Emerging Technologies from a Student Perspective

Last Friday I had the privilege to serve as a judge at the ACSI Annual Multimedia Festival hosted by Azusa Pacific in Orange County.

Students from private Christian Schools all over Orange County brought multimedia projects (websites, podcasts, movies, PowerPoint presentations, publications) to be get real world feedback on their work.

I was impressed by the students motivation to learn. They told me that they liked it when it was hard and I talked with students who even taught themselves html through self-paced tutorials on the Internet.

One school brought projects that were related to an assignment they had been given in which they were to research an emerging technology of their choice and analyze the pros and cons of using this technology. I was completely blown away with their ideas and deep thinking around this topic. A lot of the choices were centered around cell phones. For example Augmented Reality (which I had never heard of before) was one of the choices. There were also some presentations on the evolution of robotics such as in the use of The Crusher an unmanned vehicle being used by the military.