Technology in Education Assessing Three Emerging Technologies\'

Technology in Education

Assessing Three Emerging Technologies' Contribution to Learning

There are a myriad of new technologies emerging that have the potential to completely re-order and increase the level of learning effectiveness and performance of students. With so many new technologies emerging as diverse as mobile-based learning systems on smartphones to the ability to tailor online learning systems and complete networks, the opportunities for educators to innovate has never been more full of potential. What unifies the highest performing technologies in the area of learner involvement and performance are those that allow for students to define the pace, depth and repetition possible for a given subject. All of these technologies share a common characteristic of being able to align and support learner's specific goals and objectives, creating a highly effective educational scaffolding platform in the process (Najjar, 2008). The best technologies can be quickly tailored to each individual student's needs, while also allowing for students to repeat lessons and concepts to gain greater mastery of subjects studied. The potential of these technologies to augment and increase long-term learning for students at all grade and performance levels is significant and will continue to accelerate. The three technologies included in this analysis include blogging platforms including WordPress; collaboration and information sharing platforms including Facebook, Twitter and online learning portals; and mobile platforms including tablet PCs. It is feasible all three of these technologies could be combined into a comprehensive learning platform, enabling instructors to create individualized learning plans for each student.

Blogging Technologies Revolutionizing Learning

One of the most challenging aspects of teaching complex concepts including advanced sciences and statistical analysis is to get students active and engaged in the actual process of learning. Traditional, didactic approaches to teaching these advanced topics including lecturing from a blackboard or using endless pages of PowerPoint often lead to only a small percentage of long-term learning and retention. What's needed for these more advanced subjects is the opportunity for students to practice, pace themselves with examples, and create a continual record of their progress over time.

An innovative use of blogging as a learning platform has emerged specifically for this purpose. Having courseware that is updated interactively by instructors, often with specific segments of a given blog for each level of student's learning speed and strength, creates an electronic scaffolding platform for further learning and retention (Najjar, 2008). One of the major benefits of using this technology as a means to personalize instruction and create individualized learning platforms is how quickly content can be repurposed across students and classes (Downes, 2004). Blogs are highly effective as a platform for also delivering highly interactive content including Java-based tutorials which can be delivered in the context of instructions of how to use them. The most prevalent blogging platform is WordPress, and it includes many functional tools for uploading video, digital content and can quickly be used for creating online surveys as well. All of these are essential for creating an individualized scaffolding strategy for each student to ensure they get the most out of the materials presented and attain long-term learning of valuable concepts (Najjar, 2008).

Blogging platforms are also critically important for teaching students how to create, curate, collaborate in the development of and publish their own digital content as well. The blogging platform as the catalyst of creativity is emerging as one of the most potent forces in online learning, and its contributions to long-term learning (Olofsson, Lindberg, Stodberg, 2011). Studies of successful scaffolding strategies show that the more involvement students have in the creation, curation and collaboration surrounding content, the more motivated they are to learn with long-term learning occurring at a significantly faster pace as a result (Najjar, 2008). Blogging then becomes a metaphor for collaborative learning and a foundation for creating and tailoring individualized learning strategies. Of the many technological innovations occurring today, this one shows significant potential for simplifying and streamlining learning and leading to long-term retention of core concepts.

Collaboration Platforms Including Social Networks

Students today think in terms of Facebook status updates, sharing and Twitter feeds. Social networks are also redefining the dialogue companies have with their customers, often bringing a level of clarity, communication and honesty that has never been seen before (Bernoff, Li, 2008). The egalitarian nature of communications that social networks enable are just the beginning of how potentially valuable they are for creating highly collaborative experiences for students (Custin, Barkacs, 2010). The future of collaboration platforms and social networks will be the foundation of innovation for the next generation fo educational technologies, reshaping individualized learning strategies at a level not seen before (Najjar, 2008). The customization of social networks for learning purposes is already occurring and will gather momentum as instructors create portals that behave more like Twitter or Salesforce.com's Chatter application with real-time streaming updates. The potential for distance learning using collaboration platforms based on the foundational concepts of social networks is already showing the potential to completely re-order the process and pace of learning (Custin, Barkacs, 2010). It is feasible that social networking platforms will eventually become the dominant platform for learning, encompassing both in-class and online learning sessions. The use of document repositories and the ability to quickly organize a diverse amount of content will become more refined over time, with enterprise-level search being integrated into these platforms to make information retrieval more efficient. Social networks' support of blogging platforms and the ability to index content from them is also on the roadmap at Google as is reported widely in the information technologies press today. Contextual search, another area that Google continues to invest heavily in today, will be included in private-label social networks including Google+ within two years. All of these technological advancements translate into social network-based teaching platforms being highly effective in tailoring learning strategies to individual students needs. Enabling greater collaboration will also lead to more effective long-term learning outcomes as well, with the potential of students choosing to master a given area and become global experts on them, largely as a result of the freedom to continually engage with content and collaborators in the learning process (Custin, Barkacs, 2010).