Educational Technology

by World-Herald News Service

When one thinks of a library school student, they usually don’t think about people who design applications for mobile information technology. Welcome to the 21st century. Welcome to the world Nikki Dudley lives in. “Library and Information Science is a field that is exploding in a lot of different directions,” the Clarinda High School graduate said. “It isn’t just about sitting in a big room with books; you’re working with ways to handle information, and how to look for things online.” Now Dudley is working on an Apple app. “We just submitted the app to Apple for approval. They say it will take two to three weeks to get a response,” Dudley said. “Once we have the approval, we will start getting some user feedback to see how it’s being accepted by those who use it. We’ll use that information for an update.”

http://www.southwestiowanews.com/articles/2010/10/23/council_bluffs/news/doc4cc2567917f9d597998305.txt#small

by Ken Colburn, East Valley Tribune

Now that USB (or flash) drives are in wide use, virus writers have spent time figuring out ways to combine the old ‘infection by physical connection’ method with Internet worms to find ways into networks that have strong firewall technology in place, but weak desktop security. The ‘back door’ to a secured network on most large corporate or educational computer networks has become the USB port on any of the attached computers. The first thing that you should consider doing if the transfer is generally from your home computer to the school’s computers is to flip the ‘write protect’ switch on the drive before plugging it into any computer at school. This turns your USB drive into a ‘read only’ device like a traditional CD or DVD preventing anything from the school computers to be written to the drive. When you return home, simply flip the switch back to allow writing to the drive from your computer.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/blogs/data_doctors/article_57249312-de10-11df-ad00-001cc4c03286.html

By Diane Standafer, District 518, Worthington Daily Globe

How often in the process of raising our children have we used the phrase, “Back when I was in school …” Along with that would be explanations of how things were when we were young, the good ’ol days, what we learned in school and how we went about learning it. Recently, we polled a few adults as to what they remember about the use of technology during the time they were students in school. The responses were as varied as the age of people that responded.

http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/42135/

by Courtney Cairns Pastor, the Tampa Tribune

Life in Colonial America had plenty of downsides – no indoor plumbing, lots of chores, rampant illnesses. But to 9-year-old Andrew Bensonoff, the worst part had to have been the lack of technology. “These days, you can e-mail or talk on the phone if someone is far from you,” he wrote for a class assignment on the 10 worst aspects of colonial life. “If I lived in colonial days, I’d have to send a letter.” The fourth-grader hates writing by hand, so he was excited when he reached a milestone at Berkeley Preparatory School last month. Finally, he was old enough for his own laptop. From fourth grade through high school graduation, all of Berkeley Prep’s students use personal laptops in class and at home.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/oct/22/221956/schools-pairing-students-with-technology-at-younge/news-breaking/

by the Advertiser Talk

Microsoft Corp. today announced it is providing the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools with a more than $1 million grant to purchase new software and hardware for the two schools at the Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center. This grant will help bring state-of-the-art technology to the campus, helping bridge the technology gap of this underserved community. The grant also includes a $50,000 cash donation portion that will provide for ongoing technical support, teacher and student training, curriculum, and mentoring opportunities for students to learn about and explore careers. The goal is to create an instructional model that can be replicated and scaled throughout Los Angeles Unified School District and elevate teacher and student technology skills, thereby preparing youth for the competitive Los Angeles and U.S. job market.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/21/prwebprweb4686394.DTL

by San Francisco Chronicle

The Project RED (Revolutionizing Education) research team today unveiled a major new study at the National School Boards Association T+L conference in Phoenix that points to the reasons why some technology implementations in schools are successful and many are not. According to Angus King, former Governor of Maine, in his foreword to the report, “Project RED is nothing less than a blueprint for remaking American education . . . not through more or better testing, charter schools, longer school days, more or even better teachers, but through fundamentally altering how we do education, the first real change in the process of education itself in a thousand years.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/21/prwebprweb4686394.DTL

with Dr. Michael E. Kassner, director, ONR Office of Research (Discovery & Invention)

At the linked site is a transcript from the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) online Tech Talk series. Dr. Michael Kassner, director of ONR’s Department of Research, answered questions from audiences on Facebook and Twitter on Oct. 20. Kassner joined ONR in October 2009. Reporting to the chief of naval research, he is responsible for the overall integration of the discovery and invention science and technology portfolio in support of naval needs. Prior to ONR, Kassner chaired the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), where he also taught materials science.

