Educational Technology

February 14, 2011

Delaware schools: Online program makes students smart drivers

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By PAM GEORGE, News Journal

On Feb. 20, 2004, two Salesianum School students were killed in a car crash. The tragedy hit home for the Booker family. “I knew one student very well,” said Pete Booker, president of Delmarva Broadcasting Co. “He and my son were in school together from fourth grade on.” The Sallies students were two of six students who died in automobile accidents that month alone. Twenty-three died that year in Delaware, Booker said. One young woman was a friend of a DBC sales manager’s daughter. “It was unnecessary and avoidable,” Booker said. “We decided we needed to do something.” With guidance from school educators, policy makers and others, Delmarva Broadcasting in 2005 launched SmartDrive, a free online course for students that stresses good driving decisions

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110203/NEWS03/102030305

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Evaluating course evaluations

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

By Sarah Schweppe, University of Washington Daily News

How students grade their professors at the end of every quarter may change, and the Faculty Council on Teaching and Learning wants students to have a say in how the new process will work. The Office of Educational Assessment (OEA) is looking into altering how course evaluations are proctored and how the data they produce are made available to students. Nana Lowell, director of the OEA, recently presented the possible changes to the Instructional Assessment System (IAS) at a Faculty Council about Teaching and Learning meeting. The changes were prompted by requests from students and faculty for more online course evaluations and better access to the database that lists the results.

http://dailyuw.com/2011/2/3/evaluating-course-evaluations/

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Faculty use technology, keen eyes to prevent online cheating

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by Kimberley O’Bryan, the Arbiter

Online classes are a miracle for students juggling family obligations, hectic class schedules and part-time jobs. But taking instructor presence out of the equation has opened up something else — opportunities for students to cheat. According to a 2009 study in the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 32.7 percent of the students surveyed admitted to cheating in online classes, usually on a test or a quiz. Less than three percent were caught. So how do instructors catch online cheaters? The best way is to know their students. If a student struggles with essays all semester long, then her online paper is a hit, that’s a give-away.

http://arbiteronline.com/2011/02/03/faculty-use-technology-keen-eyes-to-prevent-online-cheating/

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February 13, 2011

— On the cutting edge — Siuslaw schools embrace virtual ed

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by Amy Bartlett, Siuslaw News

Non-traditional approaches connect with a variety of students. Excitement about virtual education, or online courses, at Siuslaw School district has already infected some of the staff and school officials, especially after the district won an award for its program, but, more surprising is that much of the buzz is coming from students. Without any prompting, they point to their successes, even those reluctant to do so.

http://www.thesiuslawnews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=4065&page=72

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HippoCampus: Online Content In and Out of Class

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By Sara Bernard, MindShift

For students seeking study guides and educators needing specific content, here’s another robust online resource: HippoCampus, a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), provides multimedia homework and study help to high school and community college students and instructors free of charge. As part of MITE’s National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), HippoCampus content focuses on general education topics like algebra and biology and is largely donated by universities and other educational institutions.

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/02/hippocampus-online-content-in-and-out-of-class/

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Lancaster City School students learning through kid-friendly e-mail program

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by Michelle George, Lancaster Eagle Gazette

This year marks the first for Lancaster students in grades three through 12 to be given their own e-mail accounts. Last week, the Lancaster Board of Education approved a contractual agreement with Gaggle.net to continue using the system in the district next school year. The student e-mail accounts are just one of the ways teachers in Lancaster are using technology in the classroom to prepare students for a more global job market. “I could see going paperless with Gaggle in the future and having the students turn all of their big essays in to me electronically,” said English teacher Kelli Marvin, whose students use the system to e-mail in assignments and class projects.

http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/article/20110202/NEWS01/102020311/1002/news01/Lancaster-City-School-students-learning-through-kid-friendly-e-mail-program

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February 12, 2011

20 Fascinating TED Talks All About the Brain

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by Online Classes

The brain is man’s most amazing organ, and appropriately, much thought has been put into it. TED talks explore creativity, and quite a few of these talks have been devoted to thinking creatively about the brain, from brain-modeled supercomputers to brains in love. Check out these talks from TED to explore your mind.

http://www.onlineclasses.org/2011/01/31/20-fascinating-ted-talks-all-about-the-brain/

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UK Embracing the future of learning

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by Mark Stacey, UK Independent Schools Council

As one of the few non SMT delegates at the ISC ICT Conference, it was extremely encouraging to see the enthusiasm for and commitment to the adoption of e-learning that came out of last Tuesday’s meeting. For me concerns over capacity and safety were secondary to the emphasis on the transformative power that online tools can bring to learning. The ever entertaining Ian Yorston pointed to this with a rallying cry for less spoon-feeding and for schools to embrace the opportunities that online access to information has for making our students into independent learners and upgrading our schools from ‘Very Good’ to ‘Outstanding’. This call struck a nervous chord with the delegates and reflects the reality that in an information rich age the teacher must change.

