Game Player

First of all just being able to play Just Dance in class is awesome. I have loved video games since I was little, the first system I ever played was a Super Nintendo, the first system I ever owned was a Nintendo 64. It is amazing how far game playing has advanced since then. Today I own a PS2 a Wii, and a Nintendo 3DS. Though teaching is no longer my career choice I can say that the use of interactive gaming can be useful in the classroom. Though I'm not sure how wii games will help in an art class room, (unless I would be using the Wii Paint game) But I know for a fact that at my Highschool they had about 3 wii's for the special education students as an exercise option. I think any students can use it. its a fun alternative once in awhile that keeps the students active if they are playing. Gaming platforms like the wii, and kinect differ greatly from others is that is requires you to move, whether its just your arms, legs, or your whole body, for most of the games you have to move. This opens up more opportunities to engage in the gameplay and better other skills rather just sitting on the couch (and giving yourself a thumb cramp from over using the joystick). Today I only got to play Just Dance 2, I love this game, once you get over the 'everyones looking, I look silly' factor,its fun to dance and it really gets your body moving (it certainly wears you out after a few dances)

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Back To The Future

The videos had a pretty good idea of how they envisioned the future of education. We do have video chat nowadays that make it possible to communicate with people electronically. Though I don't think we are at the point where teachers actually video chat with their students that miss a day of class. But there are some teachers (or professors) who record their lectures/class and have a link to it so students who are absent can go over what was talked about in class.
The voice activated database search is a bit over dramatized, while we do have apps in our technology that is suppose to be voice recognition (example: for texting, calling people, search engines) often times it it records something way different from what your saying (in my experience anyways)
In our schools we have electronic databases. It makes searching easier by typing in your subject and seeing the available sources that the data base has for your topic. Technology has been rapidly becoming a big part of everyday life, I'm pretty sure about every school in the US has at least one computer lab. Teachers are preferring assignments to be turned in electronically rather than on paper. Online classes have also become very popular.

EDTECH playlist