Educational Technology

By Nicolette Gomez, Converge

Cyberbullying has become a national epidemic. More and more teens and young adults are taking their own lives because of constant online harassment, and it is an issue that has no easy fix. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, cyberbullying is defined as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.” But of three people interviewed at Empire High School — a school that uses laptops as its primary source for educating — only one included text messages in their definition of cyberbullying. In addition to that, none of the interviewed parties mentioned repeated or multiple attacks in their definition. This brings up the idea that knowing the problem is the first step to beginning to solve it.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/Cyberbullying-The-Nations-New-Epidemic.html

By Julianne Capati, Spencer Taylor, Converge Classroom Technology

No one likes failing. That’s why people try not to make mistakes. But mistakes lead to learning and growing. Mistakes challenge you to learn from them in order to succeed. Mistakes represent success in disguise. Instead of avoiding failure, teachers and students should make these 10 mistakes.

http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/5-Mistakes-that-Students-111510.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Because the lectures were online, the students didn’t bother to come to class at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Currie wanted to find a way to engage his students on a regular basis and show them the value of class time. He had used clickers before, but wanted more than a yes-no or multiple choice answer. And he didn’t want students to cheat by giving their clickers to someone else. Like Currie, professors in the United States and Canada search for ways to engage their students. And they’ve found potential in mobile quiz applications.

http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/Mobile-Quiz-Apps-Engage-College-Students.html

by the National Science Foundation

View a webcast highlighting two NSF programs that engage students in computer science. Imagine a jacket that lights up. With directional arrows programmed into the fabric, a bicyclist can use her jacket to alert traffic when she’s turning. The jacket is an example of e-textiles, a techology that is drawing more girls to computer science through an innovative program at MIT. Meanwhile at Georgia Tech, high school students are hired to test and debug computer games, a way of bringing diverse students to computer science. These inspired programs are unfortunately not typical. American information technology and software companies dominate the world marketplace, yet there is a gaping hole in formal computer science education. For K-12 students, computer science education is practically nonexistent. The United States lacks an adequate pipeline to feed world class computer science at the university level with the number and diversity of students needed to address societal challenges.

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?cntn_id=118192&media_id=68828&org=NSF

By Patti Zarling, Green Bay Press Gazette

Green Bay-area school districts are beginning to change long-standing bans on handheld technology, such as cell phones and iPods, after realizing they are increasingly part of students’ everyday lives. The Pulaski School District, for example, now encourages middle and high school students to bring their cell phones to class. They’re also welcome to carry other electronic gadgets such as netbooks, which are a bit smaller than laptop computers; iPads, handheld tablet computers; or electronic-book readers. Pulaski school leaders said they decided to drop a ban on cell phone use because it wasn’t practical. Students own the gadgets, administrators say, so why not use them as classroom tools?

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20101208/GPG0101/12080815/iPods-iPads-cell-phones-welcome-in-area-schools

by the Online Education Database

Every student will face down the temptation to cheat on an assignment in his or her lifetime. By this point, turning in fake papers, copying the work of others and outright plagiarism has sadly grown inescapably woven into the education sector. Unsurprisingly, statistics abound regarding the whats, hows and whys behind academic dishonesty — and many will surprise those who find such actions deplorable. (ed note: cheaters have higher gradebpoints; 85% of cheaters say it is necessary; 95% of cheaters don’t get caught; online dipoloma mill websites get 8,000 hits per day and more!)

http://oedb.org/library/features/8-astonishing-stats-on-academic-cheating

by Matt Brian, the Next Web

As 2010 draws to a close, we can reflect on another fantastic year for gadgets. Technology has advanced to a point where we can now watch 3D programming in our living rooms, computers have reduced in size, increased in power and can now be placed on our laps. We are even able to control a Parrot A.R. Drone with our smartphone. This years two fastest selling gadgets, the Apple iPad and Microsoft’s Kinect, also happen to be the two fastest selling gadgets of all time. With that in mind, we immediately set to work creating an infographic that could represent the sales of both the Kinect and iPad, focusing specifically on how many units were sold and how much money they made for both Microsoft and Apple.

