to back them up; many do no longer. Some packages are evolved with the aid of amazing humans for altruistic reasons; however, many are being promoted with new non-income, which might be little extra than shells for huge corporations who stand to make fortunes if their particular generation turns into the brand new popular.

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With all the hype and hyperbole flying around right now, it’s almost impossible to find a voice that will ask the hard questions about whether or not those technologies make the accurate experience. Unlike the Japanese Ama Divers, few metropolis council meetings forget what makes the experience and what does not. One of the motives the Common Core standards, precise as they may be, are becoming so resistant at the grassroots level is because the proponents have A) used a top-down technique, and B) have not been completely imminent approximately who the stakeholders are and who will profit when those technologies are adopted.

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Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with developing something new and creating an income from it; it is the American way. However, using wholesome political contributions to get the help of legislators in bellwether states in the alternative for support for brand-spanking new programs is sincerely much less perfect.

This doesn’t imply we need to be reactionary; it is just a way to examine the new technology that might be introduced, checking the validity of their claims carefully before we purchase them. It also doesn’t suggest we reject a promising new generation because the divers did if that era can produce higher results at a lower value. It suggests that teachers, mothers, and fathers alike must ask the requisite inquiries to ensure we become the first-class bag for the greenback.

Future Possibilities – Education Technology

Tradition

Individuals in global enterprises have been using the strength of computers and handhelds for years. The academic community has started to utilize this equipment in their colleges. Many teachers have begun to apply laptops and handhelds to create lessons and determine scholar achievement. Students with exceptionalities also use laptops and handhelds to help them study.

The destiny should have each scholar and a team of workers sporting a laptop or handheld device during the day. This phenomenon is already taking place in most post-secondary institutions. Because the cost of those technologies is dropping, it is more likely that every scholar will quickly boot up at the beginning of each educational day.

Online textbooks

The monetary burden the cost of textbooks puts on the education gadget is stunning. New textbooks are bought every couple of years, simplest to be replaced a few years later with the brand new cutting-edge book that isn’t always unique from the previous. Many organizations are beginning to create CD-ROM and online versions of their books.

In the destiny, we can, in all likelihood, discover faculty forums paying a yearly subscription to the textbooks of their choice, so one can allow their scholar to have unlimited get entry to the books through the internet or download without delay to their laptops at a fraction of the cost of providing a physical text for each scholar. Publishers need now not worry. This may not be the end of the e-book as we realize it because we all enjoy curling up with a terrific novel and love flipping through our favorite picture e-book.

Using the Experts

Watching a live feed of Elephant Seals from California is already viable, as is having college students ask questions to an on-site marine biologist. However, this may occur with greater effects and frequently inside the destiny.

Teachers could access thousands of professionals around the world and use their know-how and knowledge to teach specific topics. Students would ask questions via videoconferencing and possibly even witness live experiments and studies around the world.

Virtual Reality Experiments, Activities, and Field Trips

Virtual worlds inclusive of Second Life are beginning to make it feasible to create your very own digital self (avatar) to travel and experience the world of our online world. People are growing stores, teams, games, homes, and businesses in these virtual worlds. Even corporations and educational institutions are experimenting inside cyberspace.

In the future, an instructor may want to take their elegance on a tour of the Amazon rain woodland or the Great Barrier Reef inside our online world and allow every scholar to explore the use of their avatar. This may also appear as a way out, but trust it, or no longer; it’s miles already taking place.

Instant assessment and remarks

With laptops and handhelds, instructors are already starting to file their instant tests of college students immediately. The teachers are not most effective in filing scholar’s achievements quickly. Still, with the help of virtual instructional groups, they may deliver instant comments to the pupil, dad, mom, other teachers, and management.

Education Forbes

Extensive collaboration has already begun worldwide as students communicate with others around the sector through electronic mail, video conferencing, and on-the-spot messaging. Many collaborative projects are also taking place in the form of online collaborative websites, realized as wikis. These websites permit anybody who has permission to add and edit the website’s records. The most popular wiki, Wikipedia, is used by many net surfers today.

Education

The destiny possibilities of world collaboration are mind-boggling. Students analyzing Africa will be teleconferencing with a schoolroom of youngsters in Botswana. A student writing an essay on the Holocaust should have an immediate message conversation with a Holocaust survivor. An Art lesson on Picasso ought to begin with a question and solution period along with his granddaughter. This is not very far-fetched as many universities used those varieties of technologies to enhance their lectures and packages.

Streamlined Administration

Departments of training and college boards are starting to comprehend the strength of streamlining educational records. Marks, studying levels, scientific history, achievements, learning disabilities, attendance, and many other important student statistics are starting to be compiled into streamlined databases to assist educators in better understanding their college students and customizing their classes to improve success.

The Future is Now

Although many of those techniques are available today and are starting to be used in a few lecture rooms around the sector, they offer us an idea of where we’re heading. Educators and administrators need to keep in mind that we must ensure that we preserve the art and human issues in schooling and not let the generation and ourselves turn it into specific technological know-how that suffocates creativity and specific teaching patterns. The opportunities are limitless. We need the creativity and willingness to include these new tools.