Reflections based on video “Technology’s long tail” by Chris Anderson. Applications to Education.

In this reflection I am going to apply the idea of the 4 stages of technology that Chris Anderson mentions in his video to Educational Technology.

1) Critical price. Technology in Education used to be a dream for some schools with a very wealthy budget. Nowadays there are possibilities within any budget.

2)    Critical mass. Due to the above many schools now provide easy access to technology. The critical mass number is not because of the number of schools using technology, but for the number of students.

3)    Displacement of another technology. I can think of many “old technologies” that are being displaced and I am happy about the change. One is the use of online videos, displacing the VCR use, limited to use in the classroom (now expanded to the flipped classroom). Another one is the traditional textbook. I believe that its use has already changed, and with the development of online collaboration platforms it will be soon put to a second stage. Traditional books lack of dynamic updates and dynamic fast links to multimedia presentations/demonstrations/investigations/worksheets. I can also think of many technologies that are being displaced that I am not sure about. One of them is the traditional notebook. Students now use computers to take notes and do exercises and I think that this limits students thinking and creativity.

4)    Towards freedom. Because of the critical mass of students being reached, more and more technology companies are keen to provide free technology for schools as this guarantees their future use. One example of this is google applications, which are provided for free, including some training for teachers. We should have free smartphones and tablets soon….

More here: http://www.thelongtail.com