For this week, I decided to find an article that has to do with the progress of educational technology over the years. This is an article that dates the technology back to the 1600's. I thought it was really interesting to see how the technology has been improved with time. It was also really funny to see how the designs of older inventions influenced more recent designs and functions. The coolest early invention I feel is the Magic Lantern. I thought that the Magic Lantern had obvious influences on projectors now and even the most current use of an interactive white board. What do you all think is the most interesting educational tool? How do you think it has impacted future technology?
http://edudemic.com/2011/04/classroom-technology/
Nice find Kelly! I enjoyed reading this and the visuals helped a lot too. I find it interesting that many of these devices aren't electronic. I think of ed. tech. as being electronic devices exclusively and yet just look at the pencil. To answer your question, I think the calculator is probably the most interesting and relevant piece of technology for education because of its mobility, power, and ease of use. The calculator really is a mini computer and back in the 70's my mom got a $200 calculator to calculate her grades saving MUCH time in the process. But also, the tool has been of great use by all classes of people including scientists, students, and business people. Overall, as technology evolves and innovates we are definitely reaping the benefits. For one last example of cutting edge technology check out Google's new glasses called Project Glass
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4
A little more research show that this video should be taken very lightly. It's a concept video and apparently it's not quite a reality yet. Here's an article on it:
Deletehttp://www.pcworld.com/article/253404/google_glasses_all_hype_or_reality.html
That is so funny that your mom bought her first calculator for $200 dollars and now you can get a pocket calculator for free. I do have to agree with you that the calculator has really improved our efficiency when it comes to computing math problems. Especially when you think how people used to calculate logarithms and I can't imagine always doing long division!
ReplyDeleteI was surprised that the slate was not an older teaching tool. As a student in Ed Tech it is very interesting to think about what kind of technologies will be in the very near future, like the glasses Eric linked to. When I was getting my BA in the 90's I was among the first undergraduates at Ohio State to get an email address but was quickly discouraged when I found out how long it took me to connect to my mailbox from a network. Now I am doing this program completely online.
ReplyDeleteThese made me laugh really hard! I found myself completely engrossed in reading about these. Thanks for sharing Kelly! Here are a couple of my reactions to some of these tools:
ReplyDelete1. Check out the magic lantern-can you imagine if we still used things like that? We'd waste so much instructional time!
2. Some teachers in my building still talk about the mimeograph...time to retire?
3. Some of our computer labs still have the headphones from the 1950's. Wow we are behind!
4. I already don't have enough room in my classroom-what would i do with a TV from 1958?
5. Scantron machine! hahah!!
Wow! these are so neat to look at....I called my mom right away to see how many of these she remembered! She died laughing too! It's amazing to see how far we have come.
Here are some sites I found about some ideas for the future:
http://techblog.cosmobc.com/2011/05/23/future-tech-ideas-4/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dNc5rft4eY
This was so interesting and really made me realize just how far we have come with educational technology tools. Man we have truly advanced. I thought the most interesting piece of technology is definitely the smart board (interactive board). I have used one of these in an internship that I had last summer and I thought they were really impressive. Especially when you are brainstorming ideas or giving presentations. They are pretty incredible. I was truly amazed by the capabilities.
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