Red Queens?

The movie rental business is what could be referred to as a “Red Queen.” Competition to control the market share has produced myriad innovations, including: in home delivery, video on demand, streaming video, and hybrid models. For instance, I was required to view a movie for on of my courses and within one day I was able to obtain a copy, view it, and then mail it back to Netflix. The low comparative price and convenience of Netflix has made it one of the best innovations for home entertainment in the past few years. Additionally, many television shows are also available to be viewed and for a small price, less than a cable subscription, one can watch programs from HBO, Showtime, or Starz whenever they would like.

Video on demand is the next wave for the VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray rhyme. As the popularity of mobile devices grows, so to does the need to develop the technology to make one’s media catalog portable as well. Even though free alternatives in the form of YouTube and Hulu among others are available, video on demand is of higher quality and has a larger selection of content. The vast storage capability of home computers and mobile devices makes the need to store data on a CD or DVD impractical.

I find myself watching movies that I would not otherwise go to see in the theater (or want to be seen renting at a video store), because of all the options available through Netflix and the internet. In a sense, Netflix and video on demand has rekindled my love of movies and with the ability to provide feedback, has recommended movies based on my preferences that I may not have seen otherwise. I see the next wave of technology along this vein as the competition becomes more intense as a service that allows users to watch movies the moment they are released in the theaters, effectively making movie going an experience rather than a necessity.

Disruptive Tech: SL and its Potential as a Learning Medium

How do we reinvent the landscape of education? We limit ourselves as educators by relying on textbooks and other static technologies. To fully realize the learning power of collaboration and immersive environments educators at all levels can harness the disruptive technology inherent in Second Life (SL). Not only does SL enable a student to experience learning in exotic locales, it also provides a learning medium that is perfectly suited for connectivist pedagogy (Thomas, 2010). With a small investment of resources an interested educator could create a learning space for students throughout the world, thus opening their sphere of influence and developing cross-cultural exchanges.

Though not specifically created for education, SL is a world where individuals can effectively “live” beyond their physical self. Someone who has a disability that limits his or her movement in real life (IRL) can visit places in vivid detail that may otherwise be out of reach; or enable a person with hearing impairment to communicate without the need of an interpreter or any special applications. Artists and designers can create works of art and sell their wares in SL’s virtual economy. One can even have a job in SL and transfer their earnings IRL and make a decent living doing so. In the decade or so that SL has been in existence it has established a new frontier for virtual worlds and helped to create a place for Residents to shape in whatever way they choose (Linden Research, n.d.).

Second Life is not a perfect platform for education and much of its content is tailored towards adult audiences, though a separate “grid” exists for teens. Also, the educator who chooses to use SL has to have a fair amount of technical knowledge and SL is not nearly as stable as it needs to be for daily instructional events. Despite some of the drawbacks, SL is setting the standard for the way instructional design may look in the future and altering the way we think about developing the necessary skills for students to be successful in the Digital Age. SL still has a few years before it is outmoded by a more reliable platform combined with the functionality of realistic 3D technology.


References

Linden Research, Inc. (n.d.). About Linden Lab. Retrieved April 28, 2010 from, http://lindenlab.com/about

Thomas, H. (2010). Learning spaces, learning environments and the dis‘placement’ of learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(3), 502-511. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00974.x.

Rhyming and Sharing

I think back to the wonder of kindergarten show-and-tell and how sharing a new discovery not only made me feel proud, but also helped me to understand the world a little bit more. Sharing for me was more centralized and I could only reach a few other kids within my immediate sphere. Now, I could get on the phone and call someone (if I had their number) and talk about my new discovery, but it was hard for them to visualize its appeal without seeing it firsthand. As I got older, I was able to use a Polaroid camera to capture a picture and share it with my friends and mail it to some family members, which was handy even though it took a long time to get feedback. In the mid 1990s Technology began to advance to a degree that I could now email or text someone a message and receive a response in seconds, even while I lived in Germany. Asynchronously, I could visit a discussion board to ask or answer questions and receive a response from literally anyone in the world. I could chat with someone in real time about any topic that was of particular interest to me. After awhile, I could even take a picture, scan it, and then send it to anyone in the world—this revelation was amazing and enabled me to learn and share more with others than any other time in my life.

