Use of Wearables to Enhance the Student Educational Experience

[d21585h]

Something I am thinking increasingly about is how to use wearables to enhance the student educational experience. The projected growth rate is stunning: by 2019, they are expected to have a five year compounded projected annual growth rate of over 45%. While I and many others are patiently waiting for Instructure to release their Apple Watch app, I know from my MBA studies at a school that uses Blackboard, that BB already has an app. I like the fact that I get notifications on my Apple Watch of announcements and when an assignment has been graded. I dream of the day when I can better utilize it in my studies to better interact with fellow students.

My questions:

* How are others using wearables to enhance the student educational experience?

* Has anybody found a way to make polling or brief quizzes work on wearables? I did some brief searching and couldn't find a way to do it.

I'd enjoy hearing others big picture thoughts on this.

Thanks,
Dave

[rseilham]

David,

This is definitely an area of interest for me and the team I worked with. I still haven't found a useful and scalable way to incorporate wearables in education that can't  be done already with the traditional smart phone. I wouldn't confuse that with the potential. I think when (or if) wearables reach a critical mass, then there will be more utility. Right now I feel like 90 percent of the smart watch functions are notifications and that apps on watchOS and Android Wear are just not very useful.

Here a few ideas for how it might be used in the classroom:

-Randomly selecting students to participate

-Polls and Quizzes

-Using the geolocation features to enhance a tour or field trip

-Using the censors (like heart rate) to understand how activity can effect the body

-Attendance (GPS, etc)

Like I said before, most of these can all be accomplished by current smartphones. Also, the majority of smart watches require a smartphone anyways.

Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture, but I'd like to know how you think they can be used in education.

[kmeeusen]

Hmmmm......... just an observation, Ryan, this is the first time in print that I have seen smart phones referred to as "Traditional".

All online educators, whether they like it or not, teach in a "Bring-your-own-device" environment. Schools have tried to control this phenomenon through various expensive mobile initiatives, but most have had to abandon those initiatives after being smacked upside the head with reality.

So....... I say, prepare for the inevitable. When we teach using technology, and we have since the first cave clan wise man drew in ground with a stick, we must be prepared for the inevitability of technological change. I'm old enough to remember when teachers challenged the use of that new-fangled invention, the textbook, because they felt it would replace them as the sage-on-the-stage because students could now look everything up in one of them nasty book thingys.

I believe the smart-watch app will occur as a natural progression of the smart-phone app (as our writer above suggest, Bb is already doing it).

[scottdennis]

Kyoto University to Ban Watches at Entrance Exams - Japan Real Time - WSJ