Week 9 Textbook Reading Guide

The good news/bad news is the new edition of the text has eliminated the chapter on emerging technologies. But Lucy MacDonald (who created this course) developed a PowerPoint presentation to cover some concepts on this topic. So instead of additional text reading this week, I'd like you to view this:

Slide Show

Here's Lucy's list of up and coming technologies to watch for:

Networking: Watch for the wireless network. I sat in the auditorium at Reed College and they handed out laptops. From my seat in the balcony, I could get on the Internet and go to class at a very high speed. No wires attached! And there were 25 of us doing this at the same time. The secret technology is Apple's Airport wireless connections.

Here is an example of a school that was so old that the wiring was hopeless! So it went wireless: faster and cheaper!

http://www.apple.com/education/k12/imagine/hawthorn/index.html

At a conference in Bend last Fall, the keynote speaker predicted that wi-fi may be the saving grace for rural areas. He is actually working with Congress to get the US Post Office to bring the signal to rural areas to allow wireless networks in these areas!

Handhelds: I am not quite ready to wear my computer nor am I ready to read a book on a screen. But I do like my Palm Pilot and I do like having access to readings that I can select portions of and print them off.

Here is a whole site on the use of palms in the classroom called: Learning in the Palm of your hand.

http://www.handheld.hice-dev.org/index.htm

One second grade classroom is using palms with probeware to test water temperature and collect data.

One of the fun places to hear about new technologies is TECHTV, channel 294 on digital cable. If you don't have digital cable you can still access their web site. Fresh Gear is the new equipment/ gadgets area.

http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/

The next explosion will be the cell phone. I have just come back from Australia, where there is just ONE cell phone company that works all over AND there is no charge for incoming calls. You can even RENT cell phones. Actually they don't rent the phone, just the chip!! And people are "texting" all over, which changes the life style. No longer do you say call me at 5. They can call anytime. If you are in a big crowd and can't find your party, you just telephone them and they walk you through to crowd right to them!

Physics students have now figured out that they could text message the answers to the test to each other during class!!!

Sumi Das at Fresh Gear sees these cellphone trends:

• Shrinking more in size
• New Displays anticipating streaming video for videoconferencing, currently readily available in Japan. Could we do "online" lectures on your cell phone?
• Cell phone sound - now 40 polyphonic sounds + FM radio
• SMS (short messge service) now moving to MMS (multimedia message service).

http://www.techtv/freshgear/specialevents/story/0,23008,3378158,00.html

Also don't forget about calculators.Texas Instruments of calculator fame does not want to be left behind. Visit their education site to get the latest updates.

http://education.ti.com/

Visualization: There is some talk about the Web in 3 D, but you have to dowload software and it is not yet stable. The Virtual Reality stuff has been more in the game department than in the classroom. Don't expect to see much on this horizon in the classroom in the near future.

Interfaces: The advances in audio are coming more quickly than visualization. From MP3 music files to talking your emails or leaving voice mail and having it come out email or Track Star for your car. I think the biggest advances in this arena will come with cell phones in the next few years.

Now are asking even "Can a PDA really rock?"

http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,3401112,00.html

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