D/B 13

What most made you say (or think) “that’s so neat!” Why?
What was your favorite activity of the semester and why?

There were many interesting things and ideas that stuck out to me from this chapter. It was funny that the technologies that I’ve seen in futuristic movies—technologies like artificial intelligence, computer micro chips implanted into human skin, and devices that scan body parts for entry or recognition of a person—are actually being researched and are expected to be a normal part of life in the near future!

Being in the Language Arts arena, I had to wonder how some of these near future technologies will apply to the language arts. It seems easy to apply them to areas that require physical movement, more hands-on work, and scientific/technology based work, but when it comes to the rules and art of reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, etc., how will these technologies be incorporated to aid learning? Perhaps some of the technologies have been tested or used in the language arts arena. The authors mention that ITS applications in the artificial intelligence area that incorporate one-on-one tutoring “have been effectively employed in a variety of content areas” (p.327). I wonder if one of them is ELA.

I could envision a device similar the “electronic training jackets” example from the text (p. 325) helping students in their public speaking techniques. Imagine wearing a body suit from head to toe, standing in front of an audience giving a speech and feeling a warming sensation arise in one of your legs or hands because you are twitching them in front of the audience, or a little beep going off in your ear each time that you say “umm,” or “like” or “and.” May be far-fetched, but it came to mind while thinking about the futuristic technology of the training jacket and application to the language arts (which includes speaking).

I also thought that the artificial intelligence future instructional system’s capabilities were pretty interesting because of the value that they could bring to education. Right now, there is one teacher in a classroom of 25+ students (sometimes up to 40 students with today’s budget cuts!) who is expected to diagnose all of the learning needs, figure out and meet the diverse learning styles and cognitive abilities of each student (and for multiple class periods throughout the day), and give one-on-one assistance to those who are struggling with whole class instruction. It’s quite something to juggle, but we do it to the best of our abilities. It would be interesting to have within our grasps, a futuristic instructional system that would assist us to “diagnose learning needs, learning aptitudes, and styles; develop instruction tailored to identified needs and aptitudes; modify the level and type of feedback and instructional strategy based on learner responses and progress; and implement best practices guidelines based on up-to-date research findings” (p. 326). Such a technology system would make a great partner in education and teaching for teachers. It would have the potential of making our jobs and student learning more efficient and individual student needs would be able to be more readily met. I do not think that computers should one day replace human teachers, nor do I think that they could fully (the human touch and ability to diagnose individual needs, moods, backgrounds and to relate to students is so important), but I think that this type of technology would be a beneficial help, support and asset to education.

I can’t help but to wonder though, especially with the recent financial and budget cuts: once these technologies do become available, will the educational system have the finances to fund them for classroom use?

Of all the activities that we’ve completed in this course, I would have to say that blogging has proved to be very beneficial to me (of course with all of the things that can be done with a blog—like posting videos, maps, images, text, etc. ) I like it most because I think that I will get a lot of use out of blogging both professionally and personally. I also really liked the social bookmarking because of the convenience of being able to store many sites in one location. This will also be very beneficial for school and personal use. I think that I will also eventually use a wiki in my classroom, but I will have to play around with its capabilities a bit more to become more comfortable with it. I know we were only told to mention one activity, but I also like the ease and effectiveness of the Google sites website creation tool.


Reiser, R. & Dempsey, J. (2007). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.