Technology trends do not exist in isolation.  We must decide what combination of the trend will drive the most innovation and strategies – Gartner.

My own experience using AR, VR and Wearable Tech involves my day to day activity.  I have never used any of the listed trends throughout my teaching career to deliver a lesson.  All exposure involves my leisure activities such as playing games – “Pokemon,” the usage of social media app. – “snapchat,” and through the visitation of museums.

However, I do believe that AR, VR and Wearable Tech can be beneficial within the classroom environment.  Augmented Reality (AR), can help make classes more interactive and allows learners to focus more on practice instead of just theory.  It can turn our ordinary, curriculum based classrooms into an engaging, fun filling experience.  As AR adds virtual objects to the real world, it lets students train skills using physical devices and foster better retrieval of information that they have learnt.  Practice by doing has always been considered “one of the most effective methods” of learning, as it moves information from short-term to long memory (Gleb, B. 2019).  Its usage is also versatile within education.  There is no limit to a particular subject, age group or educational level.

Virtual Reality (VR) is very effective within the learning environment as well.  It places individuals inside an experience. Instead of viewing a screen in front of them, students are engaged and able to interact with 3D worlds. This is achieved by the simulation of as many senses as possible, such as vision, hearing, touch, and even smell, the computer is transformed into a gatekeeper to this artificial world. The only limits to near-real VR experiences are the availability of content and cheap computing power.  Reflecting on this course, my VR experience within education was first experienced in week six of this course, where we were engaged in “Alternative Learning Space – Second Life.”  It was very frustrating for me to master this learning space, but I am positive that proper training and more practice of this learning trend can be beneficial within my classroom.

Wearable tech in my opinion is quite remarkable, but at this stage I only see it beneficial for me for exercising purposes.  I am yet to see how it could be incorporated in the elementary level of the education system.

These exposure to future trend is pretty awesome and I am very much interested in the many different ways in which it can be used to enhance my teaching/learning experience.

Reference

Augmented Reality. (n.d.). Retrieved July 15, 2018 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

Brownlee, M. (2015, March 27). Virtual reality: Explained! [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/i4Zt3JZejbg

Crampin, T. (2015, April 24). Wearable technology in education [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ec4m0hH2H2w