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2010/12/17/comparing-the-two-fastest-selling-gadgets-of-all-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

by Courtney Boyd Myers, the Next Web

On January 17th, Rupert Murdoch will unveil “The Daily,” his much-discussed iPad newspaper.  While the date has been pushed back a few times now, inside us that reporters are mobilizing to start work at the New York offices in January. News Corp has already hired over 100 journalists for The Daily including three managing editors: Mike Nizza, a veteran of The New York Times, AOL News and The Atlantic; Steve Alperin, a producer at ABC News, and Pete Picton, an online editor at UK Newspaper, The Sun.

http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/17/rupert-murdochs-the-daily-set-to-launch-january-17th/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

by Brad McCarty, the Next Web

What happens when the rumors start spreading about a virally delicious website like Delicious? The alternatives come to light and the programmers start to get antsy. One programmer, from a thread that we found over on Hacker News, decided that it was high time to build his own Delicious clone, obscurely named 1R7. The site, which looks like Delicious took on a diet to remove the images, works just as you’d think it would. Bookmarks are saved, tagged and shared around the Internet. Caveat emptor, though: How stable is it? Not at all! This project is still extremely young, so don’t go betting the farm on it yet, but please use it, break it, and figure out what could be done better. Call it an early alpha.

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/12/18/1r7-a-delicious-clone-of-delicious/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

by Brad McCarty, the Next Web

With Yahoo picking off its services one by one, it’s no surprise that people have been speculating about which one will die next. Though the roadmap appears to be laid out at least through the end of this year, 2011 might hold some surprises. If you’re a Flickr user, here’s hoping that you don’t get surprised. But, just in case you do, we thought we’d start taking a look at great photo services that could take its place in your life.

http://goo.gl/nBHvA

by Paul Sawers, the Next Web

With Wikileaks dominating international headlines, governments across the globe will no doubt begin assessing how their digital borders are patrolled to ensure their diplomatic data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Most of the public have warmly welcomed the cable leaks, many following the riveting revelations with fervor. Put the boot on the other foot, however, and most of us wouldn’t be overly ecstatic with our private information finding its way into the public domain. Of course, the two scenarios are different. Our own personal information relates to ourselves, whilst the leaked cables from the US State Department involve the whole world, even if it does cause diplomatic distress.

http://goo.gl/dUHo7

by Zee, the Next Web

“This video was a made to introduce K-12 teachers to the Internet (hard to believe now, but back then, the public was largely unaware). Riding the meteoric rise of the Internet, this video became NASA’s most popular K-12 VHS tape.”

http://ow.ly/3ramF

By Jenna Zwang, eSchool News

Teachers seeking online communication and collaboration opportunities with students and other educators have another free resource at their disposal: Edmodo, an education-based social networking site. The social learning network for teachers, students, schools, and districts offers free classroom communication for teachers, students, and administrators on a secure social network. Professional development for teachers is another component.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/12/15/edmodo-a-free-secure-social-networking-site-for-schools/

By Christopher Dawson, ZD Net Summary

I had a chance last week to talk with Adam Garry, Dell’s manager of global professional learning. A former teacher turned technology evangelist and educational leader at Dell, he had some great insight into where educational technology was headed this coming year. Some of the predictions could be tied to Dell products, but by and large, he and I agreed that 2011 would be the year of the platform. As Adam explained, it’s no longer “all right to just drop off hardware anymore.” Rather, Dell works hard to ensure that the solutions they provide schools can support their learning platforms of choice and their goals for educational technology. If the goals and platforms don’t exist or aren’t well-designed and integrated, then Adam and Dell staff work to fully develop them and provide a basis for learning with technology.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/top-10-ed-tech-predictions-for-2011/4382?tag=nl.e623

By Christopher Dawson, ZD Net

It’s not perfect, but the Chrome notebook begs to be used for 1:1 in a school that has embraced Google Apps for Education as their collaboration platform of choice. Technology pundits have been all over the board on Google’s new Chrome Notebooks. They love it, they hate it, they don’t know what to do with it, they don’t know who will use it, they don’t know if the world is ready for it. Most of them cite completely valid concerns, challenges, and prospects for Google’s operating system and the upcoming notebooks/netbooks on which it will run. I wrote last week that I expected Chrome OS to be a game-changer in terms of 1:1 computing and now, having used the demo Cr-48 that Google sent me as my primary computer for a few days now, I can say that this is the closest I’ve ever seen to an ideal student computer for secondary school 1:1 deployments.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/chrome-notebooks-welcome-to-the-easiest-student-laptop-ever/4410?tag=nl.e623