http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/10/22/transcript-enriching-stem-education-for-k-12-students/

Editorial at the Independent.IE

Social networking through Facebook is a feature of life that today’s children take for granted. So, since random internet communication can have its risks, it is reassuring to learn that Irish children are among the most responsible users of such web sites. Our common-sense kids tend not to divulge personal information such as addresses or phone numbers when networking. Research into the experience and practices of European children with new online technologies has found that children in Ireland are comparatively less likely to find themselves in risky situations than most of their counterparts elsewhere.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/children-and-technology-2388916.html

By Betty Klinck, USA TODAY

What if tiny “nano-bots” could autonomously travel though a person’s bloodstream to find and kill cancerous cells, eliminating the need for surgery? Or what if you could hop into a flying car for your morning commute? No science fiction here: “These are real,” say commercials for Planet Green’s new show, Dean of Invention. Dean Kamen, the show’s host and inventor of various medical technologies as well as the two-wheeled self-balancing personal transporter, the Segway, says he wants the show to get kids excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), although the series is not aimed just at children.

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/mind-soul/education/2010-10-21-DeanOfInvention21_ST_N.htm?csp=34news

by SUSAN TROLLER, The Capital Times

This year, Middleton launched its 21st Century eSchool. It’s one of just a dozen virtual schools in Wisconsin, and the second in Dane County; last year the McFarland School District became the sponsoring district for the Wisconsin Virtual Academy (WIVA), which opened for the 2009-2010 school year with about 400 students and this year counts twice that many. The two schools share several key elements: They offer a broad range of online courses, beginning at the kindergarten level and continuing all the way through high school, employ licensed Wisconsin teachers to oversee online learning, and require that students participate in mandatory testing each year.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/local_schools/article_a5901470-dc7d-11df-90c2-001cc4c002e0.html

by Red Orbit

A group of 200 people from educators to non-profits gathered at Yahoo on Friday for the fourth annual Digital Citizenship Summit to discuss how to battle cyber bullies and other dangers children may face on the Internet. Yahoo gave the conference a sneak peek at a “Generation Safe” program being prepared for distribution by iKeepSafe.org. The program is “a road map for school communities to identify and address children at risk,” Yahoo director of child safety Catherine Teitelbaum said. “There is a role to be played by everyone in a child’s life.” Cases of students taking their own lives after being tormented or humiliated by cyber bullies catapulted the topic to the top of the summit agenda.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1932440/battling_cyber_bullies/

By Mary Riddell, the Telegraph

He’s the most charitable man on the planet, but how does the billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates indulge himself? Mary Riddell finds out in this exclusive interview. Not all Conservative voters may feel so buoyant about the ring-fencing of the aid budget, but let that pass. Leave aside, too, the fanfares of others and his own evangelism, and Mr Gates, at 54, is the kind of prophet whose spectacles and nondescript suit brand him an off-the-peg geek. Does he mind that label? “Well, when geek means that you’re willing to study things, and if you think science and engineering matter, then I plead guilty, gladly. Also, I kinda hang around with people who are like that. In our work, numbers give you the sense of scale, and then you meet the individual mothers and children and farmers. So yes, it’s good. If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bill-gates/8073946/Bill-Gates-If-you-dont-like-geeks-youre-in-trouble..html

By Susan L. Serbin, Delaware County News

Springfield School District has taken notice of an increasing number of bullying incidents reported in the news, including those using technology. But schools already have curriculum, programs and strategies in place to build the kind of communities that combat what might be natural tendencies for a few kids at some ages to have non-productive behaviors. E. T. Richardson Middle School administration is aware its population is particularly prone to issues related to new relationships and interactions. Principal Dan Tracy is adding special programs to daily activities to help children become more informed about various aspects of the 21st century that impacts their lives.

http://www.delconewsnetwork.com/articles/2010/10/19/springfield_press/news/doc4cbe41bf5ded8509621508.txt

By Lynne Klaft, News-Telegram

A prediction for the near future: We will all have a desktop 3-D “printer” in our homes and be able to create parts for our cars, computer widgets, and toaster knobs, according to Mark A. Leonard at the 10th annual MassTec conference Friday at Fitchburg State University. “Well within our lifetime we will all have a 3-D printer in our homes, go online, download a plan, feed it to the printer and make a new part for something we have broken; the technology is advancing that fast,” Mr. Leonard said. The former Technology and Engineering teacher demonstrated his company’s version of a desktop 3-D printer to a roomful of middle and high school TechEng teachers, showing them the possibilities of what they could accomplish in their classrooms.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20101017/NEWS/10170539/1003/NEWS03

