Techno-News Blog

By Tom Simonite, Technology Review

Cryptographic schemes protect vast quantities of financial and personal information. The encryption systems used to secure online bank accounts and keep critical communications private could be undone in just a few years, security researchers warned at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas yesterday. Breakthroughs in math research made in the past six months could underpin practical, fast ways to decode encrypted data that’s considered unbreakable today. Alex Stamos, chief technology officer of the online security company Artemis, led a presentation describing how he and three other security researchers studied recent publications from the insular world of academic cryptopgraphy research, which covers trends in attacking common encryption schemes.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517781/math-advances-raise-the-prospect-of-an-internet-security-crisis/

by Katie Lepi, Edudemic

We’re more than halfway through the year now, and we all know that everyone makes predictions about what will happen each year in the realms of technology, education, and education technology. And since many of you are on summer break, relaxing and recharging before having to go back and think too much about any of the aforementioned topics, we thought it would be a good time to reflect a bit on what the trends have been so far this year. The handy infographic at the URL below takes a look at some of 2013′s biggest “e-learning”, which really just means how education and technology are intersecting these days. Keep reading to learn more.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/the-biggest-online-learning-trends-of-the-year/

by AISHWARIYA S., the Hindu

Futurelearn offers us the opportunity to explore a new online delivery channel, focussing on a different way to structure learning materials and learner support from that offered by Coursera. Additionally, we are able to work collaboratively with many of our peer universities in the U.K. who are not Coursera partners. We wish to reach young learners in U.K. schools, especially those who are educationally disadvantaged, and Futurelearn will be a good platform for that sort of educational outreach. We will offer more courses at high school/ entry to university level, although there will be some courses at more advanced levels. The subject range will be wide and include biology, physics, bio-medical engineering, modern art, literature and history.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/future-is-online/article4985402.ece

by Katie Lepi, Edudemic

While iPads might be taking up a lot of buzz in the classroom technology world, laptops are still a widely used tool for both personal and classroom use. Choosing a laptop may not be a simple task, either – there are a lot of choices out there. Making sure it has the right tools you need and falls into a price range that works for you tend to be the top two factors for most people who are in the market for a new laptop. So we thought it’d be useful to tackle the best laptops for teachers in a world filled with iPads and smartphones.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/how-to-choose-a-laptop/

by Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Who runs the internet, anyway? It’s a pretty big question, and one that ICANN is hoping to help clarify with this handy infographic (see URL). The answer to the question is not an easy one. The internet is not ‘run’ by any one person, group or organization. It might be better to think of it as an entity that is governed by a number of different groups from different backgrounds (private sector, government, academia, national and international organizations, etc). Collectively, they work to develop standards and policies to ensure the Internet is usable and appropriate globally.  The infographic (see URL) outlines some of these stakeholders and what they offer.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/who-runs-the-internet/

by Rob Kelly, Magna Teaching & Learning

Taking an online course can be an isolating experience, but it doesn’t have to be. There are several key techniques you can employ to humanize your online courses and thus improve the learning experience as well as success and retention rates. Humanizing an online course means making connections so that students feel a relationship to the course, fellow students, and the instructor. Jim Marteney, distance education trainer at Los Angeles Valley College, likens this idea to the concept of the third place—a place other than home and work where people come together to interact and build community, an idea popularized by Ray Oldenberg in his book Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the “Great Good Places” at the Heart of Our Communities.

http://www.magnapubs.com/blog/teaching-and-learning/tips-for-humanizing-your-online-course/

by Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

The future of learning is exciting, filled with innovative ideas, and no one in their right mind knows more than that. Anyone who says otherwise is pulling your leg. In any case, it’s fun and quite useful to think about what the future of education may actually look like. The team at KnowledgeWorks assembled about a dozen different features they think will be present in the world of education many years from now.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/12-changes-coming-to-the-future-of-learning/

By Kevin Carey, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The same technological tools that are making academic labor more productive are eliminating the need for top-heavy academic administration. Professors—the good ones, anyway—have the expertise and teaching skills that students need. They can cut out the middlemen and thrive on the flip side of labor productivity. Not fewer educators, but more and better education for more people.  These new colleges would be built where people want to live, and taught the way people want and need to learn. The long cold war between administration and professoriate would fall to history, where it belongs.