By Nicolette Gomez, Converge

Virginia University Builds State’s Largest Solar Project Cyberbullying has become a national epidemic. More and more teens and young adults are taking their own lives because of constant online harassment, and it is an issue that has no easy fix. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, cyberbullying is defined as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.” But of three people interviewed at Empire High School — a school that uses laptops as its primary source for educating — only one included text messages in their definition of cyberbullying. In addition to that, none of the interviewed parties mentioned repeated or multiple attacks in their definition. This brings up the idea that knowing the problem is the first step to beginning to solve it.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/Cyberbullying-The-Nations-New-Epidemic.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Now the educators are ready to hop on the technology bike. The instructional technologists walk beside them. They give them the tools they need. And they promise to stay near as the educators learn. And slowly, the educators hone the skills they need to help their students learn even more. Pretty soon, the educators ride the technology bike more than they fall off. They learn to pedal so well that they join other educators in collaborative learning projects. They connect to classrooms around the world through video conferencing. And they teach students language arts by playing World of Warcraft with classes in other states. Their muscles and confidence strengthen the more they ride. And they learn skills that take their schools to cool places around the world.

http://www.convergemag.com/training/The-Technology-Bike.html

By Kathy Matheson, Associated Press

About two-thirds of respondents said they use Facebook each day, while 10 percent reported daily use of Twitter. Thirteen percent of students said they used Facebook to avoid boredom between classes. But during the ban, 33 percent of students reported feeling less stressed. Twenty-one percent said they used their normal social networking time to do homework, while 10 percent said they read online news. Some students changed their study methods. Darr cited a Facebook-based tutoring effort that was failing to explain a complex biology process to students; they grasped the concept only after a face-to-face meeting during the blackout, he said.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/12/10/pa_college_social_media_blackout_wins_converts/

by Mike McDonald and David Pogue, Mega Technology

The fact that technology is always changing is difficult for some people. For others, it is the very reason why they love it. The New York Times technology writer David Pogue is obviously a fan of technology but admits that he too struggles to keep up with the speed at which it moves. In this interview with WebProNews, Pogue talks about several trends in the tech world and how they are impacting consumers and the tech industry. First of all, he points out the massive shift to app phones. Today, consumers are obsessed with the likes of Apple’s iPhones, Google’s Android devices, and most recently to the market, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.

http://videos.webpronews.com/2010/12/03/mega-technology-trends-and-what-they-mean/

by Scott Ard, CNET news.com

The location was the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., a city in the heart of Silicon Valley, where Wozniak in the 1970s witnessed the personal computer revolution that was just getting started, a revolution in which he would eventually play a crucial role. And the reason he was strolling through the museum’s artifacts with a small group of journalists was to provide a sneak peek at an exhibit dubbed “Revolution: The first 200 years of computing,” which is one part of a two-year, $19 million renovation the 25,000-square-foot museum will be revealing to the public in January. As Wozniak, who clearly enjoys talking about the history of computing, said at the event, “I say no to a lot of things, but never to the computer museum.” (see video interviews of Steve Wozniak at museum)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30677_3-20024498-244.html

By Christine Johnson, NYU

We may pay obscene amounts of money to attend NYU, but it’s hard to argue that NYU doesn’t shell out money to people who look for it. Stern’s Social Venture Competition and the Be A Changemaker Challenge provide $100,000 and $20,000 respectively to outstanding social entrepreneurs; the Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship offers $40,000 and internship support to worthy undergrads; and the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund (DURF) will pay CAS undergrads up to $1,000 for just about anything (and you can receive it an unlimited number of times). In line with these and NYU’s $20 million Venture Fund, Stern has created a $75,000 Technology Venture Competition, open to all the techies out there who need seed money to start up the next Diaspora*. The competition is part of Stern’s Entrepreneurship Challenge, which supports more typical business ventures, social entrepreneurship and now tech ventures all from NYU students, faculty and researchers.

http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2010/12/03/nyus-new-technology-venture-grants-winners-75000/