Sunday, September 05, 2004

Imagine the future

Slashdot reports (it was from an article in internetnews.com, however) that there is a new internet speed record:
"The old record was nearly cut in half: the two parties, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), 'transferred 859 gigabytes of data in less than 17 minutes.' InternetNews goes on to say, 'This record speed of 6.63Gbps is equivalent to transferring a full-length DVD movie in four seconds.'"
What options does this hold for education? What if we could transfer simulations, video, multimedia, and ANYTHING as fast as we transfer text? Would this change the way we designed instruction? In what ways?

This could be a fun discussion. Anyone in our class want to be the visionary? What do you think educational technology will be like in 10 years? What options will be available to teachers that aren't available now? How would you teach if there were no technological barriers?