Educational Technology

August 9, 2011

Using touch screens and apps to treat autism

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

By BRANDON BAILEY, McClatchy Newspapers

As a commercial software expert for the financial services industry, Ted Conley was frustrated with the technology that a speech therapist recommended to help his developmentally disabled son. So he decided to build his own application. In place of an unwieldy and expensive device with buttons that his son struggled to press, Conley developed a series of apps that allows the now 3-year-old Pierce to signal words and sentences by lightly touching a series of familiar pictures on an iPad screen, which prompts an audio program to play the words out loud. Conley’s line of “TapSpeak” programs are among scores of new apps available to help children with autism or other conditions that interfere with their ability to speak, learn or socialize.

http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110725/LIFESTYLES07/307259986/-1/LIFESTYLES08

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iPad, iPods help autistic students communicate at Spanish Fort High School

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

By Kim Lanier, Press-Register

Put a digital device into the hands of a child, and they are off and running in a virtual world. Those same devices, in the hands of autistic children, can be life changing, according to a local teacher. A program spearheaded at Spanish Fort High School using Apple devices is helping many autistic students become engaged and interact with the teacher, their peers and even their families. “We pretty much use all Apple products now — iPods, iPads, Macbooks. All of those are used for a variety of purposes for the sake of our individual students’ needs,” said Scott Parks, a Project Reach teacher at Spanish Fort High and co-creator of Apples for Autism. While the technology doesn’t appeal to all autistic students, instructors can usually find tools to help the students academically, vocationally and socially, according to Parks

http://blog.al.com/pr-community-news/2011/07/ipad_ipods_help_autistic_stude.html

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Editorial: Future-proofing our education system

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

by NZ Nelson Mail

It doesn’t always pay to be too far ahead of the pack – especially consumers. The large flat-screen TVs that sold for $7000-plus a few years ago can now be bought for a fraction of that. The technology companies in particular know well how to adjust their pricing structures to reflect a market based more on greed than need. They know a first wave of buyers will pay premium prices to be among the earliest owners of the latest new toy, with prices set to recoup some of the research, development and marketing costs. A second, larger, clutch of customers will be attracted as competition and an increased supply drive prices down, with a final surge likely as the end of a line is “dumped” to make way for the next big thing. The debate, then, about whether a specific item of technology – in this case, the Apple iPad – should be preferred, or even compulsory, in schools, raises interesting questions. The iPad is the global leader in computer “tablets”, dominating on performance, sales and price, but that won’t always be the case.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/opinion/5335756/Editorial-Future-proofing-our-education-system

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August 8, 2011

Technology and Teaching

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:41 am

By Steven J. Corbett, Inside Higher Ed

Is it a given that technology enhances the acts of writing, as it does the arts and sciences of film-making, design, engineering, data collection and analyses, and so forth? What about the teaching and learning of writing? In a flurry of recent exchanges (subject “Writing horse-shoe-of-horse-heading-east Technology”) on the Writing Program Administration (WPA) listserv, scholars in writing studies have argued these points in some theoretical and practical depth. Maja Wilson, from the University of Maine, sums up the argument nicely: “Steve [Krause, of Eastern Michigan University], and others were arguing that to teach writing, you need to teach the tools available now and not teach or allow the tools on their way out (pen, pencil), because if you aren’t teaching the tools, you aren’t teaching writing. Rich [Haswell, professor emeritus from Texas A&M University], and others argued that, while teaching the use of all those tools can be a good thing, it isn’t necessary to teach writing: writing itself transcends the particular tools, so while teaching the tools can be involved in teaching writing, it isn’t necessarily the same thing.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/07/25/essay_on_using_technology_to_teach_writing

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The Patient Is Rubber and She’s Talking to You

