Emerging Technologies

Three emerging technologies that I believe will have a substantial impact on my classroom are desktop video conferencing, virtual classrooms, and computer based classrooms. Each of these will impact teaching, students and classroom instruction in a different way, as well as impact my classroom as I become a new teacher in schools. Before I talk about that, it is important to define each of these new technologies, and how they can be used in a classroom setting.

Desktop video conferencing is a new way to conference with video, voice, and data. This can be used in terms of parent-teacher, teacher-teacher, or teacher-administrative conferences. This could impact my future because it is less face-to-face interaction with parents, fellow teachers, and administrators. It could eliminate staff meetings, and most outside lecture tasks could be completed out of the home. On the positive side, this could make it easier to communicate with busy parents who maybe aren’t willing to come into the school. This could be a method that would make it easier to connect with those parents and inform them of their children’s struggles or successes in the classroom.

Virtual classrooms are a new, innovative type of classroom where the professor isn’t actually present in the classroom. An image of him/her is projected into the middle of the classroom, and then the professor can lecture. The professor can also see video feed of what the students are doing to make sure they are paying attention/completing necessary tasks. This could affect me personally in a few ways. Positively, it could make it so that teachers or speakers that can’t quite make it to the classroom could still virtually be there to share ideas. Negatively, it can make learning experiences less positive for students if they need teacher-student interaction. It could also decrease the need for teachers because the “best” teachers could lecture to many classrooms at once. Finally as far as short term in concerned, it would be harder to be trained/shadow a virtual teacher.

Lastly, computer based classrooms are classrooms that will primarily be based off computers. Lessons, assignments, and projects will all be completed and submitted through computers. This will affect all new teachers because there would have to be much more intensive computer training to get to this level. Also, there would not be the traditional use of the classroom anymore. Education, to this point, has been done in classrooms with students sitting at desks. Many of the most educational lessons I have learned have been sitting at a desk. This will make teachers be more creative and have to think of new ways to get important information across to students. Teachers also won’t be able to show their enthusiasm as much in subjects and lessons, which could decrease student interest.

As far as students are concerned, I think that all of these could be beneficial in moderation. However, if we completely wipe out the traditional paper and pen method of teaching it would be overall detrimental to students learning. It would greatly decrease personal interaction, and the social aspect of school would no longer exist. Ways that children learn social skills is also through schooling and interacting with peers and teachers. It could also decrease the curiosity and eagerness for learning. As I mentioned earlier, it is harder for teachers to display their passion for a subject or topic through a written explanation. This could decrease the student’s willingness to learn.

Overall, if used correctly, technologies could be beneficial in classrooms in the near future. I plan on incorporating many ideas into my classroom, but still keeping the standard way of learning. There is nothing wrong with keeping up with technology, but you need to know when to draw the line and see that it maybe isn’t exactly most beneficial for the students. By using the best of both worlds and finding a balance, I believe that students can learn to their greatest ability.