Page 238 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

232 13 Emerging Issues in Educational Technology

13.1 Introduction

It is obviously true that educational technology changes, and that changes are
happening at an accelerating pace. The challenge is to make effective use of new
technologies in different learning scenarios in the twenty-first century. In this
chapter, four kinds of technologies will be discussed: learning analytics, artificial
intelligence, adaptive technologies, and wearable devices. These chosen technolo-
gies in each of these four areas are changing and likely to continue to change and
evolve for some time. It should be noticed that a technology need not be a specific
device, as a technology could be generally understood to be a systematic and
disciplined application of knowledge. Implementation issues and the likely impact
on learning and instruction of these emerging technologies are also addressed in this
chapter.

13.2 Emerging Technologies

Technologies have changed and continue to change education. For example, social
networking and digital conferencing have helped improve student–teacher and
student–student relationships and collaborative learning in some cases. Digital
game technologies and interactive simulations have also helped make some
learning situations more effective and engaged. In this chapter, we focus on the four
kinds of technologies that have demonstrated their potentials to improve learning
and instruction: learning analytics, artificial intelligence, wearable devices, and
adaptive learning.

13.2.1 Learning Analytics

In some sectors, the relatively recent emergence of big data and analytics is now
viewed as having the potential to transform economies and increase organizational
productivity (Manyika et al., 2011). Learning analytics is the measurement, col-
lection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts for under-
standing and optimizing learning and the environments in which learning occurs (see
https://tekri.athabascau.ca/analytics/). Unfortunately, educational systems—pri-
mary, secondary, and postsecondary—have made limited use of the available data to
improve teaching, learning, and learner success. Despite the field of education
lagging behind other sectors, there has been an explosion of interest in analytics as a
solution for many current challenges, such as retention and learner support (Siemens,
2013). For example, a learning dashboard (see https://www.khanacademy.org/about/
blog/post/58354379257/introducing-the-learning-dashboard;) can provide overview
learning data through data visualization tools much of the software that is currently
used for learning analytics.