Educational Technology

By Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Why the need for a new agency? Education research and development is “underinvested,” argues James H. Shelton III, assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement in the U.S. Education Department. A new agency—its name would be “Advanced Research Projects Agency-Education”—would have more flexibility to identify specific problems and direct efforts to solve them, he says. Plus, it would be able to attract top outside talent to work on these projects. Mr. Shelton offered few specifics on what projects the new agency would support, but he did suggest that education officials want to build on work that’s already been done by other agencies. He pointed to Darpa’s work on digital tutors as one example.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/why-the-obama-administration-wants-a-darpa-for-education/30179?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en#

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Through job-embedded professional development, a Texas district prepares teachers to connect students with the world around them. New innovation stations allow the district to link and integrate new classroom technology with a single control. And that’s reduced calls to the help desk as well as promoted communication, collaboration and creativity in the classroom. Now, both teachers and students benefit from more engaging lessons.

http://www.convergemag.com/training/Austin-ISD-Standardized-Tech.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Each district faces a filtering dilemma: How do we protect students from harmful sites while still allowing them to access sites that provide quality learning opportunities? In this day of an open Internet, various districts have adopted different standards to answer that question. “Any kind of filtering’s tough,” said Mark Lindhorst, network administrator for Fort Osage R1 School District. “It’s hard to do and it’s not perfect; it’s never going to be perfect.” The district in Independence, Mo., tailors the default policy in its Lightspeed filter and makes it slightly different for instructors and staff, administrators, and the 5,000 students. But because of the filter, a crime scene investigation class that draws students from a number of districts can’t research guns and other weapons. And that’s essential for the class.

http://www.convergemag.com/infrastructure/Schools-Take-Control-of-Website-Access.html

by eCampus News

Students at a Philadelphia campus say they want to avoid becoming ‘the awkward onlooker’ and learn to disseminate cell phone photos responsibly. Immaculata University is the latest school to bring a cell phone photography course to campus. A new cell phone photography class at a suburban Philadelphia university focuses on both the quality of the images and the ethical responsibilities that come with taking and publishing them. Cell phone cameras — and associated scandals — have become so ubiquitous that it’s important for students to realize “the full gravity of what’s at their fingertips and the power they can have,” Immaculata University communications professor Sean Flannery said.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/students-learn-the-ethics-of-cell-phone-snapshots/

By Dennis Carter, eSchool News

Students with disabilities “show a strong capacity for science and math,” researchers say. University will target students with disabilities who are sometimes excluded from STEM fields, school researchers say. Colleges and universities have shown concern about the growing gender gap in science, technology, education, and math (STEM), and Georgia Tech has found another group often left out of STEM studies: students with disabilities. The university announced that it would create and oversee a STEM training program hosted in the Second Life virtual world where disabled students would create avatars and receive free help from educators and experts in every STEM field.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/03/02/ga-tech-to-host-disabled-stem-students-in-second-life/

November 16-18, 2011 ~ Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, FL

The Sloan Consortium invites you to submit a proposal for presentation and/or workshops for the 17th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning to be held November 16–18, 2011 at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL. The theme of this year’s conference is “Online Learning, Teaching, and Research in the New Media Ecology”. It’s clear we are witnessing rapid and ongoing changes in how we communicate and represent ideas and these changes have profound consequence for how we know, learn, think, and teach in higher education and beyond. The dizzying pace of change is evident as established conventions of online education are now challenged by emerging means of access, such as mobile and cloud computing, new forms of communication such as video streaming and real-time information networks, and innovative modes of participation represented in new social media. Millions of online students are at the forefront of this evolving landscape and it’s crucial we gain a clear understanding of pedagogies, policies, and practices that leverage the new media ecology to support our students learning.

http://sloanconsortium.org/conferences/2011/aln/call_for_presentations

by Mary Grush, Campus Technology

The release of the iPad — and the subsequent flood of competing tablets onto the market — may finally kick-start the e-textbook revolution (see “Can Tech Transcend the Textbook?” in CT’s March issue). As publishers debate how to take advantage of these devices, it’s a good time to revisit the possibilities of open education resources (OERs). CT asked Trent Batson, executive director of the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-based Learning (AAEEBL), and MERLOT Executive Director Gerry Hanley for some updates.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/03/01/student-driven-content.aspx

