Educational Technology

by Molly Wood, CNet.com

It looks like Apple’s iPad will be the slate-market winner by default. Or rather, by forfeit. Remember back in January, when CES 2010 was all slate tablets, all the time? Now, it’s June, and for the most part, the iPad stands unopposed in the tablet space. What happened? Several launches are planned for fall and winter 2010, but the iPad, on track to sell 16 million units, according to some, will be the iPod of tablets by then. If anything, iPad 2G will have been announced and everyone will be queuing up for the version with the camera on the front.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-20009239-256.html

by Jesse Ellison, Newsweek

In 1972, when Mae Jemison was just 16 years old, she arrived at Stanford University, where she intended to pursue a degree in engineering. But it wasn’t long after arriving in Palo Alto that she learned that the university’s science departments weren’t nearly as enthusiastic about her as she was about them. In one of her freshman science classes, she recalls, the professor looked at her like she was “bonkers.” “I would ask a question, and he would look at me like it was the dumbest question and then move on,” she says. “Then a white guy down the row asks the same question, and he says, ‘Astute observation.’ It makes you start to really question yourself.”

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/29/steming-the-tide.html

By Jeremy P. Meyer, The Denver Post

Some predictions for the future of education include every student carrying a hand-held digital learning device, teachers encouraging Tweeting and texting, and the teaching of lessons by computer games. That version of the future was in full display at the Colorado Convention Center for the annual meeting of the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE.An estimated 18,000 educators and more than 400 vendors attended the convention last week, with sessions from industry leaders, examples of technology use by teachers and even a playground for robots.

http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_15397573

by Arthur E. Levine, Huffington Post

American schools can expect transformation on an unprecedented scale in the coming decades. Today, schools are out of date. They work on an industrial model, which is built around students taught in lockstep, rather than a technological one, which focuses on individual students and connects them to their learning materials, to each other, and to their teachers in new ways. Schools today do not take into account the changing professional world that more than ever relies both on individual effort and networked teams. In an increasingly competitive global economy, American students are not performing well compared to those in many other nations. And rather than harnessing technologies that have become ubiquitous in young people’s lives, American schools often avoid or even forbid them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-e-levine/who-will-lead-the-digital_b_628226.html

by Blackboard, Inc.

The number of high school students who are taking online classes has nearly doubled since last year, according to a survey report from Project Tomorrow® and Blackboard Inc., but demand continues to outpace the opportunities currently available in K-12 schools and districts. Twenty-seven percent of high school students and 21 percent of middle school students reported taking an online class for school or personal reasons in 2009, up from just 14 percent and 16 percent, respectively, in 2008. However, those percentages are far short of meeting student demand, with over half of high school students and nearly as many middle school students citing the availability of online classes as part of their ideal school experience.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/demand-for-online-learning-in-k-12-grows-but-continues-to-outpace-supply-97382364.html

by JAN HOFFMAN, New York Times

The girl’s parents, wild with outrage and fear, showed the principal the text messages: a dozen shocking, sexually explicit threats, sent to their daughter the previous Saturday night from the cellphone of a 12-year-old boy. Both children were sixth graders at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J. “I said, ‘This occurred out of school, on a weekend,’ ” recalled the principal, Tony Orsini. “We can’t discipline him.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/style/28bully.html?_r=1

by James Gallagher, Triangle Business Journal

Much like the phone booth before it, the erstwhile college computer lab is going the way of the dinosaur. As laptop computers become as ubiquitous on campus as lost umbrellas, fewer students are spending time in computer labs, except for when they need to access expensive, high-tech software the colleges provide. Now the folks at N.C. State University are creating virtual computer labs that enable students to access such programs from their own computers without having to purchase the software.

http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2010/06/28/story11.html?b=1277697600%5E3555431

by Project RED

At ISTE 2010, the Project RED Team (Revolutionizing Education) announced findings from their major survey of nearly 1,000 school principals and technology coordinators. “The most exciting findings were identification of which implementation factors improve learning outcomes,” said Tom Greaves, CEO of the Greaves Group and founder of the initiative. 1) Technology-assisted classes help students stay in school – reducing drop-out rates, 2) Schools with 1:1 learning programs, when properly implemented, have better education success than do schools with fewer computing devices and poor implementation 3) But 80% of schools under-utilize technologies they have already purchased.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/factors-improve-learning,1361346.html

