No tags yet.
The article that I researched this past week refers to the future of instructional technology in the college environment. The authors (2010) discuss how two decades ago, many colleges across the country went through a transformation. Colleges suddenly realized that they needed to prepare their students and faculty for a changing society in the field of technology. Computers and technology classes needed to be provided, but many colleges did not have the budget in place for it.
Today, you are hard pressed to go on any college campus without having computers in every library, classroom, student recreation center or tutoring hub. WiFi hotspots are in the cafeteria so that students and faculty can continue their work even while eating. Pence and McIntosh (2010) spoke of how mobile learning and social networking are going to be the next trends that take over higher institutions.
I found this article extremely interesting, given that it was written 8 years ago. Social media and mobile learning have completely taken over! At Texas A & M Commerce, most of the graduate programs are 100% online. Social media, in the form of blogs, twitter, wikis or Instagram are becoming a part of school requirements for graded work. Future employers are even starting to ask how big of a Twitter following you have to see if you are an educational influencer. I feel that this trend is only going to continue in most educational institutions. As our society becomes more and more dependent on technology, social media and mobile learning will become more of the norm. I predict that five years in the future we will start seeing a huge surge of students attending online classes in middle and high school. Sitting down in a traditional classroom in a school will become a thing of the past.
References:
Pence, H. E., & McIntosh, S. (2010). Refocusing the vision: The future of instructional technology. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 39(2), 173-179. doi:10.2190/ET.39.2.g