By Kelley Bouchard, Portland Press Herald

It used to be that cheating was a simple matter of copying someone else’s homework, letting your eyes wander during a test or turning in a friend’s term paper as your own. Now, smart phones and other information technologies are so prevalent in students’ lives that it’s tougher to tell when they’re cheating. “You see people texting all the time in class,” said Nate Stoddard, a Portland High School sophomore, demonstrating how a student might hold a smart phone on his lap and out of sight. “I don’t know if they’re cheating, but they could be.” To bring some clarity to a complicated issue, Portland school officials have drafted a detailed policy on academic honesty. The School Committee will formally receive the policy tonight and vote on the proposal in the coming weeks.

http://www.pressherald.com/news/technology-tests-academic-honesty_2010-10-20.html

By Zack Whittaker, ZD Net

Dash argues that cyberbullying does not exist, in that bullying of any kind is still bullying. Whether you use a pen to write a hateful note, a phone call to call someone horrible names, or a computer to send hurtful messages, it is all the same thing. Technology is being misused for the convenience of essentially lazy bullies. Technology is a neutral concept, and it is the people who decide the means and uses for it. Technology isn’t the enemy here, and neither is Facebook or text messaging. It’s the people behind them which send the messages.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/does-cyberbullying-exist-and-is-technology-to-blame/6453

by Rosalie Currier, Sturgis Journal

Once the classrooms have equipment such as computers, TVs and digital cameras, feeding the digital natives isn’t always a high dollar. At Sturgis Public Schools, many teachers are enhancing teaching with free or relatively inexpensive software. Among the many computer programs available is Smart Music, which is being used this year by James Whitehead, Sturgis Middle School band teacher. The program takes elements of video games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero and makes practicing a band instrument more interesting.

http://www.sturgisjournal.com/news/education/x549832393/Sturgis-schools-show-technology-doesn-t-have-to-be-expensive

By Tara Malone and Lisa Black, Chicago Tribune

With the election weeks away, Fremd High School teacher Jason Spoor asked students in his government class, some of them first-time voters, to research local candidates vying for office. They would have 15 minutes and one learning tool: their cellphone. “If you are driving down the street and headed to vote, you don’t have a computer at the touch of a hand. You have a cellphone,” Spoor told his students last week. The lesson would have been impossible in the past. But with cellphones tucked in the book bags and pockets of three-fourths of today’s teens, many high schools are ceding defeat in the battle to keep handheld technology out of class and instead are inviting students to use their phones for learning.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2013159394_webphones15.html

By Guy Martin, Get Surrey

Once upon a time, schoolchildren who spent hours on the computer were labelled as “nerds” or “games freaks” – but pupils at the Howard of Effingham School have shown the shift in attitudes by embracing new ways of learning. All 1,500 students are now part of the Frog community, an intranet system that can be accessed from inside and outside school, and which staff said was bringing real benefits to learning. Parents and governors are soon to join the students and staff in the online environment, one where homework is set, submitted and sent back, and pupil responses are delivered without the need for forms, slips or nagging from teachers.

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2080371_school_embraces_the_2010_world_of_virtual_education

By Ashly McGlone, Signon San Diego

Fourteen-year Chula Vista educator Eugene Yee sets the bar high for student achievement, but not without providing tech savvy support. Yee — who teaches fourth-graders at Hedencamp Elementary School in Chula Vista — was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Missouri-based nonprofit People to People International for his efforts to integrate technology in the classroom.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/oct/14/educator-honored-efforts-teach-children/

by People’s Daily Online

Normal people can click the mouse and type on the keyboard with their hands, but how can the people with upper limb disabilities click the mouse and surf the Internet? Recently, several university students from the Nanjing University of Science and Technology came up with an idea to invent a device where people can control a mouse with their feet. They have called the mouse “Talang.” The “Talang” mouse looks like a large slipper with a blue waves design. According to the students that invented it, wearing the “slipper,” people can click the left mouse button by pressing the slipper with their forefoot, click the right button by pressing the slipper with their heel and browse the websites by moving their foot.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7167703.html