By John K. Waters, Campus Technology

After traveling a long, tortuous road, the much-anticipated e-book revolution has finally arrived. Any doubt that the future of the book is digital has been laid to rest. Kindles and iPads sold like hotcakes during the 2010 Christmas shopping season, and Forrester Research expects the recipients of those devices to spend more than $1 billion on e-books in 2011, and $3 billion by the middle of the decade.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/03/01/can-tech-transcend-the-textbook.aspx

by James Goodman, Democrat and Chronicle

A video game career might not come to mind when parents spot their children spending hours fixated on a Nintendo DS. But Rochester Institute of Technology is a college to explore if video game design turns out to be your child’s calling. RIT officials now can boast that their school is considered one of the top colleges for learning how to design video games. The Princeton Review, an educational services company based in Framingham. Mass., is widely known for its Best Colleges list, which comes out every summer. A handful of colleges from the Rochester area, including RIT, made the latest list.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110304/NEWS01/103040342/1007/SPORTS/RIT-ranked-among-best-its-video-game-design-programs?odyssey=nav%7Chead

By Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, eLearning Magazine

After developing more than 30 learning games I can safely say that it is definitely not an easy task. Developing good learning games requires constant attention to opposing factors, which only through creativity can truly be made to smoothly work together. Since the inception of computer games, there has been learning games. In the early years, games were used to demonstrate the potential benefits of computers. Although learning games date back to at least the 1960s, it is still a discipline fraught with challenges [1]. One of the fundamental questions that remain unanswered is: What really makes a good learning game? This simple question is far from trivial as it might be seem upon first sight. The question relates to what we define as a good game and what we define as good learning—none of which have been fully answered.

http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=153-1

by Betsy Z. Russell, The Spokesman-Review

Idaho senators raised new concerns Tuesday about increasing class sizes in the state’s schools, as state schools Superintendent Tom Luna’s sweeping school reform plan remained stalled on the Senate calendar despite narrowly clearing a Senate committee last week. Increasing class sizes in grades 4-12 is the centerpiece of Luna’s reform plan, allowing the state to cut 770 teaching jobs in the next two years and providing the millions in savings that then would be funneled into technology upgrades, teacher performance pay and online courses for high school students. The controversial plan was protested by hundreds at rallies across the state Monday, and senators say they’ve been receiving strong input from Idahoans who oppose the plan.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/feb/22/idaho-senators-question-class-size-hikes/

By MaryRose Smith, Central Michigan Morning Sun

Shepherd High School is bridging the gap between traditional classroom teaching and the growing world of online instruction. In the school’s blended solution design, students meet daily with their teachers in a face to face setting, but a large portion of their lessons, assignments and assessments take place through use of the web. Kristi Bush, Shepherd High School’s K-12 Media Specialist, has been gradually introducing online components into Shepherd’s curriculum for about 11 years. As a graduate of an online school, as well as an online teacher at Michigan Virtual High School, Bush believes it is critical for students to adapt to online learning in order to be competitive in the professional environment of the 21st century.

http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2011/02/22/life/doc4d6484bd6a0c3420390364.txt

By Steven Overly, Washington Post

Flanked by tables where area colleges touted graduate programs and technology being built in their labs, George Mason University doctoral student Cody Narber took the time to construct a digital peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He laid out the bread, spun lids off the Jif and Smuckers jars, then spread out the fixings — all using a haptic device and computer software that replicates the everyday task. Designed to mimic the physical dynamics of the process, such as weight, Narber hopes the software and similar programs he developed will one day help patients to rehabilitate fine motor and cognitive skills.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022506167.html

