General

Review of online colleges Major Ed-Tech Trends for 2013

This is an infographic posted on the Online Colleges website. This company’s purpose is to be a resource for students regarding online education. The infographic is based on predictions from edudemic.com and was published on January 23, 2013. The major technologies identified were:

  1. SMS
  2. Social media
  3. MOOC
  4. 3D printing
  5. digital text books
  6. virtual counseling
  7. game based learning
  8. BYOD
  9. Cloud storage
  10. open text books

Each item listed is followed by a few examples of how it can / or has been used in education.

Analysis

Pros: This gives the reader a brief overview of technologies that are predicted to expand within the educational community. The graphic and colorful nature of the article is easy to read and remember.

Cons: Due to its brevity, the article lacks several components that other trend reports have incorporated. These would include infrastructure/support/technical aspects needed to utilize the technology, data and statistics on past experiences with the technology in education (if there is any), challenges of incorporating the technology, impact on education, educators, institutions, etc.

Overall impression: I think this article is a good starting point, especially for educators in the broader community. It’s brief and to the point which is sometimes all we really want. It gives us an idea of what is out there and what to look out for. However as a learning tech specialist or venturer, the info on this page is sparse. It may be a good starting point but a much more detailed report would be more valuable. As a venturer or learning tech specialist,  further research would need to be done. I would recommend this page for anyone looking for a quick overview and will visit it again in the future for this purpose. But if I wanted to look into incorporating one of these technologies in my practice/institution or invest in it, I would look at other resources.

From onlinecolleges.net

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