Wearable technologies
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
This is the first of three articles that considers how quickly some technologies have been integrated into our education systems and how spectacularly flawed our ability to predict a trend has been previously.
You wear it well
At a time when most of us involved in the business of teaching and learning are trying to come to terms with the proliferation of mobile devices in our universities and colleges, a new phenomenon is looming on the education horizon: wearable technology.
Before you throw your hands skywards in protest, I know this particular manifestation of digital innovation has been around for a while. However, it’s the rate at which it is expected to infiltrate our institutions and influence our current modes of provision that make wearable technologies the Next Big Thing.
Undoubtedly, the speed at which this latest trend is anticipated to be integrated into our education systems is partly due to the pioneering work undertaken by the champions of online education and advocates for technology-enabled, experiential learning. The concept of technology-enhanced learning has evolved from the use of video resources through the introduction of the PC and the interactive whiteboard to the immersive experience – all in less than 30 years. Wearable technology is pushing against a door that has long since been wedged open.
The mass availability of relatively inexpensive, operationally intuitive, multifunctional, personal devices is also a factor. As consumers, learners have already embraced the use of high performance, state-of-the-art digital devices in their non-academic lives and expect a similar service from the providers of their education.
According to research conducted in the USA by Technavio – a leading, global market research company which focuses on emerging market trends – the market for wearable technologies applicable to education is anticipated to grow by more than 45% over the next four years (2016-2020). Technavio’s report is detailed and comprehensive, segmenting data by region, end user (HE and K12 schools), vendor (Google, Apple, Samsung and Microsoft) and product (predominantly head and wrist-worn devices).
The drivers behind the trend towards, first, the portable and then the wearable, device are clear and illustrate industry’s response to consumer demand for smaller, more flexible technologies. The contemporary student does not view the consumption of education as a discrete element in their life. For today’s learner, education is something that should be accessed how and when the user demands; and, for this, wearable technology is an excellent facilitator.
Size matters
Our capacity to develop digital technologies which appear to increase in power and functionality while decreasing in volume has moved quickly since the CEO of IBM declared in 1949 that:
“... computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only one and a half tons.”
Popular Mechanics, March 1949
With the benefit of hindsight, this seems like a ridiculously inadequate prediction. To the contemporary reader, a machine of such gigantic proportions seems ludicrous; to the post-transistor, microprocessor generation the concept of the valve is simply anachronistic. Yet, this is a quotation that is often wheeled out for the amusement of those who are unaware of just how accurate the original, unedited version of this statement is:
“Where a calculator like ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only one and a half tons.”
The context of the observation makes a considerable difference to our interpretation of the extract. At the time of writing, computers were monstrous constructions comprising of mechanical and electrical components housed in a dedicated space. Construction was the primary objective and reduction was a secondary consideration, merely a pipe dream.
Unbeknownst to the editor of ‘Popular Mechanics’, across the decade that followed, the development of the transistor would be superseded by the introduction of the microchip and the first fully transistorised computer: the IBM 608 would become available commercially in December 1957.
The IBM 608 contained no valves and weighed in at an impressively slim 1.2 tons.
Thus, the contention made by ‘Popular Mechanics’ a mere eight years previously was proven to be correct and the notion that smaller means better would be firmly established in the minds of the public: the race towards miniaturisation had begun.
Edited by Elizabeth Garner-Foy; Academic editor at the Interactive Design Institute
Designed by Molly Rose Wilson; Graphic designer at the Interactive Design Institute