According to Veletsianos (2010, p. 17) emerging technologies are the “…tools, technologies, innovations, and advancements utilized in diverse educational settings to serve varied education-related purposes” (as cited in Bozalek, Gachago, Alexander, Watters, Wood, Ivala, & Herrington, 2013, p. 629).
These tools aim to help students acquire relevant competencies for a workplace setting (Bozalek et al., 2013).
One example of an emerging technology is the CertCentral.com platform for online courses.
This learning management system can help educators better meet their higher education and continuing education goals by enabling students easy access to imperative multimedia teaching materials.
Recent research outlines the ways in which emerging technologies support authentic learning.What is authentic learning?According to Herrington and Oliver (2000) authentic learning is a nine-element, pedagogical model that can help better prepare students to be competent in a workplace setting.
These nine elements include:1) authentic context2) authentic task3) access to expert thinking and modelling of processes4) access to multiple roles and perspectives of concept5) access to collaboration to help construct knowledge6) access to reflect on new knowledge to form abstract conceptualizations7) ability to articulate growing understanding8) access to supportive coach to guide learning9) access to authentic assessment to test newfound(Bozalek et al., 2013).How do emerging technologies support authentic learning?Bozalek et al.