The new development of technology

Based on the research and analysis above, from the author’s point of view, the following new developments of technology will represent a variety of trends that will make fundamental changes in our own personal and professional lives, and in educational environment.

• Network technology developments

This will be greatly enhanced by the further development and wide applications of the Internet. The transmission speed and capacity of the network will not be a problem along with the development and further usage of broadband technology. Costs of fibre optics will be stepped down. As important communication infrastructure, computers, switches and routers will be more reliable and largely

improved. The advent of handheld digital services will improve the flexibility of the Internet to a large extent.

Increased use of fibre optics

Broadband technology will be in higher demand in the near future. Though some applications can provide broadband services today, such as ISDN, Coaxial Cable and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), only the potential use of fibre optics can revolutionarily increase the transmission speed and volume. As Muirhead (2001) investigated, Atlantic dual fibre optics cable, part of the FLAG project that will be completed in 2003, can carry 2.4 terabits (1 terabit equals to 1000 gigabits) per second. This means 200 hours video can be sent at each second! After the completion of this project, fibre optics will span the Atlantic and Pacific, thus connect Europe, Asia and America. It will be no problem to transmit large graphic, movies and 3D animations around the major parts of the world. The potential development of broadband technology will be limitless in the future since the costs will markedly fall down.

Developments in the wireless communication

Developments in wireless communication, including satellite communications will be an intensive direction in the next few years. The hand-held satellite phones, small hand-held computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs) will become true and easier to access. Future unlimited broadband technology and high capacity infrastructures will make the Internet users enjoy the “Web surfing” at anytime and anyplace, especially for “movable” users who could not access the Internet with the fixed line. There is no doubt that the application of wireless technology will change the face of distance education dramatically since students can access distance education courses in a hands-on mode.

• Information visualization and virtual reality

Greater bandwidth and capacity enormously enhance the ability of presenting multi- media materials through the network. Thus information visualization technologies have a great potential to be improved and widely applied for educational purposes. These technologies are increasingly sophisticated in visualizing the information into understandable pictures, images, and animations for creation of interactive virtual environments.

Such technologies as virtual reality and simulation technology will come to the personal computer interface level, while today are highly limited in military and aeronautics usages because of the lack of capacity and bandwidth. With more intuitive 3D graphic manipulation devices, the full immensive virtual reality or simulation systems will “create the illusion of interacting with people, places and things from the past, far away, or never existed” (Roblyer & Edwards, 2001, P. 231). Put in these virtual environments, people can experience a real, three-dimensional environment. Today’s video games are good examples of the application of virtual reality and simulation technology. Educational software in future will include features of them more or less.

• Intelligent interfaces and voice recognition

Intelligent interfaces between the user and the computer will allow users to access information more easily and flexibly. Voice recognition has been developed for several years but will get dramatic usage with the advent of hand-held systems. It allows people operate the system with voice commands.

Intelligent interfaces, through incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) technology, can learn user’s preferences and anticipate user’s needs, provide more effective, sensitive and interactive help as an expert. It cannot only custom graphic interface environments, but also can help the user to filter, block or segregate email messages according to the user’s will. Intelligent agent software can be used to perform

network searches and deliver selective information needed by the user. Some similar software packages, such as expert systems and intelligent assistants or coaches, are more or less for the same purpose to provide professional tutoring, guidance or problem solving. When used for educational purposes, the ability of students to acquire the information will be extremely enhanced; students will be highly motivated by easier access.

There are also other expected developments that will impact on future education, such as the computer hardware technology, of which the processing power, mass storage, memory, and display and output capability will be increased enormously in near future. Some “wearable” computer systems will allow users to operate in an extremely convenient manner; electronic books (e-book), which have the capacity to hold dozens of books, facilitate the user to access large amount of information.

The above technology developments will form the main stream of technology trends in future, and will continue to characterize technological advances over the next decade. Taking only one of them may not be significant; but combining them together, it will lead to revolutionary changes in education.