With so many emerging technologies being developed and rolled out, it seems impossible to keep up. Well, it is! So what is one to do? There are many great tools to help with this. Personally, I use tools like Twitter and Netvibes, and peruse through various online blogs and even the Apple App store looking for new and innovative technologies that I might find useful.

With Twitter, I follow individuals who I feel are leaders in educational technology. They in turn are connected to many other educational technology professionals, and together we form of community of learners who share resources with each other. I must say that I know very few of these individuals, but they have provided me with a wealth of knowledge and led me to many great tools, research and other interesting reads.

Using a tool like Netvibes and Flipboard on my iPad, I have information pushed to me, information on topics that I’m interested in learning about. I also subscribe to information from various technology sites that I read on a regular basis.

My favorite is the Apple App Store where I spend hours perusing through the thousands of applications. looking for applications that will help me to do my work more efficiently. I must have downloaded hundreds of apps, both free and paid that I use for both work and school. These tools have helped me to do some work faster and better, and enabled me to do some work in new ways. Those are what I would consider more of the emerging technologies.

Dean’s reflections:
I was unable to dedicate a lot of time to attend TCC this year and had to attend sessions while also trying to do work. I did have TweetDeck running in the background along with Growl, which prompted me every time a new tweet came in. So, in a way, I was able to follow many of the sessions through the tweets of my fellow classmates. This helped. I have been using twitter for a couple of years now, and find that my most active tweeting has been when I have been at conferences, anxious to share what I learned with the rest of my team back in Hawaii. I found that I wasn’t as motivated to tweet the TCC Conference this year. Maybe it was because I was distracted, or maybe because the conference was virtual and I felt like I was already online? Perhaps, I didn’t want to keep switching screens to tweet and didn’t want to send tweets from my phone either. Whatever the case, I found that I had to force myself to tweet.

I love Twitter and my experience has been very positive. At work, we’ve used it for professional development, for tech support and for building a sense of community. Our team is scattered throughout the campus and on our two neighbor island campuses and staying in touch with Twitter has been powerful. Much like our exploration of social presence in Second Life, Twitter also provides this sense of social presence or ambient awareness.

Just created a story on storify.com. Cool site to tell your story using twitter feeds, YouTube, google, etc. Here’ my first creation. Took all of 5 minutes to do.

http://storify.com/techtiki/what-is-21st-century-learning

Powerful tool with so much potential.

dean

I haven’t read any of the augmented reality articles yet; however, I have read quite a bit of articles on augmented reality and feel that it has great potential in education. I believe with the proliferation of smart phones and tablets that augmented reality applications will become more and more common. I have used a couple of augmented reality applications like Wikitude and Starmap and am impressed by its capabilities. Wikitude is an application on the iPhone that overlays landmarks and other points of interests over a live image from your camera. Starmap is an application that allows you to identify star constellations as you hold your iPhone to the sky. Augmented reality applications provide flexible learning experiences and allows one to explore and learn in a way that is different from merely viewing a computer screen or looking at a textbook.

I believe we have only begun to scratch the surface with augmented reality and I am excited to see how this technology will mature and impact education in the years to come.

Okay, I’ve been using Dragon Dictate 2.0 for the last week and I’m actually getting used to typing with speech. I’m finding that speaking into the computer is starting to feel more natural. I think there are longer pauses; however, I’d be interested to see if overall I can talk into the computer quicker than I can type.

One of things that we’ve been talking about at work is the cloud. Similar to our discussion on social media, I believe we really need to start addressing how the cloud will impact education and the work environment. What we’re finding is that many staff use tools like Evernote and Dropbox to take notes and store files online. As we are faced with eDiscovery concerns we must address how we deal with staff who use these tools. Similar to a talk I gave a few years back telling administrators and faculty that kids are no longer just consumers of information––they are now producers of information, our staff are no longer confined to the tools that we provide them. What implications does this have on our learning and our work environment?

This is my first post using Dragon Dictate 2.0. I must say that this is a whole new experience to express my thoughts on paper (or in this case in my blog) strictly using my voice. I know that voice-recognition software is not considered an emerging technology; however, I do think that speaking my thoughts versus typing them on my blog is a very new concept. One of the features that Dragon Dictate touts is the fact that we can speak much faster than we can type; however, at this point I’m not sure that this is true. I’m finding that it’s taking me much longer to express my thoughts on my blog using voice versus using the keyboard.