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:34 am

by Yiting Sun, International Business Times

At 11 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, a 35-year-old woman named Elsie cried out from her hospital bed at Jacobi Medical Center’s maternity wing. “The baby’s coming,” she cried. “I’m having contractions!” Two computer screens at the doctors’ eye level showed the heart rate of both mother and child, as the competing sounds, one fast and one slow, reverberated through the room over the computer speaker. Roxanne Connell, the attending obstetrician, could see the baby’s head already emerging. Her eyes shifted back and forth from the computer screen to the mother. Something was wrong: The baby’s head was emerging and retracting repeatedly, a sign of shoulder dystocia, a dangerous condition in which the baby’s shoulders are in a vertical position, lodged against the mother’s pubic bone. It may cause suffocation or damage to the baby’s neck if not resolved within five minutes.

http://newyork.ibtimes.com/articles/185902/20110725/jacobi-medical-center-medical-simulation-simulator-st-barnabas-hospital-new-york-city-health-and-hos.htm

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100 technologies that changed the world

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

by PC Pro

Covering everything from PalmPilots to pay-per-view porn, the PC Pro team picks the computer-related inventions that have revolutionised the way we live, work, and play. Read the top 100 chosen by this UK publication.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/368716/100-technologies-that-changed-the-world

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August 7, 2011

Cloud computing can counter illiteracy: Managing Director, HP India

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

by Neelam Dhawan, Times of India

For government schools, the company has just launched what it calls a lab-in-the-box. HP took a shipment container, painted it, made windows on it, installed a DG set, provided for cooling, provided a VSAT connection, and set up 13-14 student desks and one teacher desk with computers, all inside the container . NCERT courses can be obtained online. “Since schools don’t have space to have a computer lab, we created this compact lab for NCERT as a pilot. They are using it for teacher training. But if a school says it needs a lab, NCERT can just ship one,” says Dhawan. We point out that several technology companies are doing such pilots but most are yet to prove themselves to be scalable. But Dhawan is convinced that India’s problems of vast illiteracy and low levels of education will get solved with cloud computing.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/careers/education/Cloud-computing-can-counter-illiteracy-Managing-Director-HP-India/articleshow/9335831.cms

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Google Acquires Facial Recognition Software Company PittPatt

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

by Leena Rao, Tech Crunch

Google has just acquired facial recognition software company PittPatt (Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition), according to an announcement on the startup’s site. PittPatt, a project spawned from Carnegie Mellon University, develops a facial recognition technology that can match people across photos, videos, and more. The company has created a number of algorithms in face detection, face tracking and face recognition. PittPatt’s face detection and tracking SDK locates human faces in photographs and tracks the motion of human faces in video.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/google-acquires-facial-recognition-software-company-pittpatt/

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Schools don’t encourage women to go into technical fields

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

By Jason Magder, The Montreal Gazette

Women are a rare sight in many fields of information technology. Figures from the Information and Communications Technology Council show that last year, only about 25 per cent of people working in the IT field were women. And women are even more rare in the most technical fields, making up just 12 per cent of electrical, computer and software engineers, and 19 per cent of programmers. That representation hasn’t changed much since 2002, when 22 per cent of IT workers were female, including 11 per cent of engineers, and 23 per cent of programmers. The future doesn’t look particularly bright either, since the proportion of women studying highly technical fields in university appears to be on the decline. Female enrolment in bachelor of engineering programs has shrunk significantly since 2001, when 20.6 per cent of students were women. This compares with only 17.4 per cent in 2009, which is about the same level they were at in 1993. Among the disciplines in which women figure least prominently – the fields of electrical engineering, software, and computer engineering – the percentage of women has been on a steady decline from nearly 20 per cent in 2001 to around 10 per cent in 2009.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Schools+encourage+women+into+technical+fields/5147373/story.html

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August 6, 2011

What’s a college degree worth? Plenty.

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

By MARCELLA S. KREITER, UPI

Majors with the highest median pay were petroleum engineering, pharmaceutical sciences and administration, mathematics and computer sciences, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, naval architecture and marine engineering, mechanical and metallurgical engineering, and mining and mineral engineering. The majors with the lowest median earnings were counseling and psychology, early childhood education, theology and religious vocations, human services and community organizations, social work, drama and theater arts, studio arts, communication disorders sciences and services, visual and performing arts, and health and medical preparatory programs. Among the most stable job tracks were geological and geophysical engineering, military technology, pharmacology and school student counseling, while the areas with highest unemployment included social psychology, nuclear engineering, and educational administration and supervision. “The bottom line is that getting a degree matters, but what you take matters more,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Consumer-Corner/2011/07/24/Consumer-Corner-Whats-a-college-degree-worth-Plenty/UPI-45221311496200/

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E-learning is the way to go for schools in East Africa

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

By CHRISTINE MUNGA, East African News

What kinds of opportunities does technology present in teaching and learning, particularly in developing economies?