Now technology has advanced to the degree where we can share anything, from the banal to the revolutionary in split seconds and added to the world collective memory. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are simple tools that have provided a platform from which to connect with one another and communicate.

The recurring rhyme in technology that I connect most with is tools to share with others. From smart phones to 3-D video conferencing systems, we are constantly improving on how we share and collaborate with each other. As Kelly (2007) foresees an interconnected web that shares all information with any end user, I see a level of sharing that is unprecedented in scale. Regardless of the type of information, whether personal of commercial, the notion of separate countries will begin to dissolve and a renewed global community will emerge.

Reference
Kelly, K. (2007, December). The next 5,000 days of the Web [Speech]. Speech delivered at the EG 2007 Conference, Los Angeles. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

The Internet or An Amalgam of the Past

Long before Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the internet, or even the telephone a technology emerged that would revolutionize communication. The technology which clustered from the telephone and telegraph: the fax machine. A fax machine used existing telephone lines to transmit data constructed from a scanned document to a receiver which in turn created a copy or facsimile of the document. The telephone allowed people to verbally communicate over vast distances and the fax machine added the ability to share written documents or pictures. Fax machines were not without their limitations and eventually, after the advent of the computer, a method for sharing computerized documents as well as other forms of information was developed.

Fax Machine
Enhances: Communication
Obsoletes: Telegraph
Retrieves: Document sharing and collaboration
Reverses: a system that allows for sharing video

ARPANET was developed to allow multiple users to network computers and share information. What began as a military program (like many great innovations), slowly grew into a technology that revolutionized communication. ARPANET allowed for the quick access of research and data which enabled scientists to collaborate and arguably promulgated more thorough scientific inquiry. However, to be used as a tool to grow commerce and develop a global community, ARPANET needed to evolve into something that anyone could use to share and access information.

ARPANET
Enhances: Communication/collaboration
Obsoletes: University libraries
Rekindles: Collaborative inquiry, research, and experimentation
Reverses: a user-friendly, less cumbersome system for networking computers

The internet is the culmination of technologies that have been developed since the printing press. The average person through unrestricted access to the internet can obtain and share nearly any kind of information in real time. From the collected works of Aristotle to Lolcats, the internet is an emerged technology that has both promoted the sharing of knowledge and created a record for future posterity. Eventually, the internet will be replaced by a more reliable and less “cluttered” version that connects users to information without the aid of a computer.

Internet
Enhances: Communication/collaboration
Obsoletes: Telephone, television, fax machine
Rekindles: Exploration and knowledge generation
Reverses: a more reliable system that connects people without computers

After reflecting on these three tetrads, I can see that the current internet has only been possible by the development of many technologies dating back centuries. Chains and clusters can be drawn from innovations that I had not thought of before analyzing the precursors to the internet.

Emerged Tech: Document Cameras and Scanners

Document cameras with LCD projectors (doc cams) are the bridge to getting veteran teacher technophobes to integrate technology into the classroom. By replacing the overhead projector of yore, the document camera upgrades the teacher’s ability to share materials without having to make copies on transparencies. Doc cams have a full compliment of functions that render the overhead obsolete, including the ability to zoom in or capture images. Universities are embracing the document camera as an essential part of meeting the needs of student technophiles (Gray & Erb, 2009). Additionally, using a document camera is not as intimidating to the new adopter as an interactive whiteboard due to its relatively simple set up and improved portability. Initially, cost was a limiting factor for document cameras, though as the technology improves and as competition for market share increases, prices are reaching levels comparable to the older illumination projectors.