http://blog.isc.co.uk/2011/02/01/embracing-future-learning/

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Online Education Success Rates Are Up

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by Real Online Degrees

Getting an online education is a growing trend, and that’s not likely to slow down any time soon. The ability to attend college while working full time, raising a family or being on the road fits well into modern lifestyles. Online courses are just as much work as (and in some cases more than) traditional classroom courses, but the flexibility of being able to determine when and where to do class work is a tremendous advantage. Another factor that makes the online bachelors degree model so practical is that the when and where can change on a daily basis. Even if you typically work at night and study during the day, if something arises, such as an out of town business trip, then you can still attend your classes from your hotel room in the evenings. In the past, getting a degree on line was much more difficult logistically than it is now, and that contributed to some dismal statistics.

http://www.realonlinedegrees.com/online-education-success-rates-are-up_2011-01-31/

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February 11, 2011

Computer system at Fresno school district continues to sputter

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

By TRACY CORREA, McClatchy Newspapers

A $1.8 million computer system that was supposed to give parents and teachers easy access to student records has turned into a major headache for Fresno Unified School District. ATLAS – which stands for Achievement, Technology, Learning and Assessment System – was developed by Fresno Unified and Microsoft. But it has been plagued with problems since it was introduced on a limited basis this school year. Parents and teachers have struggled to log onto the system and often have difficulty accessing basic information such as grades. The school district has been trying to fix the problems and recently appointed a committee to recommend solutions.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/01/26/1837125/computer-system-at-fresno-school.html

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School board to teach responsible cyber navigation: Digital Citizenship program launched

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By Karen Seidman, Montreal Gazette

Right now, in any Lester B. Pearson School Board school, Internet powerhouses such as Facebook and Twitter don’t exist. They are blocked out, as is the case in most schools everywhere. But the Pearson board is hoping it can eventually trust its students to navigate some of those sites as it takes its first big steps toward preparing them to be responsible digital citizens. The board has decided that rather than pretending technology doesn’t exist and blocking it out of its schools, it will teach students to be responsible digital citizens who can safely navigate the cyber world.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/montreal/School+board+teach+responsible+cyber+surfing/4174319/story.html

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How video games can make you smarter

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by Scott Steinberg, CNN

Businesses and universities are increasingly turning to interactive simulations and virtual worlds as training tools to educate employees. From Cisco to NASA, the U.S. Army to IBM, numerous corporations, government organizations and colleges have all employed interactive learning solutions. Consider Loyalist College in Ontario, which offered students a simulation of U.S./Canada border crossings where they played the role of guards, and actually saw the rate of successful test scores jump from 56% to 95%. Or the Hilton Garden Inn, which built a custom 3-D hospitality training game for the PlayStation Portable, reasoning that it’s more informative and reasonable for staffers to experiment by interacting with virtual customers.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/01/31/video.games.smarter.steinberg/

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February 10, 2011

Obama’s Plans for Advanced Ed Tech Center

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 3:24 pm

By Josh Fischman, Chronicle of Higher Ed

From the 2011 Higher Ed Tech Summit in Las Vegas, this Wired Campus podcast explores new Obama administration plans for enhancing educational technology. Karen Cator, director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, talks about a new National Center for Advanced Research and Information in Digital Technologies that will finance research on teaching and learning. She also discusses ways her office can help connect higher education professionals with one another to share best practices for using technology, something that is not happening now.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/podcast-obamas-plans-for-advanced-ed-tech-center/29614?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

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Online, interactive program teaches foreign languages

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by Yona Gavino, Upper Michigan Source

Many people are interested in learning a foreign language but find the books or classes cost too much or are too difficult to understand. Escanaba’s Public Library has a solution for those people. It’s called Mango Languages, and it’s an online, interactive system that costs nothing and only takes a library card to access. Adults and children can choose from 22 foreign languages and can use it anywhere as long as there’s an Internet connection.

http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/story.aspx?list=~%5Chome%5Clists%5Csearch&id=573936

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Do e-books pack same punch as print ones?

