What is Technology ?

Before I start this assignment it is important to know did I get the technology right..?

So far I understood as the technology makes our lives easy. Found a great simple  video created by tony montez (found thought searching what is technology ..? )

Now you should understand what is educational Technology..?

There are so many definitions or explanation for Ed Tech... reading most of them I understood ed Tech has key words...and looking at the following Youtube where it explains some of Old and new educational technologies..I re-confirmed the knowledge I already have. Key word combinations are as follows..
Design
Development
Application
Evaluation  of
Systems and Techniques
To improve the process of human learning

Current Education Technologies in terms of the assignment ...

As we were given some examples of current educational technologies..as following
I thought I should look for more current educational technologies as mention technologies are not in my interest other than Khan Academy.


New Media Consortium (NMC) 's latest research efforts, the NMC Horizon Report: 2013 K-12 Edition and the NMC Horizon Report: 2013 Higher Education Edition, were released , and together highlight ten emerging technologies that will impact education over the course of the next five years:

Current education Technology I choose - MOOC

Before I start explaining the MOOC - I want you to have a look at this video which explains with a pretty good angle. This video is handpicked out of many explanation of MOOCs, because the simple and logical nature of the explanation.
Let me take you with point by point in MOOC -
  • What do you think are some of this technology’s goals? 
The specific goal of the MOOC is yet to discover, I think when Andrew Ng & Dephanie brought Coursera they were claiming that the world need to be able to access and use the content free. For those who can not afford to go to colleges and Universities should be given chance ect..

Which is very true unless otherwise the accessibility and the engagement is free, I would not have had a chance to change my life being in a developing country.

  • What does the user “do” when s/he uses the technology?

Users are given chance to igain knowledge via content & interaction, it is up to the learner to desice the engagement level in a MOOC course. as aa frequent user of this technology I think Most of the time what I use was the content, the multicultural interaction and the resources and sometime the lifelong network of connection with same interest community.

  • Does the technology direct the learner toward a specific goal or is it more open-ended?
In most of the MOOC courses it takes the learner toward a well structured course content with well structured activity plan with well structured evaluation plan.


  • How does it seek to engage and/or motivate the learner?
I would say the earlier MOOCs are ofte crowed and do not feel live or engagive, but introducing more tools and technologies to communication and connect making the MOOCs more motivated to learn.


  • How might the learner learn from it?
Learner is given chance to enroll for free or pay a very low amount to get the Authenticity certified by the course.
Then give the chance to access the Content, Materials, interactions via forum, FB ect.. students learn with their own pase.


Part II of the assignment- Technologies used in early days..

Before I start to reflect my memory of technologies used in my young age I thought is it better to view the technologies used in history. Following video contain the technologies used from BC ages, and it fascinating how they have used the technologies to address their goal of learning and teaching.
Reflecting back my memory of the technology we used in our education was I would say so typical but sometimes engagive. The books , telephone, TV, Radio everything addressed the common audience.

I remember we use to explain the learning with other students impersonating the teacher, which was a very good technique to confirmation to the knowledge acquired during the real teachers delivery.

But the real technology before the Cris was explained in Bhudist Philosophy. They were using learn by experiencing method. Learn by practice. Always embraced the critical thinking and creative thinking. Please look at the link provided - it is fascinating they were practicing project base or inquiry base techniques. Please click on the picture for more explanation from the source.
  • Who was/is its intended primary audience?

The technologies such as Books , TV ,Radio and many more did not specifically address particular target but it is very common to everyone. I think that was one of the draw back of the ed techs in the past, and yet we sometimes follow the same. We have to be able to target and personalize the experience.

  • What were/are its goals?
The primary goals were highly aimed in teaching than learning component in individual perspective or collaborative perspective. If you look at this video, I can not believe we had a age like that.. and it is scary to see that we were not able to talk while we were learning. But by then it was normal and we did not see any bad of it. But we find some versions of the simillar systems in our world still , specially in developing countries like ours,

Teaching is so batch processed. Exam Certification orient that competence base.

  • Based on your personal experiences with it, did the technology meet its goals? Why or why not? 
Let us take the technology chalk broad  - the goal is to teach and learn - did it deliver its goals  ? In my opinion it was delivered as long as it provided with the engagement with the teacher and the student.

Sometime back the books - it is intended to provide knowledge- all these technologies will be handy if we use it or experience it effectively. My personal expereince of books were effective when I read and discuss with someone else about the book. Just reading your self did not helped me at all. I wanted to share it with someone.


  • Did it have other potentially unintentional effects (either positive or negative)? 

    The chalk board and the book were my technologies, I think chalk board did not allow us to  practise what we learn. The teacher was always in charge of it. We were not allowed to touch it. I think it framed our mind to think beyond the learning goals. We were not able to critically think other than being master slave relationship.

Part III of the Assignment  - Comparison of old and new education technologies

I have chosen BOOK and Chalk Board for old technologies and MOOCs for new Technologies.
  • Are their approaches similar or divergent?
They are completely divergent approaches. The whole goal of gaining knowledge from earlier technology was so passive and the MOOC I see as active.


  • Pick one aspect of the experience across both technologies and contrast them.
Let me take the aspects such a engagement - Chalk board did not support me to experience the learning by my self. I was just passively looking at it and coping it to my book.  If the chalk board was given for me to teach some other students in the class or if we were assigned groups and asked to do own projects than just coping what teacher wrote, we will be able to think critically more than ever.

If you take MOOC,( Not all the courses in MOOC facilitate this) we were given a chance to create knowledge, and compare with others, peer assignment is one of the important process as I think which we benchmark our selves.

  • How do they compare? Did you find one more engaging? More thought-provoking? More memorable? More playful or structured?  More motivating?
All the featured in MOOC I found more engaging, More thought-provoking, More memorable, More playful or structured, More motivating

Lets take one by one

1. Video Lectures - I found it every easy as I can view the lectures when & where I can where chalk board force me to be there, being a mom of two babies I would not be able to access education if I was in chalk board era.

2. Assessment - I love the peer graded assignments.it is an opportunity to see how others have done the similar work and we benchmark our selves.

3. Forum - Though this feature need to be more human centered , but I I enjoy conversations which interest me , more with the multicultural nature.

Please have  look at this Slides from George Siemens MOOCs perspective which gives insightful information about the learning in MOOC -
  • Why do you think this is the case for you? Is it likely the case for other users as well?
Because I think not the books , not the chalk board which made me who I am now. It is the educational community around MOOCs made me to create synthesize, practice the learning which I experience now.

We are no longer passive listeners, but active creators. MOOCs gave us a community where this knowledge can be heard compared and open to feedback where we can gain and improve more.

As you can see this web is a great example of how I decide to exchange my experience and open it to the feedback where in the technologies of earlier days I would not be able to do and without the MOOC I would not find interest community easily to share what I have learn and to have great feedback.


Finally let me take you to one of my tweet quote... I love it each time I read..

Some more helpful links

Acknowledging  Tessie Hargrove  for sharing valuable content and explanations of Computer Science Education 
http://www.smartscholar.com/computer-science-guide/