Saturday, 6 January 2018

Emerging Technologies and improved student Learning


There are many emerging technologies but I have seen or read about few of these technologies. Artificial Intelligence, Text-to-Speech, Voice recognition, Image Recognition, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, gamification and big data are some of those emerging technologies. Artificial Intelligence is basically a machine that can perform intellectual task like humans. AI helps students as well as teachers. AI can provide a grading system that helps teachers in saving their time that they used to spend in grading a test or assignment. AI helps students in knowing their strengths and weaknesses in an assessment for example when I was searching for LMSes (Learning Management Systems) for an assignment of Role of Technology in Education, I found an India based LMS BYJU. BYJU’s LMS provide students’ strength and weaknesses in the report after taking an assessment and this is all done by AI because it can get where the students need more improvement. AI can also provide a feedback to users like we get a positive response in games when we complete a level. But we get a response that motivates us to play again if we fail a task or level. In the class, we have seen a video where a robot Sophia got the citizenship in Saudi Arabia and a guy who married to a robot. Fullan also mentioned that in near future, people will be marrying robots and this is actually happening nowadays (Fullan, Stratosphere Integrating Technology, Pedagogy, and Change Knowledge, p. 72). I also remember a news where a student, of Electrical Engineering from NUST Islamabad, developed a robot that was serving food in Multan’s restaurant. (Ahmed, 2017)
Virtual Reality is a different world apart from the real world but Augmented Reality interacts with the real world things. These technology helps in overcoming the trial and error fear because students can work in virtual lab by using this technology and they can do whatever they want because it is virtual and there will be no loss if they perform any of the experiment wrong. Its content is seems real so it is very effective but costly at the same time.
Big Data is a concept I have not read in the class but I read about it online. An example is Gmail that is providing free storage space on cloud to its users so that they can store their data online. Google docs, Google slides and Google sheets are also being developed with real time feedback by teacher or colleagues like we used it for our lesson planning and Dr. Gulab was continuously giving feedback to each student. Most of the data in Digital learning systems is on cloud storage.
We have read about the students with learning difficulties so technology is also helping such students to overcome these difficulties that they face during class time. Like in Dalarna University in Sweden, there is a system which provides assistance to students with difficulties/disabilities. If a student has a difficulty in listening then they provide an assistant that uses hand gestures to make that student understand the lecture. If a student face difficulty in notes taking then they provide recorded lectures.

Voice Recognition and Text-to-speech is an emerging technologies that are helping students with some learning difficulties. These are basically the software that are used to convert sound into text and vice versa. Such technologies are helpful if students have problem in writing and reading. These technologies can be used for best delivery of content if used properly.

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