Innovations in technology, the ways in which we use technology and the tasks that technology helps us accomplish are constantly being updated and extensively innovated. With the Olympics finishing up earlier this week, we got to thinking of athletes being at the very top of their game and how exactly they are able to get there. Many of them, unsurprisingly, use technology to help enhance their performance and watching the coverage over the past couple of weeks illustrated just how far tech innovations have come.
How Technology Played a Role in the Olympics
Olympic athletes will do almost anything to gain an advantage on the track, in the pool or, as everyone hopefully saw, in race walking. Since finishes tend to come down to hundredths of a second or winners decided by hundredths of a point, these athletes take advantage of every tool available to them. While we may not see these technologies visibly during the televised portion of the competition, world-class athletes constantly use the tools to improve their performance while training. Technology can help athletes in all sports improve upon a wide variety of skills, including both physical and mental. Remember the spots all over Michael Phelps at the beginning of the games? That was just one of many displays of innovative technology used during the latest edition of the Olympics.
Athletes used technology to help measure their performance and prevent injury as many technologies are able to send real-time data to a paired app. The U.S. Women’s Volleyball team, for example, used a technology called VERT to calculate jump heights and counts. It’s also helpful for coaches, who are better equipped to know when to give their players a rest. In the pool, members of the U.S. Swimming team made use of an interesting technology developed by BMW. This customized motion tracking system attaches to swimmers on various parts of their bodies and lets coaches track their movements to analyze what needs improvement. Even IBM Watson played a role in the training for the U.S. Cycling team in Rio. They wanted a mobile-enabled way to track their data and they got all that and more, including power meters, a muscle oxygenation sensor and heart rate monitor—all in their pockets.
Technology was also used to help athletes analyze and refine their technique, specifically for the U.S. Track & Field team in the shotput event. They used Doppler radar to track the flight of their throws in real time with built-in Wi-Fi and an internal camera. The sprinters on the team used a video technology that displayed how their bodies should look while in competition compared to how they actually looked, offering a very useful form of visual feedback for the runners. Even members of the wrestling team were using technology during the Olympics—but not for the reason you might think. Training for competition, being away from family and excessive traveling can have a heavy toll on competitors, so the team used a sleep and relaxation technology to help counteract the sleep and anxiety issues they were having. It’s no longer only about raw athletic ability anymore, especially on the world’s biggest stage. Athletes will take advantage of every tool possible—and now, more than ever, that means training with technology.
Technology Innovations Set to Go Mainstream
Every year, tech giants continue to come out with new and innovative tools that are supposed to make everybody’s lives much easier—or, at least, much more exciting. In recent years, smart watches, Google Glass and delivery drones have all been introduced to us, but haven’t really had much of an impact on the general population. That’s okay though; it took laptops a while to catch on and now everybody has one of those. Same with smartphones. We can likely chalk this up to a lack of proven effectiveness and consumer knowledge, both of which will come with time. Once people see how technology gadgets can improve their everyday lives, they will be more likely to want them—and then become dependent on them.
One thing to look out for is even faster mobile devices and increased sharing, especially when it comes to videos. Apple is rumored to be announcing a new iPhone later this month, so we assume that we’re just going to go ahead and avoid the Apple Store that day. The Internet of Things is also set to really take off in the next year or two, with millions of sensors and appliances predicted to become connected. Yes, it could soon be common for us to be able to control anything remotely—never needing to be in the same room with another person anymore! Anything from watering the plants, to feeding pets, starting laundry and perhaps even cleaning the house (we can dream) has the potential to become automated with the vast opportunities that wait within the IoT.
It’s extremely tough to predict, but there are some potential candidates in the race for impacting our everyday lives in a meaningful way. We have every reason to believe that smart virtual assistants, like Siri, will continue getting smarter and soon become much more effective at helping us find information and accomplish tasks. Also, ambient interfaces will be able to provide us with relevant information throughout the day based on location and our history of use. As for money, both blockchain technology and social payments will likely start to become a regular part of our purchasing and 3D printing will continue to evolve to give people more lifelike prosthetics and customized devices for doing almost anything. And, then again, we could all have some major part of our life altered by technology by this time next year.
Keeping Up With the Latest K-12 EdTech Innovations
When you think of technology in the classroom, generally one of two things comes to mind. There is the consumer technology that giant companies like DELL, Apple and Microsoft sell to schools at discounted prices so that they buy a lot of it. And, then there is the hands-on technology—brands like littleBits, Makey Makey, and Ozobot, which we center our school partnerships around with the intention of getting students working with their hands and authentically engaged. Since laptops, tablets and 1:1 programs keep becoming more advanced and refined, schools feel the pressure to keep up with the latest trends for their students. It’s knowing which trends are worth investing in, however, that’s half the battle they are facing.
