I have been thoroughly enjoying the past several days as every day from Saturday we have had a UConn team advance forward in the NCAA Basketball. UConn men’s win yesterday was fantastic and totally unpredicted. They outsmarted some of the best teams along the way and proved that height alone cannot win games. Looking forward to the UConn women’s game tonight.

I don’t have to tell you how mad the “March Madness” has been. As of last Sunday, only 1,780 brackets remain which correctly predicted a Kentucky v UConn finals. Wait, that many predicted this final? These folks must not know basketball or must have been in some unseemly state to have chosen these two teams. I resisted the temptations to make choices this year. I watched only a few critical match ups in NCAA Men’s basketball during the year. Was way too busy watching all the rest of the stuff on TV.

As a surprise gift, we got to see a cricket finals on ESPN2 on Sunday! It was a shortened version of a cricket match which is immensely popular now, called T20. India played Sri Lanka for the title. India played poorly and the Sri Lankans won the title for the first time. It was great to see Sri Lanka win (how can I be disappointed by my birth country winning) because this was the last game for some of the fantastic, gentlemanly players in the team.

Whether it is the replays during the basketball games or cricket, cool technologies are being developed all around us, many of them, every day. It is becoming so hard to keep up. In fact many of them seem to just come and go. As we are launching the major facilities renovation at Wellesley, we are rethinking classroom spaces and some of the newer technologies that we are looking at are really exciting. The vendors remind me that interactive displays that we are excited about is no longer “new”. They have been in the market for over 5 years and are very prevalent in K-12 space. Why do I have to be constantly reminded that Higher ed is slow to adopt newer technologies?

Some of the new cool technologies I am excited about are happening in the medical field. I am sure that many of you heard on NPR about how scientists from Stanford Medical school have devised a method of detecting and tracking cancer through a blood test. Apparently the tumors, for now the lung cancer ones, shed small amounts of DNA from the cancer cells that ends up in the blood. Technologies have gotten so advanced that now they are able to detect these minor amounts. Once they have it, they analyze these DNAs to look for mutations that generally are signatures for cancers. When this is all worked out, it will be much cheaper and easier way to detect cancer or track if cancer treatments are actually having the intended effect.

3-D printing is revolutionizing the medical field. There have been many fascinating applications, but the one reported recently involves installing a windpipe in a baby to help him breathe better. And then we heard about how a 3-D printed skull was implanted in a woman who had severe headache and even lost her vision due to the thickening of skull. Get this, after the implant, she not only was cured of her headaches, she regained her vision too! You can read more about how 3-D printing is revolutionizing medicine here. In Amsterdam, they have launched a project to construct an entire house based on 3-D printed materials, in three years.

How frustrated do you get about the battery in your smartphone? There is a company in Israel which is working towards developing a battery based on biological conductors (peptides) that can charge a battery in 30 seconds. They say “they are not there yet”, but, please, I will be happy with one that goes from zero to full charge in 5 minutes, so let me know when you have it, Storedot!

Of course, the wearable techs are the craze now. Google glass is leading the way, both in the interesting ways in which people are using it as well as in terms of controversy. Fitbits are another fantastic wearable technology. In fact I will be picking up one tomorrow at Wellesley as a result of participating in Wellesley Walking Challenge!

You can look at many of these advances at Digital Trends Cool Tech. Those that are tired of constant advances in technology and those that are concerned about the lack of attention to security and privacy are slow to adopt. But these technologies are coming at blinding pace and are being used in exciting ways… In the meantime, our adoption of some of the technologies are rather slow because we need to be sensitive to those who will use them.

We have finally figured out how to use Apple TV in a classroom and are pretty close to having Chromecast work in a classroom. What this allows us to do is to wirelessly project from a tablet or a laptop, thereby providing tremendous freedom for the faculty. Though our SMART boards are popular for a variety of pedagogical reasons, there are some logistical issues that come in the way. Our classrooms have to support a wide range of expectations – chalk board, white board etc. As a result, we have a “mobile” version of the SMART board, which is not the ideal solution. Besides, the chalk dust forms a layer over the SMART boards, causing issues.

As we develop standards for the new classrooms, we will be looking at interactive displays that are mounted and fixed. Interactive display is a generic term and SMART Boards, Interactive white boards and LED displays that are interactive, all fall in this category. Each of them have their positives and negatives. One vendor told us how some teachers mistake the interactive white board and use the markers to write on them!

Cool trends in technologies are awesome and something to keep our eyes and ears open, and even dabble in them. But, we have to constantly keep reminding ourselves that our adoption of these must be related to how it can help enhance teaching, learning and research. And, how our faculty are willing to adopt them!