Technology will only play an increasingly important role in the future. 

The schools I have worked at and will be working at all have coding classes, use 3d printers, have robotics clubs and other forms of advanced technology. 

These are also well funded private schools. 

You can still do a lot of education without advanced technology, but it may progressively lower the ceiling and could lead to larger inequality gaps.

You do need to be technologically competent in today's society. (Type, use apps, online research) 

I have been excited about the potential of virtual reality field trips for a long time. Walking with dinosaurs while learning about them can make education more exciting and immersive. 

Augmented reality and hologram teachers take video calls to the next level and can increase access to education. It does allow for more expression and better communication from the teacher. 

Knowing how to use Google maps or any app navigation is incredibly helpful to everyday life. We may just assume everybody picks this up on their own but it may not be true and is worth covering in class. 

It is also good to do activities students enjoy and can get excited about, making school overall a more positive experience. 

What are the likely pros and cons of these approaches?

Pros:
Knowing how to use map apps
Getting exercise
Getting familiar to new tech
Highly immersive and exciting - real audio is cool
It is fun and exciting - how you incorporate the knowledge and reflection is key 
Experiential learning  

Cons: 
Dangers of running in city
Competition > cooperation 
Distractibility - a lot of time spent not learning 
Makes bombing seem fun 
Some students don't respond well to VR 
Expensive tech that will be time consuming and problematic Only a few students can do at a time

 

They were trying to sell an idea and so they hyped it up, but yes I am really excited about the possibilities of educational technology and see huge potential. 

It is a balance between entertainment and education, but you can absolutely get an education while being entertained. If you can get students to enjoy learning in an immersive experience, that is a good thing. 

The old ways can still be effective and you can use new technologies as well. 

It would be a disservice to your students to only use old methods and you may end up wasting a lot of time always chasing the latest and greatest thing. 

There will always be exciting new things and often it will take several more years before they become properly accessible and beneficial. 

You do not want to completely fall behind and I think you can leave the innovation to big companies and get on board once they have worked out the kinks. 

Technology can be great, but it is always having issues or some do not know how to properly use it. 

Google docs is amazing! It is so helpful to be able to collaborate and access from multiple devices. We used it at LIMUN this year to collaborate with 20 people at a time working on the same document. It can be a bit messy and chaotic, but once refined it is a great resource. It made group assignments in college so much easier. 

Wordpress is a pretty easy way to make a website, I use it for my simple travel blog. Wherecolingoes.com  

I liked using Newsela with my EAL students. It provides the same articles at different lexile ranges so students of different abilities can read about the same topic and have discussions after. 

Lexile range does have some flaws, students reading ability is largely based on their domain knowledge. If a student knows about baseball or dinosaurs, they will understand better than a more advanced reader who knows nothing about baseball or dinosaurs. 

Twinkle can be good for teaching resources like handouts, posters and lessons. 

Quizlet is an easy way to share flashcards with students and do activities with the vocabulary. I used it to share the weekly vocabulary words, then had the students create their own real flashcard and hand write sentences using the vocabulary words. It was a good mix of technology and old school. 

Kahoot is a fun way to do class games with multiple choice questions. It is worth considering if you want to put time pressure on students and encourage competition over cooperation.