Many models of document cameras are available, including those that include a projection system. The doc cam is a perfect compliment to the LCD or other display and can even be linked to a web cam for distance learning programs. Though the display for the doc cam may change to include flat-panel systems in classrooms as noted by Thornburg (2009), the ability to capture real time video and text makes the doc cam an invaluable tool in the 21^st century classroom. The elements that will enable the doc cam to completely outmode the overhead projector are: increased portability, decreased cost of maintenance, and efforts by schools to minimize waste. Though the overall technology will continue to improve, the concept of the document camera will become an established innovation within the next few years.

References

Gray, K., & Erb, R.. (2009). College technology 'catching up' with students. Retrieved March 18, 2010 from, http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-10-05-college-technology_N.htm

Thornburg, D. D. (2009). Current trends in educational technology. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.

Reflection: 1950s through the 1970s in Education (original post 2/21/10)

Please view my reflection and post any comments you may have. Thank you

Abstract

Social change is necessary to promote innovation and a holistic view of educational technology. Beginning in the 1950s, educational technology developed three main paradigms that would not have been possible if segregation was allowed to continue. Three decades are examined to show how each strand of society has influenced educational technology and created the diverse learning environments of the modern classroom.

Reflection: How Social Change Affects Educational Technology

Changes in education and technology occur more rapidly in the 21st century than in decades past, though most innovations are reflections of previous discoveries. In the years since the 1950s both politics and the view of the individual have shaped educational technology in a multitude of ways. The most crucial decades for developing modern educational practice occurred in the years between 1950 and 1980. Each of these decades will be examined to provide insight as to how each strand in Toffler’s Wave Theory (Toffler, 1980) has affected the development of educational technology.

Crux of Change

The 1950s introduced many new ways of viewing the individual and his or her process of learning. Building upon previous theories of visual instruction, and its subsequent decline, psychologists began developing new ways to understand how to develop desired behaviors. Prior to this decade, education was largely a passive activity for the majority of American students, which is evidenced by the popularity of behaviorism and the departure from Dewey’s progressive ideas (Saettler, 2004). Educators and policy makers were not unified in a way that promoted open and constructive dialogue and large portions of the population were still segregated by race or exceptionality. Because of the focus on passive learning and the lack of equality in education, this time could be viewed as an infancy period for instructional technology. However, with the advent of computers technology began to surge forward and usher in the Information Age.

Civil rights were important to creating social change, especially in the South. Promulgated by a new public understanding of the contributions of minority Americans in WWII and legislation that legitimized the role of each member of society, the American public began to come together as a more cohesive whole. Even after Brown v. Board of Education segregation and racism were common in school settings, but due to the collective will and determination of a brave few both education and equality began to improve. Technological developments and the rise of the Soviet Union created both the platform and motivation to further the sciences and the will to move forward as a union.

Moving Forward

As American society began to better understand the worth of individuals and the importance of a just society, psychologists and scholars began to look at the human mind in different ways. No longer was the individual a passive participant in learning; in play were important cognitive processes that were beginning to be understood due to the development of computer models (Saettler, 2004). No longer were educators and researchers purely dedicated to behaviorist principles and a new paradigm began to emerge with the aid the introduction of Piaget’s research on cognitive development to the American research community.
The break from behaviorism was based primarily on the introduction of learning models that promoted the idea of memory and decision making based on a multitude of non-environmental factors. Two divergent models of education presented how the delivery of curricula should be approached: Bruner’s model that promoted the teacher as central to the delivery of curricula and the behaviorist model that promoted a “teacher-proof” model of instructional design (Graham, 2005; Saettler, 2004). As a result of this rivalry between the role of the teacher and the value of the curriculum, research on methods of instruction and cognition began to flourish (Saettler, 2004). New models of memory and learning began to take shape and the “complacency” model of public schooling from the previous decades was coming to an end with the passage of a landmark educational reform on the heels of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) promoted equitable education by providing federal funding for low-income schools and those that served high numbers of minority students. Arguably one of the most important and significant pieces of federal legislation, ESEA provided the impetus and funding to ensure the desegregation and equal education of all students.

