HOT TOPIC: One-to-One Computing
Volume 2, Issue 26 - March 19, 2006"Ubiquitous computing, or 1-to1 computing, is third wave in instructional technology. After mainframes came the personal computing era. Now we are morphing into ubiquitous use of technology, embedding it within our environment and the everyday tasks we complete, moving around and interacting with information and ideas incidentally. Ultimately, ubiquitous computing strives to enable devices to sense changes in their environment and to automatically adapt and act based on these changes based on user needs and preferences.
Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people. Virtual reality is primarily a horse power problem; ubiquitous computing is a very difficult integration of human factors, computer science, engineering, and social sciences. Still, one-to-one computing is taking hold on us as we speak.
Until recently, everyone assumed that educational computing required desktop computer. This assumption is quickly changing with the onslaught of laptops, PDAs, cell phones with Internet and PDA capacity, handheld computers, probeware, GIS/GPS devices and MP3/video players including the iPod. Instructional technology is going to become more portable! This week’s issue offers more than a dozen resources to make you think about the future of technology in your classroom; you may not be able to deploy these technologies tomorrow but they will be a reality in the next few years!
Enjoy!"
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