Educational Technology

by SEANNA ADCOX, Associated Press

All high school students in Lexington 1 school district will soon receive their own iPad to use in class and wherever else they want as officials seek to better prepare students for the technological world. For those who ask why, Superintendent Karen Woodward responds, “My question would be, ‘Why not?'” “The world is more global. The world is more electronic,” said Woodward, who leads a district of more than 22,000 students in rural areas and affluent suburbs west of Columbia. “Students have to have digital competence, and to be competent, you have to have access. Using current-day technology should be a normal part of what we do. We need to close the gap between schools, education and the real world.”

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/2f4d967c5e814865a6aadd2660ccb6b2/SC–iPads-Textbooks/

by School Library Journal

How can librarians take advantage of cloud-based computing? Johnson decided to first see if he could live in the cloud—both personally and professionally. First, he used a $300 10-inch ASUS laptop. Although it took getting used to the smaller keyboard and screen size, Johnson says its speed was fine, its battery life was good, its wireless connectivity was fast, and he was able to work on the computer for long periods of time. At work, his district’s transition to gmail accounts for all staff and students went smoothly. And after years of using Microsoft Office, Johnson moved to Google Docs for his day-to-day productivity. Johnson’s personal blog, wiki, and website—as well as school sites—also now reside in the cloud. And he uses the cloud to store his best photographs and edits them using Flickr and Picasa. Almost every school document he creates, shares, and collaborates on is in Google Docs—not on his computer’s hard drive. Even the district’s Destiny circulation and cataloging system is accessed by both library staff and library users via a web browser.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/892573-312/aasl_conference_2011_school_libraries.html.csp

by Juan Carlos Perez, CIO

With the explosion of content posted in social media sites and services by individuals, businesses have to gather, analyze and act upon a massive amount of unstructured and public data about their companies, brands, products and industries. Doing this effectively requires new technology tools, organizational techniques and analysis skills at multiple corporate levels, beyond the traditional data analysts, and business intelligence and data mining software. “Social data is so ubiquitous that everyone in the organization needs to be able to ‘speak data’ in some way or another,” Etlinger said in a phone interview. “This is one of the biggest issues for companies today.”

http://www.cio.com/article/691858/Web_2.0_Summit_to_Focus_on_Value_Pitfalls_of_Online_Data

By Michael Cooney, Network World

The technology that makes up many of the systems in the IT world today is at a critical juncture and in the next five years everything from mobile devices and applications to servers and social networking will impact IT in ways companies need to prepare for now, Gartner Vice President David Cearley says. For example, enterprises will need to invest capital to improve network capacity and reliability. They will also need to improve wireless governance to improve wireless manageability and service levels, Cearley told attendees of the Gartner Symposium IT/Expo this week. At the annual presentation of Gartner’s popular Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends presentation, Cearley offered the following as examples of the way the tech world is changing.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/101811-gartner-technology-trends-252100.html

by Alan Schwarz, NY Times

The day all have seen coming — traditional textbooks being replaced by interactive computer programs — arrived this year in this traditional, well-regarded school district, complete with one naysaying parent getting reported to the police. Unlike the tentative, incremental steps of digital initiatives at many schools nationwide, Munster made an all-in leap in a few frenetic months — removing all math and science textbooks for its 2,600 students in grades 5 to 12, and providing a window into the hurdles and hiccups of such an overhaul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/education/19textbooks.html?_r=2&emc=eta1