IT showcases new educational technologies

On Tuesday, April 28, Eastern's information technology (IT) department showed off the next wave of gadgets students could see popping up in classrooms and across campus next semester. Apple, Dell and other companies were there in full force, doing demos of toys for both students and teachers.Turning Technologies displayed its Student Response System, which lets teachers put a quiz up on a projector while students choose their answers on a small remote. Versions of this are already in use in some classes at Eastern.

It's sort of like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, except Regis is replaced with your biology professor. And it saves paper. The new version even allows for fill-in-the-blank or essay questions.

The really cool part, though, is that Turning Technologies has designed a version of the software that works with most smart phones and cell phones.

Instead of having to buy the remote, students just download the software to their phones. Finally, a legitimate excuse to play with phones in class without getting the evil eye.

Dell flaunted its latest line of affordable laptops, and Apple took the opportunity to show off the Macbook as well. Some of these were so small that at first I almost mistook them for portable DVD players, but they still did all the basic things one could want out of a laptop.

If one of the Smurfs -- or perhaps someone who just doesn't want to lug around one of the full-sized versions -- was in the market for a laptop, now would be a good time to start looking. Both companies offer student pricing, and Apple boasts that shopping for a laptop is now easier than picking a major.

Extron brought its MediaLink technology, which boasts a control panel that aims to standardize and simplify any and all A/V equipment in a class or conference room.

Learning Objects is looking to overhaul the entire Blackboard concept with its Campuspack software. Campuspack takes the idea of Blackboard and incorporates wiki pages and even podcasts. It's all designed to help with community building -- sort of like Facebook and Wikipedia had some sort of weird teaching baby.

Representatives from Learning Objects described a course in which students would use the blogging feature to describe the concept they had learned that week, give reactions or impressions, and then thoughts on how to incorporate them into practice and into development as a professional.

The podcasts could be used for extra notes on a topic or even to record a lecture and make it available online if the instructor had to miss class. The wiki section of the software would allow students to compile their own information as a group, using RSS activity feeds, multimedia and hyperlinks, the ability to tag relevant keywords, and threaded commenting.

The newest line of Kindles were also on display. These things are pretty cool. They're kind of like iPods for books, meaning that instead of lugging around a thick novel or a backpack full of heavy textbooks, you just download it to your Kindle and have it in a much less backbreaking digital form.

Dyknow showed off a tablet technology that sends what students are working on straight to the instructor. Representatives talked about students doing math problems with instructors being able to see what they were doing in real time without having to stand over their shoulders.

While I was brokenhearted that Honda wasn't there to finally show me the flying car or the hoverboard, the prospect of having devices on campus that integrate that well into my phone or just make things more convenient was pretty cool.