By Carrie Launius, St. Louis Globe Dispatch

Every once in a while a book comes around for educators that everyone from administrators to parents need to own. This book which is truly the best book that I have encountered in years is “Visible Learning, A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement” by John Hattie. The Times Educational Supplement says, “It reveals teaching’s Holy Grail.” This book takes nearly every study done on achievement and compiles them. It then gives the reader an analysis of how effective each practice is. Each practice is given a rating from -0.2 (reverse effects) to 1.2 (desired effect.)

http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2010/jun/28/old-school-new-school-looking-achievement-studies/

By Jim Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle

Computer and communication technology just feels too safe, too clean to me. Whether the anonymity of blog comments, the false intimacy of online relationships, or the ease of hitting Delete or Exit at will, we’re able to hold life (as I define it) at arm’s length with this technology. There’s little messiness, little disorder (except when I get disconnected!), only the linear perfection (well, maybe not perfection) of circuitry, wiring, and radio waves. Don’t get me wrong, computer and communication technology has been a boon to the work world, increasing productivity and efficiency dramatically. I certainly couldn’t do what I do without this technology.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/jtaylor/detail??blogid=180&entry_id=66416

By Cory Smith, Lawrence Journal-World

The Lawrence Virtual School will once again include a ninth and 10th grade this school year. The Lawrence school district also plans to add an 11th and 12th grade by the beginning of the 2011 school year. District officials reached an agreement in May with K12 Inc., the technology company that provides the school’s online curriculum. The virtual high school was closed prior to the 2009 school year because of statewide budget cuts. “We closed it knowing that in our future we still wanted a high school for our students,” said Gary Lewis, head of the Lawrence virtual school.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/jun/26/district-moves-restore-virtual-high-school/

by Colin Gustafson, Greenwich Time

“You’ve been St. Bernarded.” The phrase should ring familiar for many Greenwich High School students who have tried to access social Internet sites like Facebook and Twitter on school computers, only to be blocked by a St. Bernard Software-brand Web filter. The filter is not the only tool Greenwich’s public schools have employed to ensure that students and staff are using computers only for safe and educational purposes. The district also has the ability to monitor the usage of its roughly 2,200 computers at 15 schools and the central office.

http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Schools-put-safety-curbs-on-student-Web-access-525790.php

By AnneHart, AllVoices

Blind-deaf people use technology to connect with other people and get information about the world. Check out the website, Using GPS: What is it, what does it do, and how is it beneficial for the Deaf-Blind. That site has a collection of articles that describe the kinds of technology for deaf-blind people and how deaf-blind people use them. Portable GPS systems are available to the deaf-blind population as add-on to notetakers such as the Braille Note, Braille Sense and the Pac Mate. All three of the above mentioned products bring the power of GPS to the deaf-blind consumer, according to the website. Whether you use speech and/or Braille output, these systems allow the deaf-blind population to access information that lets them communicate or write. Technology called Notetakers have both speech output as well as electronic Braille displays.

http://bit.ly/cOpuPZ

By RONNIE BLAIR, the Tampa Tribune

This is the first year for the technology camp, which began last week and winds up Friday. By the last day, the students will have produced a podcast and developed skills that should come in handy in years to come. “What an opportunity for them,” said Emily Keene, principal of West Zephyrhills Elementary. “This is real world. This is something they can use in the future.” Elena Garcia, the school district’s Title I supervisor, said the goal of the camp is to “close the digital divide” so that all students can build technology skills that will be crucial in the future as they prepare for college or enter the workforce.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jun/27/pa-kids-plugged-in-at-camp/

By Scott Duke Harris, Mercury News

With Facebook at the forefront, social networking companies with business models hungry for personal data and a youthful generation raised on the Internet seem to be pulling the 21st century toward a more “transparent” culture, in the approving words of Mark Zuckerberg, the social networking giant’s 26-year-old founder. Facebook’s stated mission: “Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” In other words, letting more people know more about each other. This comes as long-standing social mores and sensibilities are being shaken by the convergence of Silicon Valley technologies. Besides Facebook, which is based in Palo Alto, sites such as Twitter and YouTube are encouraging hundreds of millions of people to share information and images. Gadgets developed here, from the PC to the iPad, have made it simple for users to create, communicate and access that vast amount of digital data.