http://chronicle.com/article/Embrace-the-New-Freedom-/140569/

by Official Google Blog

Coffee shop + Internet—it’s a pairing that many of us have come to rely on. WiFi access makes work time, downtime, travel time and lots of in-between times more enjoyable and productive. That’s why we’re teaming up with Starbucks to bring faster, free WiFi connections to all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks stores in the United States over the next 18 months. When your local Starbucks WiFi network goes Google, you’ll be able to surf the web at speeds up to 10x faster than before. If you’re in a Google Fiber city, we’re hoping to get you a connection that’s up to 100x faster.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/starbucks-wifi-goes-google.html

BY:SEAN GALLAGHER AND GEOFFREY GARRETT, the Australian

Perhaps the best way to understand this massive open online course revolution is to think of MOOC platforms as the iTunes of higher education. Apple’s iTunes didn’t change the way music was made; it leveraged iPod technology and revolutionised how people consumed music. MP3 files are lower quality than high-fidelity stereo, but they are so much more convenient. And live music continues to thrive. Just ask the Rolling Stones. Similarly, we do not expect MOOCs to make the campus experience any less desirable. In fact, MOOCs may even encourage students to experience campus life and to pay more for the privilege

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/moocs-the-itunes-of-academe/story-e6frgcko-1226688285382

by: Brian Gabriel, Business Administration Information

The massive open online course (MOOC) platform edX announced on its blog that it is releasing its entire learning platform as open source, enabling universities and independent developers to contribute to its online platform.  The venture began May 2, 2012 as a partnership between Harvard and MIT, and in March 2013 reached its 1 millionth student enrollment. The edX platform is implemented in Python, Ruby and NodeJS. Developers can access edX’s source code at http://code.edx.org/.

http://www.businessadministrationinformation.com/news/edx-opens-its-mooc-platform-to-developers-for-further-expansion

by the Merced Sun-Star

An experiment using online classes to help struggling students in math got off to a rough start. But it’s wise to learn from the pilot project, not to prematurely declare it a failure. “San Jose State’s big experiment with massive online courses fails massively,” one headline read. Others had a similar theme. This rush to judgment was based on basic misunderstanding about the design of the experiment. This project still deserves a chance. As Gov. Jerry Brown said in announcing this experiment in January, California has three major challenges to confront:

1. Only 16 percent of California State University students graduate in four years.

2. Millions of young people with college aptitude aren’t going to college.

3. Even if they get to college, they have to take remedial English or math or repeat courses.

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/07/29/3134301/online-class-pilot-project-educational.html

By James Kendrick, ZDNet

When the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 arrived a couple of months ago the value over the iPad mini was readily apparent. In addition to rivaling the size of the super-thin little iPad, the Note 8.0 has two features the former lacks. After two months of heavy use of the Galaxy Note 8.0, the value of the tablet is still very good. Google recently launched the new Nexus 7, a nice tablet at a decent price. The refreshed model has good hardware running the newest version of the Android OS. While the new Nexus 7 is a solid entry into the tablet space, it doesn’t have anything to knock the Note 8.0 off its high pedestal.

http://www.zdnet.com/galaxy-note-8-0-still-the-best-small-tablet-7000018624/

By Denise Amrich, ZDNet Health

Google Hangouts are getting more and more interesting. The ability to easily start a live video conference with colleagues all over the world, share screens, and see each other — all in real time — is opening many doors for innovation. Sure, live video conferencing has been around for years, and it’s been quite good for some time. But it hasn’t been as easily and freely available as Hangouts on the ubiquitous Google infrastructure. Now, anyone with a Google account can start a live video conference. A good example of this is the Hangout produced by Yuri Shevchouk and involving RN Rob Fraser, clinical development nurse Ian Miller, and travel nurse Gary Cox. Talk about worldwide, Fraser was in Toronto Canada while Miller was in Australia’s Canberra region.

http://www.zdnet.com/nurses-use-google-hangouts-to-collaborate-on-technology-7000018634/