At Intel, we believe technology is more of a means to an end than an end in itself. The world is becoming more and more information-driven, and “21st century skills”, as Unesco calls them, are now in great demand — problem solving, communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. Globally, there is a gradual shift from the traditional teacher-centred model, where the teacher was the source of all knowledge, towards a more flexible structure where students and teachers can collaborate in the learning process. Technology is an enabler for this— a recent research shows that 66 per cent of students believe that they learn better out of the classroom environment. Education systems have to adapt to new ways of learning, and e-learning technology can be the launching pad towards improving the school experience.

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/1206650/-/nm6v6ez/-/

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New technology from Syracuse University researchers could change the way we communicate

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

By Elizabeth Doran, The Post-Standard

Researchers at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies — in partnership with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, Rochester Institute of Technology and other universities— have developed a technology that lets people communicate with each other using whatever device or operating system they have. Once they download the SU-developed software from Wireless Grids Corp., which spun out of SU, they can access this new temporary network, or grid. The Edgeware, the name of the software developed by SU, was invented by Lee McKnight, SU’s Kauffman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/07/new_technology_from_su_researc.html

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August 5, 2011

Baldwin County schools set to test all-digital transformation

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:39 am

By Connie Baggett, Press-Register

That idea is now a key piece in what Lee is calling a “Digital Renaissance” that will start by putting laptops in the hands of all students at the Bay Minette school. Lee’s plan for dramatic change is patterned closely after Mooresville Graded School System in North Carolina, a system of some 5,500 students that converted to laptops four years ago. In that system, students in grades 4-12 use laptops to do tests, homework, independent research, video projects and written assignments. Curriculum is all accessed by computer and often graded automatically. “It is working very well here,” said Mark Edwards, superintendent for the city school system in Mooresville. “We are into our fourth year, and academic achievement has improved on every level.”

http://blog.al.com/pr-community-news/2011/07/baldwin_county_schools_set_to.html

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Four rural S.D. schools let students run the show

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:34 am

 

by Josh Verges, Argus Leader

Something will be missing from high school biology, physics and physical science classes this fall in Bonesteel: the science teacher. The high school had been borrowing two science teachers from nearby Burke, but that agreement ended this summer when a consolidation plan fell apart. When the search for a replacement yielded two underqualified candidates, South Central Superintendent Tim Rhead decided to work with what he’s got.  The science classes will be led next year by a high school English teacher; a middle school math, science and computers teacher; and a middle school paraprofessional who used to be a veterinary technician.  In a project-based learning situation, everything students learn is connected to a group project about a real-world problem or question. They work with classmates, researching online. Teachers stay out of it until they’re needed. It’s designed to be more engaging and relevant.

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110724/NEWS/107240324/Four-rural-S-D-schools-let-students-run-show

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Schools will need to embrace technology

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:29 am

By Torey L. Alston, Sun Sentinal

Education is a lifelong process that begins at home and is supplemented by great teachers in the classroom. New technology is constantly being developed that allows educators and our students to interact in classroom settings, thus producing cost savings for school districts over time and providing enhanced educational enrichment for our kids. As we prepare our kids for college so they can compete in the global workforce, computer skills are critical to stay ahead of the curve.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-education-innovation-forum-20110724,0,4719932.story

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August 4, 2011

Ending the ‘tyranny of the lecture’

