The Future and Evolution of Technology in Education

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Distance education began as we know it in the form of correspondence courses. The populace sought to better themselves and not only for personal satisfaction, but to become more competitive in society. Class materials were prepared in advance and sent to the student by way of the United States Post Office. Students received the materials and were required to complete the work and return it to the instructor prior to receiving the subsequent assignments. It was a long and tedious process and could potentially create academic distress for students. However, in the 21st century, society is afforded luxuries of technological innovations such was Web 2.0 tools and other technologies, for example: Learning Management Systems, Wikispaces, cloud storage, social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, & Edmoto), and video communications to name a few. 21st century technology has heightened online learning to an entirely new level. Students are afforded opportunities to collaborate synchronously and or asynchronously with teachers and fellow students creating a more productive atmosphere. Nevertheless, in the next five years, will technology remain steadfast in its reliability or will it continue to develop and become more beneficial to educators and students? This paper intends to discuss four technologies, cloud storage, bloggers, social media, and broadband internet, providing a vision of the possibilities of where these technologies are headed and how and if they will continue to be a vital component in our educational institutions.
Emerging technologies have proven to be a welcome addition to the educational institutions. Although it does not appear that schools have completely implemented technology, they have begun to have stu...

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