By Matt Baxter-Reynolds, ZDNet

My position is that PCs and post-PC devices are very different beasts. What we’ve done is optimised two classes of device. One that is about using technology to make producing complex work through application of focused cognitive effort. The other is about using technology to make all the stuff we like to do with our whole lives a little bit more fun, or engaging, or to offer entirely new ways of doing and being. And so now consumers have a choice between whether they want to do this “digital life” bit on PCs, or smartphones and tablets, or a combination of both. This is what’s hurting PC sales in Consumerland. We now have choice..

http://www.zdnet.com/heres-why-pcs-and-post-pc-devices-are-different-things-and-why-they-need-to-stay-that-way-7000018631/

By Tom Simonite, Technology Review

New software tracks a person’s facial expressions and maps it—in real-time—onto a digital character, whether that might be an alien or an ape. The technology could make it easier to create computer animated characters that closely match the expressions of an actor. To get started, just shake your head once in front of the Kinect sensor the software uses so it can capture an impression of the shape of your face. The mapping gets better over time, because as a person moves his or her face, the system works to learn its shape better, producing a more accurate mimic. The software was created by Hao Li, Jihun Yu, Yuting Ye, and Chris Bregler of Industrial Light and Magic.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517461/the-future-of-graphics-and-gaming/

by Sylvie Light, Edudemic

If you’re a teacher, you probably already know about the steep rise in distance education and how integral the internet has become in teaching. But you might not realize how widespread the change has really become. In 2012, Edtech Magazine published some surprising statistics about distance learning, including the fact that 65 percent of college students have taken an online class, and 65 percent of full-time college faculty teach distance courses.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/07/what-to-know-about-the-rise-of-distance-learning/

 by  e-Learning Provocateur
Hot on the heels of my 5 benefits of open badges for corporates, I now present my 7 big opportunities that MOOCs offer corporates. Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m quite the MOOC fan. While I realise massive open online courses are not a panacea, I believe they have much to offer learners and learning professionals alike. More specifically, I recognise the following opportunities to leverage them in the workplace.

http://ryan2point0.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/7-big-opportunities-that-moocs-offer-corporates/

By Susan Young, Technology Review

Scientists have created a false memory in mice by manipulating neurons that bear the memory of a place. The work further demonstrates just how unreliable memory can be. It also lays new ground for understanding the cell behavior and circuitry that controls memory, and could one day help researchers discover new ways to treat mental illnesses influenced by memory. In the study, published in Science on Thursday, the MIT scientists show that they can modify a memory and have a mouse believe it experienced something it didn’t. Susumu Tonegawa, a neuroscientist at MIT, and members of his lab used mice that were genetically modified to allow for certain neurons to be activated with a flash of light; the technique enabled the researchers to activate a memory that caused a mouse to believe it had experienced electrical shocks in a particular box, even though no such thing had happened there. “The process of memory is nothing like a tape recording,” says study co-first author Steve Ramirez. “It’s really malleable and susceptible to the incorporation of new information.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517226/scientists-make-mice-remember-things-that-didnt-happen/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

Gesture-control devices can make it easier to operate everything from smartphones to robots from a distance. Drone commander: The Myo armband senses electrical signals produced by the wearer’s muscle movements, and translates those signals to actions that can control applications on a computer or smartphone via low-power Bluetooth. Here, it’s shown controlling the flight of a small drone. When it comes to gesture-control systems like Microsoft’s Kinect, some applications—like gaming—are obvious. Others—like controlling your window blinds—are less so. Yet that’s the kind of functionality Waterloo, Ontario-based startup Thalmic Labs is hoping will be possible with its first product, an armband called Myo that’s slated to start shipping late this year to some of the company’s earliest customers.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517176/an-armband-promises-a-simpler-route-to-gesture-control/

by Michael B. Horn, Christensen Institute

I’ve written a few times (here and here, for example) about the great work that the Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) is doing to help schools push the design envelope on what’s possible for students. Last week the group announced its latest set of grants—$6.6 million all told to 38 grant recipients working to personalize learning for students spanning grades 6 through 12. The grants were divided into two categories this time around. Eight schools received launch grants to support their opening this fall, and, in a smart new category of grants, 30 schools intending to launch programs in the fall of 2014 received funds to help them in their planning process (full disclosure: I served as a reviewer for the launch grants). The latest set of grants took several encouraging steps forward.

http://www.christenseninstitute.org/moving-schooling-forward-next-gen-grants-possess-promise/