Emerging Technologies

The idea of what defines an emerging technology seemed quite different amongst educational technology experts like Drs. Soloway, Thornburg, and Rogers.  According to Dr. Soloway, technology adoption is not a linear process; however, emerging technology that has crossed the chasm of early adopters and received a drop in price is considered an emerged technology that has received approval ratings from reviewers and has been deemed a necessity (Laureate Education 2014a). Dr. Thornburg; however, viewed emerging technology as a technology that is not well known or considered a mature technology by the majority of people (Laureate Education 2014k). Lastly, Dr. Rogers (2003) claimed that a technology can be called emergent if it is new to your community or practice (p. 24).

The definition that I believe was the most relevant in explaining how to facilitate the diffusion of an emerging technology in the workplace was Dr. Soloway’s because he included description of emerging technologies that had high prices when first introduced and are now roughly 200% less. I completely forgot about TiVo which was the original DVR service. TiVo was an emerging technology just a few years ago and now comes standard with cable services and on most newer models of televisions. The actual TiVo device became obsolete, but the software behind the service continues to be used today. One emerging technology that I like reading about is the 3D printer, which creates three dimensional products from a digital file. Currently, they are extremely high in price and the majority of people do not know they even exist. However, they have been used to create prosthetic legs and machine parts. There are excellent video resources that show 3D printers in use for educational purposes. My view of emerging technology includes new technology that no one has that is released to the public at an extremely high price and receives an overwhelming amount of marketing to promote the product. A product that comes to mind regarding this was the iPhone 6. People camped outside of the Apple Store doors days in advance around the time of a new release despite not knowing any of the glitches or bugs the product might have had. Their desire for the product outweighed the risk. I, on the other hand, did not purchase the product because I already have a fully functioning iPhone 4s. To me, the iPhone 6 was not a necessity; therefore, I did not purchase it nor did I promote it by word of mouth or on social media. I believe that is key in helping an emerging technology move to mainstream purchases: marketing it as a necessity.

References:

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.) New York, NY: Free Press.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2014a). Elliot Soloway: Emerging vs. emerged technologies [Audio file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2014k). David Thornburg: What is emerging technology? [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.