By Jeanette Stewart, The StarPhoenix

Owen Janzen chatters excitedly as his “tech buddy” Alex Berthelot guides him through the preparation of a video presentation on the giant panda. Janzen, 8, and Berthelot, 13, are compiling a “prezi,” a video-style presentation that allows students to incorporate pictures, sound and video clips about a subject. Research starts with notes done with old-fashioned paper and pencil, but the final product is an interactive slide-show style presentation that will be shown to the entire class. It’s a typical afternoon at Prince Philip School in Saskatoon, where open-minded administrators allow the students to be the leaders and teachers, helping one another adopt and incorporate new technology. “It’s OK to learn from the kids,” said principal Nancy Burkell.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/Kids+lead+digital/4356506/story.html

by George Lucas, Huffington Post

I didn’t enjoy school very much. Occasionally, I had a teacher who would inspire me. But as an adult, as I began working with computer technology to tell stories through film, I began to wonder, “Why couldn’t we use these new technologies to help improve the learning process?” Twenty years ago when we started The George Lucas Educational Foundation, we could see that digital technology was going to completely revolutionize the educational system, whether it liked it or not. Yet, in light of extraordinary advancements in how we use technology to communicate and learn, our schools and districts have been frustratingly slow to adapt.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lucas/join-the-movement-to-tran_b_828962.html

By Vinayak Balasubramanian | The Daily Tar Heel

With entire degree programs being cut from UNC-system schools, members of the UNC-system Board of Governors are pushing for online education to help schools cope. Two national studies — the 2010 Sloan Consortium report and the Managing Online Education Survey — detail the impact of the economy on rising online enrollments. The University system’s online demographics show that online education is comparably on the rise, but could be affected by budget cuts.

http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/02/online_enrollment_on_the_rise_nationwide

By Logan Rath, eLearning Magazine

This article aims to explore the use of Twitter in an online learning environment. A study was conducted involving graduate students enrolled in the master’s degree program in Information Design and Technology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Institute of Technology. To determine students’ participation levels, the sense of community of the course, and perceived benefits of the course members when using Twitter.

http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=154-1

By Christopher Magan and Margo Rutledge Kissell, Dayton Daily News

By summer, Trotwood-Madison City Schools will deplete the last bit of the $4.6 million in stimulus dollars the financially strapped district has received over the last two years. The district has cut nearly 100 jobs during that time and Superintendent Rexann Wagner credits stimulus funding with preserving another 60 teaching positions. “Had we not received the stimulus funding, the cuts would have been deeper,” she said.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/stimulus-saved-jobs-but-major-cuts-are-coming-1092007.html

By Randy Speck, Converge

The iPad — the newest creation from Steve Jobs and the Apple crew — debuted this past week with all the fanfare and publicity that a politician could only dream of. And it looks pretty cool. The iPad isn’t a phone or a laptop; it’s a third device that can be used to send e-mails, go online and read books and magazines. I’m not sure if it is a necessary device or just something that would be really neat to have. Sitting on your couch or in your favorite chair, you pull out the iPad and just do whatever it is you do with the iPad. Will the iPad be something that changes the way we work, play and get our information? Or will this new endeavor just be another thing we buy that will collect dust? That’s the thing with new stuff: We never know what the outcome will be.

http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/iPad-or-iFad-How-do-you-Know-if-an-Idea-Will-Work.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

After piloting e-readers and e-books in the classroom, Houston Community College Southwest decided the digital tools were ready for prime time this semester. And in the future, they’re the way to go for this campus. “Faculty want these devices, students are intrigued by them and are using them, and generally the response is positive to the device,” said Doug Rowlett, instructional design coordinator for the Southwest campus.

http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/E-readers-E-books-Represent-Future-for-Community-College.html

by Ray Willington, Hot Hardware

People aren’t just completing coursework on the go anymore, they’re completing coursework on their slates and smartphones. An iOS app already exists for Blackboard, but in an effort to continue that rollout, Blackboard Mobile Central has been developed for all mobile web browsers, while a new native application has come to webOS. That’s exciting news for budding students using a Pre device, or students looking to potentially grab a TouchPad, Veer or Pre 3 in the coming months. The new options further expand the number of users who can access the Blackboard Mobile Central suite of applications on a growing range of platforms and devices. Users can navigate interactive campus maps, access course catalogs, event calendars, campus news, sports scores and schedules, and even a campus directory that allows users to call or email instructors and classmates directly from the app.

http://hothardware.com/News/Blackboard-Mobile-Central-Rolls-Out-Mobile-Web-WebOS-App/