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

By Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Having a digital reading gizmo, be it Kindle, the iPad or another brand of e-book, encourages more reading. People describing themselves as “light to moderate” readers told the interview company iModerate that they are reading more books now that they can buy them online through their devices. It’s still too early in the digital-device game to reach firm conclusions about their role in our reading lives, but even the tradition-bound publishing business is embracing them. Aside from their familiar mechanics, e-readers allow their users to buy new books cheaper than the old-fashioned paper product, saving as much as $20 on a new hardcover.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11030/1121249-74.stm

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College Tech Leaders Keep Their Campuses Connected, Even in Blizzards

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:16 am

By Ben Wieder, Chronicle of Higher Ed

There are no snow days for e-mail. At campuses where heavy snowfall is routine, college tech leaders have taken steps to ensure that their networks continue to run smoothly even in extreme weather conditions. Joshua Riedy, chief information officer at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks, says the blizzards that have closed numerous colleges would barely register on his campus. “We wouldn’t even miss school,” he says.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/college-tech-leaders-keep-their-campuses-connected-even-in-blizzards/29438?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

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February 9, 2011

Snow day considerations

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by the Drexel Triangle Editorial Board

Another day in the Northeast during winter, another day of being pummeled by snow – we just can’t seem to make it to class during winter term. But perhaps all the blame for missed classes on snowy days shouldn’t be placed solely on us, the students. We live in 2011, a time when technology is our friend; let’s use even the most basic digital tools such as e-mail to get missed homework assignments and class notes when we can’t make it. Drexel also offers resources such as BB Vista and Wimba Live Classroom that help bring the classroom online, which can keep a class from falling behind schedule. This is particularly applicable to evening classes, which were canceled for snow on Jan. 26 – classes that meet just once a week are put significantly further behind than most by a single cancellation. There is no reason that learning has to take place in a classroom during a dangerous winter storm. Professors can not afford to be Luddites in 21st century teaching.

http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2011/01/28/EdOp/Snow-Day.Considerations-3971716.shtml

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Virtual Classroom Creates Tangible Teamwork Results

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by Kris Imherr, University of Texas Dallas

A failed weather balloon launch, an international cookbook and a virtual art project all have roots in Dr. Tracey Rockett’s online course, Organizations and Organizing (OB 6326). While this three-credit-hour class is all about learning to work together, along the way students participate in what may be their most unusual educational assignments ever. “This course is all about groups and teams,” explained Rockett, a senior lecturer in Organizations, Strategy and International Management. “It’s for MBA students, and many of them are getting a concentration in organizational behavior. This course allows them to practice a group strategy and learn how to analyze what is happening as a group.”

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2011/1/28-8241_Virtual-Classroom-Creates-Tangible-Teamwork-Result_article.html

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The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

By MICHAEL HORN, Forbes

Online learning is sweeping across America. In the year 2000, roughly 45,000 K–12 students took an online course. In 2009, more than 3 million K–12 students did. What was originally a distance- learning phenomenon no longer is, as most of the growth is increasingly occurring in blended-learning environments, in which students learn online in an adult-supervised environment at least part of the time. As this happens, online learning has the potential to transform America’s education system by serving as the backbone of a system that offers more personalized learning approaches for all students. This week Innosight Institute released a report about this phenomenon and opportunity titled “The rise of K-12 blended learning.”

http://blogs.forbes.com/michaelhorn/2011/01/27/the-rise-of-k-12-blended-learning/

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February 8, 2011

Evaluating the iPad for Education

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By Bridget McCrea, Campus Technology

A private liberal arts college in Oregon took Apple’s iPad through its paces to test its value as a a tool for learning inside the classroom and out. The evaluation followed a 2009 pilot of Amazon’s first-generation Kindle, which the college eventually decided against. In the words of the college’s CIO, the Kindle just wasn’t an adequate “alternative to paper.” Did the iPad fare any better in the college’s rigorous and methodical testing process? “The reaction was pretty much night and day, when compared to the results of the 2009 study,” said Ringle, whose team is currently drafting a white paper detailing the results of the iPad evaluation. In general, he said students found the iPad to be flexible and versatile enough to allow them to read course materials, annotate and highlight passages of text, pull up reference materials, store notes, and prepare reports.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/02/02/evaluating-the-ipad-for-education.aspx

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Introducing The Daily: the first digital daily news publication built from scratch for the iPad

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:36 am

by the Daily

The Daily is built from scratch for the iPad by some of the best in the business to bring you a package that’s smart, attractive, and entertaining. On Wednesday, February 2, Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, announced the launch of The Daily on the iPad. Also present were Jon Miller from News Corporation, Eddy Cue from Apple, and The Daily’s Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo. The Daily takes full advantage of the iPad’s storytelling and sharing capabilities. Stories, photos, video, audio and graphics come alive the more you touch, swipe, tap and explore. The Daily publishes 365 days a year covering breaking news, sports, pop culture, entertainment, apps, games, technology, opinion, celebrity gossip and more.

http://www.thedaily-newsrelease.com/

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