Over the past day I have stumbled across numerous articles predicting where the Web and social media will be within 5 years. Two articles that happen to stick out are, The Future of the Web: Where will it be in Five Years? and Six Social Media Trends for 2010. Both articles are very compelling in presenting where we will be and of course my next question, as an educator, is how will and when will this impact education?
Both articles happen to hint of more and more mobile uses, something I am a huge advocate of, but when will this be a viable option for education? Any educator knows that funding is one of the main problems of education and buying devices, such as Kindles, iPod Touches, and Barnes and Noble’s new Nook, is few and far between, but within a couple of years they will become more affordable. These devices will not only become more affordable because of hardware drops, but also because of the future of software and Web OS.
Apps and Web OS will be essentially free, open sourced, or cloud based. We have begun to see this on Facebook, Apple’s iPhone, and on Google’s Droid device; powerful applications and web based operating systems that cost virtually nothing thanks to advertising. Now, you might be thinking how does this apply to education? Imagine having a Google Droid based mobile device to use in the classroom that are virtually free, allow the students to use all apps, and have free cloud storage space thanks to ads, but how can this be?
What if a school was given a set of devices from Google, Amazon, Apple, or whomever it may be and has colleges and universities have a brief advertisement appear before a student uses one of it’s features? Not only will this either subsidize or offset the costs, but it will bring new technologies into the hands of our future at an earlier age. For example, a student is using an iPod Touch in the classroom and they are about to use a periodic table app in one of their chemistry classes. As soon as the app fires up a brief advertisement from a university will be played showing the student the “advantages” of attending that university. Advertisements for various universities will be random, so the students do not constantly see the same one. Essentially, the university subsidizes the cost of the app, in order for students to use it and have their ad be displayed on the device.
This idea is just a quick brainstorm of what could possibly be done, but with the direction that Web OS’ and new and improved wireless networks being deployed each day (3G and soon 4G) this seems like a viable option. Not only does this seem like a win win for everyone involved, but it also puts the latest technologies in the future of this generation to compete with the rest of the world. This could show the accountability and commitment from schools that we have always craved as educators and in return we should see the same accountability and commitment from students.