Standing Still, then Surging

The previous two decades created many opportunities for Americans and provided educational equity in many ways due in part to the efforts of the Civil Rights movement. Universities were providing teachers with the best instructional practices and methodology than at any other time in the 20th century and the public was eager to compete in a growing world economy (Graham, 2005; Toffler, 1980). The election of Nixon in 1968 considerably slowed the efforts of the previous decade and several decisions by the Supreme Court slowed the advancement of equal education (Graham, 2005).
During the 1970s, the public became aware of previous failures to integrate schools and provide equal accessibility to students with special needs. Previous models of learning and instruction were directed towards the “normal” cognitive development of students and as such did not explicitly prescribe interventions to enable a special needs student the chance to succeed. After Nixon left office legislation that promoted an awareness of the unique needs of students was enacted and by 1978 all schools were required to provide free and fair education to all students, regardless of disability (Graham, 2005).
Two seminal books were published emerged that created a paradigm shift for education. Vygotsky and Bruner promoted a view of the individual as a part of a larger learning environment where the roles and interactions of others shape learning and behavior (Pajares, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978). The departure from Skinner and Piaget’s views of the individual further promoted and fueled research to further differentiate learning for all students. As technology promoted a view of the world that far exceeded that of previous years, Americans became cognizant of the need to be leaders in the world not only as a military and economic superpower, but also as the center of innovation for the world. At the end of the 1970s America had three major learning paradigms in place at nearly fully desegregated schools with two major educational initiatives in place; however, schools were not yet established and the next decade would consist of both scathing reports of the educational system and a rush for accountability.

Conclusion
Educational technology is not the sum of previous advances; rather, it is a product of innovation and reflection. The speed at which educational technology can be developed and implemented is dependent upon the willingness of the policymakers and the view of the individual learner. Prior to the 1960s learners were seen as passive receptacles of knowledge, then as universities became more connected and initiatives such as the Education Resources Information Center, ideas about cognition and normal stages of development began to influence instruction; as too did cooperative learning and constructivism.
Without the need for innovation and the support of the academic community social change will not occur. The Cold War and race to put an American on the moon brought about innovations that would not have been possible without technological advances and the combined efforts of a united system. Though some momentum was lost in the late 1960s, the continued development of educational technology has influenced modern instructional design and the establishment of fair and appropriate education would not have been possible without equal protection under the law.

References

Graham, P.A. (2005). Schooling America: How the public schools met the nation’s changing needs. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Pajares, F. (2004). Albert Bandura: Biographical sketch. Retrieved February 18, 2010, from http://des.emory.edu/mfp/bandurabio.html

Saettler, P. (2004). The evolution of American educational technology. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. New York: Bantam Books

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. (M. Cole, et al., Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

A Fourth Wave....(are you sure?) (original post 12/20/09)

Toffler described the changes or waves that have occurred throughout history. Prior to identifying a new wave, one must understand that our current worldview may cause even the noblest of scholars to oversimplify what Toffler identified as a Wave. Even though it may appear that we have entered a Fourth Wave, much of our advances in the past decades are consistent with those of the Third Wave which were first posited by Toffler in 1980. Despite the digital revolution and the advent of the internet, we are too mired in a dependence on exhaustible fuels and ideological conflicts to truly warrant a departure from the Third Wave. Granted, communication is arguably at its highest level and individuals are able to access and share information about any topic from the most sensitive to the absolutely banal; however, conflicts between the Second Wave and Third have not completely subsided.

The Fourth Wave, once it is truly formed, will include the development of clean and sustainable fuels which completely replace fossil fuels, a focus on a knowledge-based economic model, and a wider view of tolerance based on humanistic rather than dogmatic ideology.

A basic time line of the First Strand follows: A Fourth Wave?


Reference
Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. New York: Bantam Books.