Emerging Technologies

Desktop Video Conferencing http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr120.shtml

I feel that Desktop Video Conferencing will greatly affect classrooms, as this will help students receive more diverse views of people their age. Students only need a camera and a connection to the internet to get connected. This type of conferencing can help people learn more about areas around them and experts that may be unable to visit one’s school. For example, if students wanted to view animals and talk to a zoo expert, they may not have to go to the zoo; instead, they could do this via video conferencing.
For my future students, I feel that I will have one more tool at my disposal. This will help my students receive more viewpoints that can be direct conversations. My students will be able to communicate verbally and visually with other students around the country or world. As long as my the program being used is safe, I feel this will greatly help the students diversify their information they receive. I also think that it would be a different to do this with elementary students, perhaps this would work better if I was a junior high teacher.

E-books http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march03/diaz/03diaz.html
E-books in the classroom would be an added benefit; however, it would have some drawbacks. The mains drawback would be that students would not actually read the information they might simply to a search on the page by pushing “ctrl-f” or something similar. I feel that students can skim books, but at least they are receiving some information, whereas an e-book would let the computer do the skimming. Other than this drawback, there are many benefits to e-books. First, the costs would be less. With lower costs on textbooks, districts could order more books, thus enriching a student’s exposure to diversified information.
As a teacher, I feel this would definitely have merit in the classroom. I feel that my classroom would work well with this software if there was an available source of computers and e-books for the students to use. This could also work well for my students to have independent study, as there may not be enough computers for the students to use. If students were at home, then this would help students, as they would not need to carry a textbook to and from class.

Virtual Reality in the Classroom http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/shaffer.htm
Using Virtual Reality in the classroom in a classroom can help students greatly as they have the opportunity to learn a subject that involves more of their senses. In the typical classroom, it can be difficult to involve auditory, visual, and kinesthetic students all into one lesson, but in a virtual reality, this can be possible. Students will receive a more interactive classroom that will help them learn in many subjects, including math, English, and others.
When I teach students, this will help include students that may not work well with direct instruction or group projects. Additionally, it may be more realistic for students to receive a virtual reality of certain settings than a textbook picture. For example, student may be learning about the moon, and a virtual reality would be more helpful than looking at photographs and reading about the topic. My students would receive more direct learning with virtual reality.