What I’m really interested in knowing is whether or not what I speak is the same as what I write. I’m finding that as I’m speaking into the microphone that I’m doing it in chunks of words versus speaking entire sentences. I find that I’m having a much easier time speaking into the microphone when I imagine myself conversing with someone else. I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that it seems pretty weird talking to my computer. It seems much more natural to interact with my computer via my keyboard. In the short time that I have been using DragonDictate I find that I’m getting more and more used to using this method of inputting my thoughts and feel that with enough practice this will become natural.

One thing I’d like to experiment with is to write about a topic, once using my voice and the second time using my keyboard. I’m interested to see which method yields better results. I’m also interested in doing more research to find out which parts of the brain are used when inputting text via voice versus inputting text using a keyboard.

Standing over my post I found that I needed to make minor edits, mostly to words that were incorrectly interpreted. All in all I would say that I am confident I could get used to using speech recognition software.

Dean

It was interesting to hear how students in Japan view and use mobile technologies, and to hear about how it’s used in education there. I was a bit surprised as I thought it was much more integrated into education than it is. I always assumed that since their mobile technologies were ahead of the US that it equated to it being more infused into their education.

Besides the topics we discussed in class, the thing I really enjoyed was being a part of this “global” classroom. It’s great to see technology break down walls and provide real-time collaboration with students beyond our physical classroom. Wait, we don’t have a physical classroom–we meet online. That would be neat, if more schools required students to take online classes with students from other countries. It should be a requirement for high school graduation. How would that impact the next generation of workers and leaders? It would definitely give them a perspective they would not have otherwise. I’m convinced. We need to provide these opportunities for our students. I want my own children to experience this.

Changing the subject, but this is what I plan to do for my next post. I’m going to use Dragon Dictate for the Mac to speak my post. How is this related to our class? Well, although Dragon isn’t a new program, speaking what you would normally write is a whole different experience. It’s a whole different skill–and it takes practice. So, in that sense it is new and emerging, at least it is for me. It’s like learning how to type all over again–only now with my mouth instead of my hands. That being said, my next post might seem different, but I’m going to leave it how I say it and compare that to my previous posts which were all typed.

Our Wave:

Second Life Poll:

Links to Sites in Second Life:

Virtual Ability Island

Link to UH Classroom

Link to ISTE Island

Sandlot

Sim Teach Wiki with links to 20 great education sites

Second Life Education Resources

New Media Consortium

Second Pages

Centers for Disease Control

Wow, only one more week of class and we’re done! Our group has been working hard to complete our mock-up Hawaiian Hale (house) and learning quite a bit about building an instructional unit in Second Life in the process. Not to mention, we’ve become quite comfortable collaborating both in-world and in the real-world. I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed this class – especially the group project that we’re currently working on, and I think it’s because of the dynamics that Second Life affords. I mean, I get to work on a project with two other classmates, one who I know well in the real-world (Markieparkie) and one who I know better in-world (Konaview) than in the real world. Wait, let me think about that one for a minute. Anyway, as I process this a bit more one thing I do know is that I have enjoyed working with both, equally. Okay, here’s what I’m thinking…I would have to say that I know my relationship with both Markieparkie and Konaview are real. It’s just that we happen to be using a virtual environment (Second Life) for class and to collaborate. And this is where the lines start to get blurred for me.

I define in-world and real-world as places – both are real, but different. There are things we can do in-world that we can’t do in the real-world, and there are things we can do in the real-world that we can’t do in-world. How does this shape the relationships we establish – both in-world and in the real-world? Does it matter if we only get to meet someone through their avatar in-world, but don’t get to meet them physically in the real-world? Can we establish deep lasting friendships in-world? Could in-world friendships be even stronger than real-world friendships? If you said no, then I would have to ask, “Aren’t they both real?” I think we’re already at a place where people live in both worlds, have friends in both worlds – basically they invest themselves in both worlds.

I wonder if we’ll ever see a shift where people begin spending more time in-world than in the real world? Okay, I know we can’t physically remove ourselves from the real-world, but we can emotionally. So, I conclude that in-world and real-world are both real places where we can invest ourselves emotionally and with our time, two real and tangible things. So what’s virtual?

Okay, one last thought before I call it a night. Second Life is a virtual world, right? But it does exist, right? So let me ask again, what is virtual? I know, some of you have all these questions answered already, but for me, I need to ponder on these things.