Today, K-12 education is all about preparing kids for the real world and using tools that will help them develop relevant skills, like adaptation, collaboration and problem solving. There are all kinds of learning management systems that teachers can use to target a specific set of concepts or when working with students of a specific age group. Teachers who make use of technology are constantly embracing innovation and their students definitely do notice. The power of technology has been known to consistently foster interaction, collaboration and engagement while transforming traditional classrooms into active and interactive learning environments.
Software companies are also pushing schools and districts to take advantage of cloud computing. Ideally, this would improve their connectivity and maximize efficiency when dealing with student work on a district-wide level. There are, however, security risks, which account for one big reason that many districts are reluctant to try something that could be wonderfully beneficial for them. Two other innovations include the use of virtual reality to allow students to explore the concepts and places they are studying and 3D printing so kids can gain hands-on manufacturing skills right in the classroom. If these sound expensive, it’s okay because they only sound expensive. It’s actually completely affordable to learn with VR or 3D printers and they each have their own ways of helping 21st century educators innovate.
3D Technology Super Present at the Olympics
When we think of 3D technology, especially these days, the first thing that comes to mind for many of us is 3D printing—or maybe those 3D glasses you wear at the movie theater. During the two weeks of the Olympic Games, however, there was a whole lot of other amazing 3D technology use going on—and you may not have even noticed it. Mixed in to the thousands of hours of TV coverage, there were certainly a lot of cutting-edge technologies to provide for an ideal viewing experience, but the television crews weren’t the only ones with access to the latest and greatest. Plenty of world-class athletes—from swimmers to golfers and even rowers and race walkers—all used technology while competing on the world’s biggest stage and the ways in which they did are pretty impressive.
A lot of the innovation came in the apparel that the athletes were wearing on the track, in the pool and, well, in pretty much every sport. Digital design, 3D printing and 3D scanning all made an appearance in Rio in the forms of cycling skinsuits or running shoes that were custom created specifically for the athletes that were wearing them. Some of the skinsuits were tested on 3D printed mannequins in a wind tunnel so that designers could settle on exactly the right material. Sprinters were even studied for months so that Nike could redefine the running shoe in time for Rio. Even in the upcoming Paralympics, there will be plenty of displays of innovation, including carefully engineered 3D printed prosthetic legs and 3D printed racing wheelchairs designed to improve the speeds of some of the best athletes in the world.
Nike created and offered runners 3D printed silicone protrusions that redirect air flow around them while Adidas created swim suits from 3D scanners that were meant to help swimmers maintain their form in the pool. There were also plenty of 3D printed, fully customized running shoes on the tracks in Rio—not that Usain Bolt needed any help when it came to his performance. Unless you were listening very carefully to the commentary during the events, you probably didn’t even know that most of these technologies were being used, how many athletes were seeking a competitive edge and just how much testing and planning goes into an athlete’s apparel when they compete. Just imagine what we might see at the 2028 games, as engineers continue to work to create the perfect athlete.
Tech Innovations for Transforming Education
While it is fun to look at some of the coolest new technologies, we can’t help but take the time to focus on some of the sleepers set to disrupt education in the near future. Since all different forms of technology have been making an impact in all levels of education, developing strategies to incorporate them in teaching have become a regular part of an educator’s routine. There certainly are innovations that appear to simply be overkill and unnecessary for actually improving education, but plenty of technologies do help a lot in improving the standard of education. Not only does technology help make learning opportunities accessible to anyone from anywhere, it also does wonders in improving tactile learning, hands-on absorption and the ultimate retention of materials and concepts.
Digital education and maximized efficiency, for example, have been hot topics as Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have become quite popular over the last couple of years. MOOCs help universities add supplemental material to their courses and deliver them to huge amounts of students in an efficient way. This is one way that educators can help modernize traditional classrooms, but there are plenty of other ways in which they can provide a beneficial learning experience for students. When students are given the opportunity to learn at their own pace (with the added luxury of useful technologies), they’re more likely to enjoy an effective learning experience. Flipped classrooms allow them to take the materials home with them and spend as much (or as little) time as they need to master the content.
There are some other factors to consider besides the tools that students are using to learn, including the methods in which they are learning. Peer-to-peer learning, for instance, is being tested widely and comes with benefits like reduced costs and more effective communication, which improves comfortability and, oftentimes, results. Another new approach is institutions making sure that students receive constant feedback—namely constant credit and recognition—so that they not only know how they are doing, but continually gain confidence throughout the school year. Finally, an adaptive learning approach is seen as useful because it allows students to break away from a pre-set course pace and receive presented materials based on their performance and readiness. Algorithms have even been developed to aid this process as technology continues to help teachers and schools provide the best possible learning experience for their students.
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