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

By Dennis Pierce, eSchool News

Students need to assimilate information before they can apply it to a different context, Mazur said. At an educational technology conference in Boston July 27, Harvard University physics professor Eric Mazur explained how he uses “peer instruction” to help his students engage in deeper learning than traditional lectures can provide—and he unveiled a brand-new ed-tech service that can help educators take this concept to a whole new level. Mazur used a simple experiment to drive home his point that lecturing is an outdated—and largely ineffective—strategy for imparting knowledge. Speaking at the 2011 Building Learning Communities (BLC) conference, organized by educational technology thought leader Alan November and his ed-tech consulting firm November Learning, Mazur asked participants to think of a skill they were good at, then explain how they mastered this skill. While the responses from the crowd varied—some cited practice or experience, while others said trial and error—no one answered “lecture,” Mazur noted wryly.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/07/28/replace-seat-time-with-competency-report-says/

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Replace ‘seat time’ with competency, reports says

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

 

By Meris Stansbury, eSchool News

Experts say it shouldn’t matter how fast students cross the finish line, but that they actually cross it. A new report says that competency-based learning is becoming more attainable for schools, and with some actionable policy steps, state education leaders can help schools personalize learning and focus on competency rather than how long students are in school. The report, titled “Cracking the Code: Synchronizing Policy and Practice for Performance-Based Learning,” comes from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), with help from the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). It calls into question the logic of “seat time” and current accountability standards.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/07/28/replace-seat-time-with-competency-report-says/

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Bill Gates: Poverty not excuse for no education

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

by eSchool News

Microsoft founder Bill Gates told the National Urban League on Thursday that a child’s success should not depend on the race or income of parents and that poverty cannot be an excuse for a poor education. Gates said shifting the emphasis to education helps in the battle against poverty. “Let me acknowledge that I don’t understand in a personal way the challenges that poverty creates for families, and schools and teachers,” the billionaire said at the civil rights group’s annual convention. “I don’t ever want to minimize it. Poverty is a terrible obstacle. But we can’t let it be an excuse.”

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/07/29/bill-gates-poverty-not-excuse-for-no-education/

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August 3, 2011

All A-Twitter about Education

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

by Michael Petrilli, Education Next

The first thing to understand about Twitter is that most of its messages amount to, “Hey, check this out,” followed by a link to a newspaper article or blog post. It’s a handy device for telling the world (or at least the people in your own world) about news or columns that you find compelling. It’s also a form of self-promotion; quite a few tweets announce posts the tweeter herself has written. But in the hands of a gifted provocateur, Twitter can be so much more.

http://educationnext.org/all-a-twitter-about-education/

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Future Schools Blending face-to-face and online learning

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

By Jonathan Schorr and Deborah McGriff, Education Next

Rocketship Education, a small but burgeoning network of charter schools that serves an overwhelmingly low-income immigrant community in San Jose, has made a name through its, forgive the phrase, high-flying student performance. Two of its three schools are old enough to have test scores. They rank among the 15 top-performing high-poverty schools statewide, and the site that opened in 2009 was the number-one first-year school in the state in the high-poverty category. But what positions Rocketship on the cutting edge of school reform is its vision for how technology will integrate with, and change, the structure of the school.

http://educationnext.org/future-schools/

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The Beacon Editorial: Fee for online courses should be reduced

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

by the Florida International University Beacon

The University wants to increase online offerings from 14 to 20 percent. For the 2011-2012 school year, students are required to pay $174 in addition to the cost per credit for each online course. The Beacon believes this add-on is an unnecessary complication for students. In the Spring 2011 Strategic Plan town hall meeting, University President Mark Rosenberg and Provost Douglas Wartzok presented an ambitious five-year plan for the University’s future. Their plan includes the increase online course offerings and the expansion of enrollment from 42,000 to 52,000 students by 2015. In accordance with the plan, online learning is an essential part of the University’s growth. Unfortunately, there is a significant cost associated to each online class, an issue that most students at other state universities do not deal with. Some Florida public universities such as University of Central Florida do not charge any fees, while the University of Florida only requires students to pay an additional $100 for each online course.

http://fiusm.com/2011/07/21/the-beacon-editorial-fee-for-online-courses-should-be-reduced/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-beacon-editorial-fee-for-online-courses-should-be-reduced

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