How will YOU see the future? How will OTHERS see you in the future?

When my father was ill in 2003 the doctors gave him a disposable pill-sized camera to swallow that would record pictures from inside. I was fascinated by the camera and I really wanted to see how this camera worked and how the pictures would be downloaded from the camera, but my father wouldn’t let me touch the camera, he just swallowed it with a huge glass of water. So much for my curiosity.

Fast forward to today. Rob Spence, a documentary filmmaker who lost one of his eyes due to a childhood injury, now wants to replace his prosthetic eye with a high-tech wireless web-connected video camera. He calls himself Eyeborg. His current prosthetic eye is not an orb but a soft material that sits on a peg that was surgically implanted inside the opening. Right now there is a team of people working to make him an eye camera with a miniature lenses and a wireless transmitter. Once the team can make a powerless solution and a wireless solution for the eye camera Rob will have a bionic eye.

How will this eye camera affect the future of optical robotics? One member of the team thinks this camera will lay the groundwork for curing blindness. Could someone who is blind be able to see again using ocular technology? Others on the team think this will give people the ability to record everything they see and experience.

Please watch the video for this amazing eye camera ocular technology.
http://watch.spacecast.com/the-circuit/current/january-2009/#clip128282
http://watch.spacecast.com/the-circuit/current/january-2009/

Please visit the Eyeborg Project website for more details.
http://www.eyeborgblog.com/

Eye image from Microsoft clipart
Disposable camera image from Google Images
Eye Camera screenshot from Spacecast video

A Foundational Structure for Learning

David Warlick spoke about the “Native Information Experience” for digital learners at the NCTIES conference last week in Raleigh, NC. He spoke about how school leaders and teachers are finding ways to implement learning 2.0 with their students.

David spoke about the eight characteristics of networked and digital information experiences that teachers need to bring to their classrooms from observing the outside-the-classroom informational experiences that defines the unique networked, digital, information culture of today’s students.

These eight “Native Information Experiences:

1. Are responsive – authentic, personal experiences of sending out and receiving responses from others. Receiving responses from others being the payback for the students.
2. Measures Accomplishments – by the audience and comments from their friends.
3. Values Safely Make Mistakes – students learn by failing; they will keep doing something until its right.
4. Demands Personal Investment – students invest a lot of cumulative time in their informational experiences.
5. Values Personal Experience and Identity – students need to be part of a social group, sharing and learning from others.
6. Rewards with Audience and Attention – audiences have to be earned. Rewards for the students come from having other see what they are doing. One site was mentioned concerning rewards and audiences – Fan Fiction where students write and add chapters to an online story. http://www.fanfiction.net/
7. Provokes Communication – through technology students carry their friends with them all the time always communicating.
8. Are Fueled by Questions – many students are not afraid to ask questions
   

Understanding the informational experiences of our students will help schools and teachers achieve learning 2.0 in their classrooms – having students create, communicate, collaborate, problem-solve, and be engaged learners will cultivate new learning experiences. Teachers need to use the many web 2.0 tools that are available – wikis, blogs, Flickr, ePals, RSS feeds, social bookmarks, social networks, VoiceThread, Audacity, PhotoStory 3, Movie Maker, Animoto and others to enrich the learning experiences of all students.