Blog 14 – Reflect on the Future of the Web
We had a very good presentation and discussion from Darren Savage (Joint Head of Strategy at Publicis London) on the future of the web. It featured many interesting things about where the web could be taken in the future from smart textiles to wearables. For an education purpose, I liked the sound of estimotes or BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacons.
These are plastic bluetooth stickers that can broadcast information to devices either over long or short range.
In a school this could be very short so that different areas or learning zones of the classroom can receive different information enabling a differentiation for pupils. Using the tablets that the school (may/should) already have, pupils can connect to these beacons and receive specific, custom information directly. This could be primary or secondary sources for history and geography, mathematical measurements of the area or the next part of a story.
An interesting possibility could be to enable EAL pupils to translate the information instantly using their device, thereby instantly differentiating it for them. Other struggling groups can benefit from audio, video and the interactivity that comes with using the device.
Some hiccups: you need bluetooth, it will take a lot of setting up and can be potentially intrusive since it pushes information to any mobile devices within range. The biggest problem however is that you need to have a bespoke app created in order to use them so unless an education or school app has been or can be created, this may not be the product for you.
However, what this does do is give me hope for a more connected school. Much emphasis these days have been placed on the “connected home”, light switches, heating, voice activation and more are now readily available. I’m sure it won’t be long before we start to see more forward-thinking schools adopting this technology for educational purposes………
AHA!
It seems a quick Google discovers people who have obviously been trying to get this going for years. BREAKING NEWS: I did not just come up with this idea.
First of all, Samsung (at the forefront of Internet of Things….er…..things) have their own case study, check this out:
[embeddoc url=”http://www.samsung.com/global/business/business-images/resource/case-study/2013/02/Samsung_Smart_School_Brochure-0.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]
Pretty cool. Using their Galaxy Note device, they encourage ‘Interactive Teaching’ via screen sharing, screen monitoring, lock and auto launch, group activities and more.
I’m getting off topic now but THIS and THIS article are very interesting reads to get an idea of the kinds of things that could be coming!
My frustration is that both the schools that I have been on placement are so old, the classrooms need revamping and this would be the perfect chance to add some new technology in. Many things can be cabled in for some part to keep costs down. I certainly will be adding some bluetooth to my next school computer to allow me do do remote presentations with a clicker while moving around the classroom, but why should I need to buy this myself?
That’s a great idea, I read somewhere that moving around the classroom has been proven to encourage motivation and good behaviour due to the closer proximity to the teacher. I didn’t actually think that tech would enable this really easily.