Twitterchat

I attended the chat called #edtechchat on Wednesday evening. Participants were so many professional educators, teachers, technology directors and also technology learners like me. Excellent bloggers tweeted their own understanding or useful materials like pictures, articles and websites. Coincidently, I found a tweet from the IT director Susan M. Bearden about a question I had mentioned on my blog several days ago. The tweet was about 5 Tips for Classroom Management with Mobile Devices.

Twitterchat is beneficial for the professional development. Firstly, We can ask questions and get answers from the group and answer questions. It’s a really simple and convenient way of obtaining information for users from the network of people with same interest or focus. Secondly, through the interaction with the people we follow and our followers, we can build up our knowledge network and social circle. We may help each other to open up our eyes and see the world.

Believe it or not, the future starts now!

Thanks to the invention of the Internet, laptop, smart phone, and tablet, we’ve got faster access to online resources. Different systems, like iOS, android and windows phone, give us various operations and perspectives. More and more teaching buildings have been covered free wifi, which provides teachers and students chance to use online technology at school. We have to say technology in education has made a huge progress for human beings while it still has some problems.

Classroom of Tomorrow introduces us many advanced electronic devices and functions. It is so convenient for students in the 21^st century since they could read electronic books on iPad, search effective information quickly through siri or by scanning QR code. What’s more, teachers could use AirPlay to post information from their device to the projector and use AirDrop to send pictures instantly to the students. Those usages seem like separate steps, what we can do is to connect them into a network for learners. Combining the softwares introduced in The Networked Student with the devices mentioned above is really a practical way of using ICT (information and communication technology) smartly. More time is saved, less paper is used; students are tending to learn in an effective and environment-friendly way.

However, there are some problems to be solved for using ICT smartly. Firstly, how could school prevent students from overusing technology? Many a student might use their smart phones or tablets for entertainment during classes. How to guide and monitor them for proper usage of technology in classroom may play an important part in a student’s future. Secondly, compatibility of different systems should be considered. For instance, images, songs or applications cannot be sent between iOS and android devices. How to solve this hardware problem is also significant.

Generally, efforts from schools, teachers and students will lead ICT to a brighter direction. Believe it or not, The Future Starts Now !