Curriculum for technology courses at schools routinely include discussions about forecasts on emerging technologies towards the end of course. I find that instructors tend to use the material to grow interest and to advice their students on what is in store. This is done both in the beginning and towards the end of course.
In order to grow interest on evaluating emerging technologies for students, several approaches can be tried.
One of the methods could be a discussion or debate on which forecasts worked and which did not and why. During the discussion, switching from present to past and going back to future on chosen technologies makes the story of technologies interesting. Several "what if" scenarios can be added to the discussion. The exercise helps evaluating and differentiating influencing technologies for business and technology professionals. It also helps understand the factors that lead to failure and success with technologies. As part of this, research methods can also be introduced to students. In short, stories of technologies can be interesting and intriguing to the audience with genuine efforts of the facilitator/ instructor.
I enjoyed reading the article, Emerging technologies what's ahead for 2001 - 2030 by William Halal, Michael Kull and Ann Leffman. I read it as one of the articles in part 8 of the book titled Globalization and the challenges of a new century. My interest was intrigued at the accuracy of the forecasts when I read the paragraphs in the section on "The 2001-2010 decade" in this article originally written around 1997.
The following predictions were made about 15 years ago. Most of them are facts today.
Entertainment (streaming videos, Nintendo Wii, Netflix), knowledge sources for education (e-books, online libraries), news papers (Craigslist), commerce (amazon.com) and travel (priceline.com, expedia.com) are the foremost industries that are influenced and transformed by digital technologies visibly. Virtual reality, connectivity with multimedia, group collaboration have become part of people's home and work lives today. WebMD has grown to be the primary source of self care. These are just a few of the predictions then.
My next question was on the variety of research methods the authors might have used to predict with such accuracy. For this, I followed Prof. William Halal's faculty page that led me to his research project at
http://www.techcast.org/overview.aspx
There is much to learn at this site starting with the overview on research methods used to arrive at predictions and forecasts for technologies. This site is useful for managers, instructors who tend to do their own research for forecasting about emerging technologies. Personal level research is error prone due to lack of extensive research methodologies and expert consultation.
A must read article for the year can be found at http://www.techcast.org/featuredarticledetails.aspx?id=321
In order to grow interest on evaluating emerging technologies for students, several approaches can be tried.
One of the methods could be a discussion or debate on which forecasts worked and which did not and why. During the discussion, switching from present to past and going back to future on chosen technologies makes the story of technologies interesting. Several "what if" scenarios can be added to the discussion. The exercise helps evaluating and differentiating influencing technologies for business and technology professionals. It also helps understand the factors that lead to failure and success with technologies. As part of this, research methods can also be introduced to students. In short, stories of technologies can be interesting and intriguing to the audience with genuine efforts of the facilitator/ instructor.
I enjoyed reading the article, Emerging technologies what's ahead for 2001 - 2030 by William Halal, Michael Kull and Ann Leffman. I read it as one of the articles in part 8 of the book titled Globalization and the challenges of a new century. My interest was intrigued at the accuracy of the forecasts when I read the paragraphs in the section on "The 2001-2010 decade" in this article originally written around 1997.
The following predictions were made about 15 years ago. Most of them are facts today.
Entertainment (streaming videos, Nintendo Wii, Netflix), knowledge sources for education (e-books, online libraries), news papers (Craigslist), commerce (amazon.com) and travel (priceline.com, expedia.com) are the foremost industries that are influenced and transformed by digital technologies visibly. Virtual reality, connectivity with multimedia, group collaboration have become part of people's home and work lives today. WebMD has grown to be the primary source of self care. These are just a few of the predictions then.
My next question was on the variety of research methods the authors might have used to predict with such accuracy. For this, I followed Prof. William Halal's faculty page that led me to his research project at
http://www.techcast.org/overview.aspx
There is much to learn at this site starting with the overview on research methods used to arrive at predictions and forecasts for technologies. This site is useful for managers, instructors who tend to do their own research for forecasting about emerging technologies. Personal level research is error prone due to lack of extensive research methodologies and expert consultation.
A must read article for the year can be found at http://www.techcast.org/featuredarticledetails.aspx?id=321
