subject: Classroom Technology Technological Interfacing And Communication [print this page] Since the beginning of time communication has always been an essential part of our survival and development, it is one of a handful of features that set us apart from other creatures, allowing for effective teamwork and therefore power in numbers. In the past century or so there have been a number of technological advancements that have revolutionised how we communicate for ever, for example the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham in 1876, provided a practical solution to long distance communication, prior to that it was a case of sending a letter. Nowadays the Internet provides an incredibly versatile medium for communication with a huge amount of potential.
Despite these developments throughout the 20th century, which of course where essential for us to get to where we are now, it is really only in the past decade or so that new communications technology has really began to take off, and therefore have a bigger impact on our daily lives. With smart phones creating a truly mobile Internet, and new techniques allowing people to interface with technology in new and innovative ways, it certainly seems like we are at the beginning of a period of rapid development.
However, though these methods are effective and efficient, there is still much debate about whether this new technology has stained the art of communication. With such a large amount of younger generations choosing to use social networking sites as their primary source of communication, their potential for developing the necessary interpersonal skills that they will require as an adult is falling.
As mentioned previously, its not just communicating between ourselves that is changing, but the ways in which we choose to interface with technology is changing too. It seems that computers are inevitably going to play a significant role in our future, given how heavily integrated into our society they already are, so finding more efficient and natural ways to interface with them will provide interesting opportunities.
At the forefront of technological interfacing techniques is gesture technology. No doubt most of you will have seen the Nintendo Wii and all the broken TVs that come with it, this is an example of gesture technology being implemented in a games console. Granted this technology still has a long way to go before it looks anything like Minority Report, but the concepts are there.
All of the implications that this new technology has for communication a technological interfacing are also transferable to the classroom, with digital mediums providing new opportunities for techniques that might encourage active learning.