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_15371548?nclick_check=1

by the New York Academy of Sciences

Many online materials exist for science teachers, but finding trusted resources that are appropriate for an individual teacher’s curriculum needs can be challenging. One of the goals of the Academy’s Science Education Initiative is to make resources, including online materials, easier for teachers to find, navigate, and share. On May 17, 2010, representatives from science institutions around the New York area convened at the Academy to discuss the current state of online educational tools. The speakers presented the best online resources available through their institutions and illustrated ways that teachers might integrate them into New York State’s STEM curriculum. Before and after the presentations, additional institutions presented their educational materials and programs at the Science Education Technology Bazaar.

http://www.nyas.org/Publications/EBriefings/Detail.aspx?cid=49383e9d-278f-45e5-b152-0599670da43e

By Kelly Truong, Chronicle of Higher Ed

A new program will give grants to a variety of high-tech teaching projects, with the hope of helping low-income students better succeed in their studies. Next Gen Learning Challenges, led by Educause, a nonprofit that supports education technology, is designed to find technology-based approaches to improve college readiness and completion among low-income students. Initial goals include expanding access to free educational materials online, exploring the use of social networks for teaching, combining online and face-to-face education, and finding ways to measure learning success.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/High-Tech-Help-for-Low-Income/25108/

By Michelle Rupe Eubanks, Times-Daily

The market is flooded with items such as the Insignia Little Buddy Trackers that allow a tracking device to be placed in a backpack, the LOK8U watch and even GPS-enabled athletic shoes. Prices for the products vary from between $80 and $100 for the initial system. Once installed, there’s an additional charge of around $10 to $25 a month that allows a parent to follow a child’s movement from a Web-based home computer.

http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100624/NEWS/100629928?Title=New-technology-helps-parents-keep-an-eye-on-their-children

by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Cybersecurity training is spreading from high-tech and government offices into high schools, libraries and workplaces near you. Called the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) and coordinated bythe National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) , the new interagency program aims to promote cybersecurity awareness and know-how across the country and among citizens of all ages. NICE is an outgrowth of the 2008 Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which called for extending cybersecurity training throughout the federal government. The subsequent Cyberspace Policy Review, completed in May 2009, concurred and also recommended expanding cybersecurity education to all citizens, starting in kindergarten.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/national-initiative-for-cybersecurity-education-nice-ly-comes-to-you

By Associated Press

University of Oklahoma information technology officials say they’ve developed an iPad application that will go live in July. The iPad, a touch-screen tablet computer, launched on April 3 in the U.S. The OU IT store has sold about 350 iPads since then and store employees anticipate selling another 350 before school starts in August. OU officials say the iPad application is designed to improve efficiencies through technology and will allow the university’s regents to opt for mobile delivery of agendas and supporting materials, which often can be hundreds of pages long.

http://www.kfsm.com/news/sns-ap-ok–ou-ipadapplication,0,3744942.story

by Allan Hoffman, The Star-Ledger

Not long ago, I got the same question from two friends: Should I buy an iTouch for my kid’s birthday? Now, ignoring the fact that both friends got the name wrong — both of them meant the iPod touch, Apple’s iPhone-like music player — my answer to one was yes and the other no. I didn’t have to think much about this recommendation. That’s because one kid was turning 7, too young, the other was turning 16, not a problem, and the iPod touch is essentially a powerful handheld computer for games, web access, email, video, and music. In short, it’s a fun, entirely irresistible distraction machine.

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/06/are_your_kids_ready_for_tech_g.html