Which wearable device will I wear to school?

Which wearable device will I wear to school?

Which wearable device will I wear to school?   Greg Gebhart - I.T. Vision

This week I had the pleasure of providing a workshop and being a member of the closing keynote panel at the National IWB conference. This was undertaken as part of my private consultancy work with I.T. Vision.

Below is a few thoughts about my presentations.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is now a term often used in education. It is changing the face of classrooms. Previously schools have had to scrimp and save or budget well to provide the latest technology so that every child had access to a technology device. This impacted funding for many other programs in schools, which caused other programs to be put on hold and some important resources to be prioritised down the list. That was until now. Many students already have their own devices, selected by parents or by the student themselves, to cater for their own individual learning style. It is common sense. When students already have these devices, then why are school replicating these? Yes there are issues with management of devices, security and standardisation of learning apps, however the BYOD seems to be a way to ensure students have access to technology and it allows the redirect of funding to other areas in need.

BYOD is often thought of as a laptop, notebook, ipad, tablet or even a mobile phone. I challenge this thinking as it is much more and it is time that educators should be thinking outside the square. With the advent of fitness bands and fitness monitors, internet and smart watches and google glasses, BYOD has to mean more.

Fitness bands have a place in education and as a wearable device or BYOD we should be using them to further enhance learning in schools. While Physical Education and Health Education might be the ideal place for these, I see far more opportunity in schools. These devices are full of data. Real time data for real time projects. Integrating PE and Maths, predicting outcomes, individual and group data collection. It’s time to think about the next generation of BYOD’s.

Perhaps the next big BYOD is the smart watch. Already many companies have these in the marketplace including Pebble, LG, Sony, Samsung, Motorola and Apple. Teacher need to be ready for this next generation of technology and its integration into the classroom. More and more apps will be built for this platform and the ability to have technology connected to our students, rather than held in a hand opens up new scope for learning.

Or perhaps Google Glass will be the BYOD of the future. Inbuilt camera, microphone, video feeds, internet access, coupled with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will allow so many new possibilities.

But does it end here. Of course not. We now have smart clothing such as “Hexoskin” which collects data, making it a wearable BYOD. Add smart socks that collect data from the way we walk and run, “Ear-O-Gram” an earring that collects real time data, designer rings “Ringly” that connect to our phones and the list goes on. We even have wearable devices for toddlers that track and alert parents with proximity sensor, temperature monitors and GPS sensors.

Now is the time to think about the next generation of technology, the possibilities in education, the learning outcomes from the use of these devices and the realignment of policy to cater for them.

Which such a choice, I guess the biggest issue for most students will soon be:

“Which wearable device will I wear to school today?"