Into the unknown with technology!

Posted on | May 19, 2010 | No Comments

On almost a daily basis I meet students who ask the age old question, “why do we need to learn this anyway?”

The simple answer is we go to  school to learn how to act on our curiosity.

We are all curious right?

School provides a means to shape that curiosity, and if the student steps back from credits and grades for a moment, by glimpsing into the unknown and allowing some form of action/reaction to occur the shaping of curiosity can take place.

Take our WEB2.0 technology today as a perfect example.

Writing, art, research, design, economics, business… the full scope of university studies are being recast in the blink of an eye.

Tomorrow is here today and the university is really the only place that almost anyone can engage with this technology pushed change that is just starting to demonstrate tomorrow today.

But to engage students and teachers need to be asking, “how can I use the poetry I am reading”  and not “why am I reading this anyway!”

Take Layar for instance. This is the application of all we teach at University.

About Layar
Layar is world’s leading Augmented Reality Platform on mobile. The Layar Reality Browser currently has more than 1.6 million users and comes pre-installed on tens of millions of phones from leading handset manufacturers and carriers by the end of the year. Over 500 layers are published on the Layar Platform with over 2000 in development. These layers are developed by the global community of 3000 Layar publishers and producers, and by leading brands and agencies. Layar is located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The company is funded and has 32 employees.

The free Layar Reality Browser is available on Android devices and iPhone 3GS. The Layar Platform is available for anyone to create their own Augmented Reality experiences on.

Layar, see the world
http://www.layar.com

Find more information and screen shots at: http://site.layar.com/paid-layer-launching-partners/ and http://site.layar.com/paid-layer-screens

The point is this is a brand new way of applying the thought process that has existed since we could think and the education we are delivering as professors is as relevant to this application’s development as it is to writing press releases!

BUT ,and that is a big but, we need to create an environment that provokes what might simply be called entrepreneurial-applied-education or EAE for short!

In my own college we do it is some places on purposes and by accident in others.

If we work at creating a culture of reaching for the unknown tomorrow and embracing the technology that may help or hinder us in the long run there is no question we are setting ourselves up for good things, even if we stumble along the way.

But we need to start and in many cases jump into a paradigm shift that like where technology is taking us feel like a step into the unknown.

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