A Whole New World of Studying

This Guardian article from today gives a nice run-down of all the different ways in which old and new technology can be used in education, from videoing marking of individual assignments so that the students get more than some illegible scribbles, to running practical sessions in Second Life.

I still come back to the same old same old? How can we embrace this stuff for the luddites? There are so many of them and surely they'd be left behind (or frightened away from enrolling) if there is too much focus on the technology they need to use.

I also have a gut feeling that this is a short-term solution.  In 10, or maybe 20 years, all this current stuff that you need to be a bit geeky/techie to fully understand and inhabit, will be far more inter-connected, far more user-friendly, and hopefully you'll do all your virtual world exploring, video conferencing, blogging, tweeting and the rest of it on one platform. Available on every computer, mobile and other 'communications device'.

That's what we should be aiming for... but is anyone working towards it?