Brave New World

I believe the startling rapidity of technological advancement we are likely to see over the next decade is not necessarily a bad thing. I would hope that technology expansion throughout the modern world would make having such technologies less expensive and more available to the masses, with those who cannot afford computer technology still being able to connect with more versatile access points. I imagine all students will be able to engage with new technologies as time goes on, either with laptops or mobile devices, but this won't necessarily improve learning outcomes. I imagine that after a prolonged push to increase technology use in classrooms, government policy will scale back ICT's in schools and highlight the need for good teachers and good pedagogy. Books will still exist, but there will be more oportunities for creativity and critiquing for readers - interactive texts ("choose your own adventure"). Interactive desktops will allow students to do everything electronically (but with traditional writing still in place), with finished work automatically sorted and work for assessment sent directly to the teacher, streamlining assessment and feedback practices.

More worrying will be the continuing loss of identity with people spending so much time online, inventing, reshaping and retooling their personas that they can't really tell who they originally were anymore. Second Life will have melded with Facebook to create a one-stop avatar empire that offers everything for humans except organic nourishment. Where does science become fiction and vice versa?

It's a brave new world we are entering, but are we ready? Are teachers, students, schools, parents, politicians, universities, businesses, employees, employers ready for it? In the immortal words of Hans Solo: "I've got a bad feeling about this." Now's the time to begin preparing people for the technological horizon that's approaching, because soon being an active citizen will mean being conversant and capable with all of these technologies.

Creativity with Foksonomies (sidebar: Techno-Overload)

Some of the creative applications of folksonomies, as shown in yesterday's lecture really appeal to me as a further method for integrating learning areas. I think many students (and teachers) when they think of creativity don't immediately also think of technology. Granted there are visual art projects happening in schools, including photography production and editing, movie making, poster making. Using folksonomy providers such as Tagxedo and Word Mosaic can bridge the gap between literacy and visual art. Folksonomies also put an interesting spin on brainstorming or mind-mapping, with the added bonus of having web-content behind each key word/phrase.

In saying this I'm looking at the aesthetic applications of folksonomies, but there are also the broader need for simplifying or organising information found. The functions of Delicious, whereby you can post a description of your tag has fantastic benefits for working on annotation and note-taking skills and critical literacy skills. Likewise, using Instapaper to then go in and assess what has been written for each tag and give students constructive feedback. Instapaper could also be a good way for developing critical literacy skills and even have students review each other's online work (e.g. students use Instapaper to peer-review other people's blog postings or tag definitions). There are almost endless possibilities.

And that brings me to my next point and something I have been thinking of during the course. We've been talking about information-overload, but what about technology-overload - I feel overwhelmed by the number of tools I've been shown and their applications for classroom use. It's not that I don't want to use these tools in the classroom, it's just that I have one idea and then I find another tool that does something similiar, but takes it in a more interesting direction, then there's another tool that is more like the best of both worlds before I find yet another tool and another and another. I feel like the Ark of the Covenant has now been opened and whilst what's inside is wonderful and mesmerising, it's causing my mind to have a meltdown. I was never all that technically skilled with computer technology, so this is a major learning curb for me and I'm having to prevent myself from running away with these nifty integrated lesson ideas for fear of getting carried away with the technology.

So this again comes down to using the technology as a tool, but also knowing the limitations of my own knowledge and skills, the students' knowledge and skills, the schools resources, the context in which I'm teaching and being able to integrate the technology with a teaching style I'm comfortable with. I imagine getting this balancing act right will come with time and experience as I fiddle around with these new technologies in different contexts.

And finally, my own try at a Tagxedo cloud for my integrated unit: