Gadgets

Category: Gadgets

Mobile technology makes its way into Asia-Pacific classrooms

Julie Campbell | April 6, 2015

Educators in that region are supporting the use of these devices to help to enhance their instructions.

Teachers in the Asia-Pacific region are welcoming the use of mobile technology to an increasing degree in order to provide students in their classrooms with an enhanced learning experience and to improve the way that they receive their instructions.

The results of a recent study have shown that this trend in the use of mobile devices is a growing one.

The research was conducted by Adobe, for a study that they entitled “Transforming Education with Mobile and Digital Technology.” It involved the participation of over 1,000 educators throughout 13 different Asia-Pacific countries. Among them, 77 percent said that they had noticed a positive impact, overall, when it came to the strategic integration of mobile technology into their teaching process.

There were certain countries in which mobile technology was used to a greater degree than others.

Mobile Technology - Classroom For example, in Southeast Asia, 85 percent of teachers said that mobile devices played a positive role in their classrooms. Equally, 85 percent of South Korean educators also said that these gadgets enhanced the learning experience. Slightly fewer educators in China – 80 percent – felt the same way about mobile tech devices in the classroom, but clearly that figure represents the vast majority of teachers.

Among the respondents, 83 percent said that students were better able to understand concepts and could improve upon them by way of the access that they had to digital tools and apps over smartphones and tablets. Teachers also stated that they would use these devices in order to help them build their lesson plans. That was true among 98 percent of educators in Southeast Asia and 90 percent of teachers in Greater China.

Furthermore, among the teachers in Southeast Asia, 100 percent said that there was a strong need for schools to make sure that students were provided with the mobile technology facilities that they needed to learn, whereas 90 percent felt this way in Greater China, and in South Korea, 89 percent shared that belief. According to Adobe Asia-Pacific business manager for education, Wayne Weisse, “The ability to visualize or integrate interactive learning experiences in the classroom via a mobile device can make a huge difference in learning outcomes when engaging with today’s millennial generation.”

Augmented reality glasses from Sony, SmartEyeglass, hit the shelves

Lucy | April 6, 2015

These wearable devices have now become available in ten countries for an official price of $840.

The SmartEyeglass from Sony, that brand’s augmented reality glasses, have now officially received their rollout for consumers to purchase them in any of ten different initial countries.

The smart glasses were first unveiled last year, but they hit the store shelves at the end of March.

At the moment, what is available is the Sony SmartEyeglass Developer Edition (SED-E1). Those augmented reality glasses also include an additional controller and come with a price tag of $840. That said, if the nerdy appearance of Google Glass was a put off too much of the market, then they may not be impressed with the far less sophisticated looking wearable technology that Sony has now released.

These augmented reality glasses have been designed to provide the wearer with a pure AR experience.

They use hologram optics tech in order to be able to superimpose images, symbols, and text overtop of the natural field of view of the wearer. This idea is not unlike Google Glass, in that sense, as Sony’s version is able to place an overlay of digital information over top of the real environment of the wearer. For instance, it could add directions and arrows on top of the actual street view being seen by the person wearing the device.

At the moment, these AR glasses are available only in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. Consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany are able to buy these wearables, no matter who they are. However, in the other countries in which the devices are being sold, there are certain limitations, such as the fact that only business customers will be allowed to buy them, at least for the first wave of the rollout.

At the time that this article was written, Sony had not yet announced how it intended to move forward with the rollout of these augmented reality glasses beyond the initial ten countries. It is unclear whether there will be a global release or whether the device will ever become available to all consumers.