NETP Meets 3D

The 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP), Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education, by the U.S. Office of Educational Technology is already in motion. Past national education technology plans have been well received by U.S. K12 schools; their recommendations have slowly been adopted country wide, due to incentives and organic pressure from federal, state, local, and even foundation funding. Given the past impact of previous NETPs, this the 2016 NETP is due serious consideration.

Now—on to some interesting specifics. One of the chapters in the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP) is necessarily more forward looking than the other sections, spotlighting some upcoming areas in cyberlearning. “The Future of Learning Technologies” section of the 2016 NETP is an attempt to move the reader beyond an “understanding of the current state of educational technologies; it also [identifies] the research being done on early-stage educational technology and how this research might be applied more widely in the future to learning.” In fact, the NETP highlights four promising avenues for future learning technologies, based chiefly on the investigative work of the National Science Foundation in “researching opportunities offered by integrating emerging technologies with advances in the learning sciences.” These auspicious avenues include:

• Increased use of games and simulations
• New ways to connect physical and virtual interaction with learning technologies
• Interactive three-dimensional imaging software
• Augmented reality (AR) 

No surprise here, in our next post we will highlight the the third bullet above, one that predicts the growth of interactive 3D in education. More to come next week...