Educational Technology

by Tony Bates, Online Learning and Distance Education Resources

Once again, Tannis Morgan (JIBC) and Karen Belfer (Vancouver Community College) have pulled together a fascinating selection of innovative applications of online learning from the Greater Vancouver Lower Mainland. These kinds of presentations and sharing of experiences are extremely valuable in helping to raise the quality of online learning throughout the area through demonstration and sharing of what is possible.

This year the showcase focused on three quite different areas:

• Mobile learning
• Accessibility
• Post-secondary and beyond

The showcase web site provides a good guide to what’s in the videos, and as there is almost five hours of video.

http://www.tonybates.ca/2011/12/21/vancouver-showcase-of-online-learning-innovations-available-on-video/

by Larry Ferlazzo, Best Websites

I usually just do a year-end list on learning games and many other topics, but it gets a little crazy having to review all of my zillion posts at once. So, to make it easier for me — and perhaps, to make it a little more useful to readers — I’m going to start publishing mid-year lists, too.

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/07/15/the-best-online-learning-games-of-2011-so-far/

By Beryl Benderly, Science Careers Blog

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, perhaps the world’s most celebrated and prestigious scientific and technological university, is also among the hardest to get into. But now, according to an announcement made on 19 December, anyone anywhere in the world who has an Internet connection, the requisite intellectual ability and determination, and enough money to pay a “modest fee” can earn credentials showing “mastery” of coursework bearing the nonpareil imprimatur of MIT. This new program, known for the time being at least as MITx, will expand on MIT’s existing OpenCourseWare initiative, which for a decade has made “virtually all MIT course content,” including syllabi, notes, exams, and more freely available online.

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2011/12/mit-for-everyon.html

by Tim Simonite, Technology Review

Prototype devices show Intel chips running devices that could challenge the iPhone and iPad early next year. Last week, Technology Review tried out prototype smart phones and tablets equipped with Intel’s latest mobile chip, dubbed Medfield, and running the Android mobile operating system created by Google. “We expect products based on these to be announced in the first half of 2012,” says Stephen Smith, vice president of Intel’s architecture group. Known as “reference designs,” the devices are sent out to inspire and instruct manufacturers interested in building products around Intel’s latest technology.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39378/?p1=A1

by the New York Times

Schools will continue to play whack-a-mole with social media use between and by teachers and students until schools recognize that parents are the critical piece of the puzzle to help pull together sensible, safe and smart social media guidelines. contain foolish, ill-advised and private (soon to be made public) dangerous postings and interactions among teachers and students. They are also struggling to harness savvy, creative and innovative social media to enhance teaching and learning, in public spaces, safeguarded by a wide audience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/opinion/kids-and-teachers-online.html?_r=1

by KFC, Technology Review

If you have friends who cheat, you are more likely to become a cheater, according to computer scientists who say this can be used to label you as a potential cheater. Online gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry that serves millions of gamers around the world. But it suffers from a problem: cheating. Some players give themselves an unfair advantage by using ‘cheat software’ to see through walls or to automatically shoot moving characters. Cheat software is banned but in the sophisticated economies that have evolved in these worlds, cheaters can generate a significant income by using it. The developers of multiplayer game APB Reloaded, estimate that cheatmakers can make up to $50,000 per month.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27441/

by Sean Patrick Murphy, South Jersey Sun

“Technology is not the problem it’s the way it’s being used,” Kriger said, noting when kids and parents are on the computer and not talking to each other it’s detrimental. He indicated a study conducted by the Academy of Pediatrics which determined children under 2 years of age should not be in front of electronics because the images that they see are so rapid that it basically overwhelms the developing brain. Kriger said another study shows how only nine minutes of watching “SpongeBob SquarePants” can hinder the ability to delay gratification.

http://sj.sunne.ws/2011/12/13/workshop-on-tech-addiction-in-medford/

By Adarsh Sandhu, PhysOrg

Kouichi Katsurada is an associate professor at Toyohashi Tech’s Graduate School of Engineering with a mission to ‘humanize’ the computer interface. Katsurada’s research centers on the expansion of human-computer communication by means of a web-based multimodal interactive (MMI) approach employing speech, gesture and facial expressions, as well as the traditional keyboard and mouse. “Although many MMI systems have been tried, few are widely used,” says Katsurada. “Some reasons for this lack of use are their complexity of installation and compilation, and their general inaccessibility for ordinary computer users. To resolve these issues we have designed a web browser-based MMI system that only uses open source software and de facto standards.”

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-multimodal-interaction-humanizing-human-computer-interface.html

by Jessica Shepherd, the Guardian

Schools are jeopardising the career prospects of thousands of teenagers by failing to offer compulsory classes in computing, a damning report by inspectors shows. A three-year study by Ofsted found that in almost a fifth of secondary schools, up to half of 14- to 16-year-olds are not taught computing – known as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The subject is compulsory for children aged five to 16 and is seen as crucial to rebuilding of the economy. Inspectors denounced the quality of teaching in the subject as inadequate in more than a quarter of secondary schools.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/dec/14/secondary-schools-fail-teenagers-computing?newsfeed=true

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computer World

For decades now, we’ve been fussing about operating systems. “Mac OS X is better than Windows!” “Why upgrade to Windows 7 when XP works just fine?” “You’re all wrong. Linux rules.” Such arguments are about to become history. Thanks to advances in virtualization, cloud technology and the Web, it matters less and less to users which operating system is behind their desktop screens — or, for that matter, their tablet and smartphone displays. Don’t get me wrong. Operating systems will remain important for as long as we use computers. But for the most part, they are going to matter only to the people behind the scenes.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/359980/Operating_Systems_Don_t_Matter_Much_Anymore

by Will Bigham, Contra Costa Times

An organization that offers free computer and Internet training to adults staged graduation ceremonies this week for 50 people who recently completed the program.

The organization, Community Union, used computer labs at four Ontario schools to conduct the training, waiting until after regular school hours to begin instruction, said Larry Ortega, the organization’s president and founder. “We’re helping the schools offer more robust programs for their parents, particularly around technology,” Ortega said. “There’s all kinds of side benefits.” The courses consist of 40 hours of instruction over 10 weeks. They are offered free of charge, funded by Community Union and host school districts, Ortega said. “It’s free to the parents, and the school district and our organization combine to make it free for the parents,” Ortega said.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_19563754

By David Raths, Government Technology

Early last year, Montana CIO Dick Clark was driving down Interstate 90 west of Missoula when he had an epiphany. He and other state CIOs had just been talking about their experiences negotiating with cloud computing vendors. Clark pulled off the road and had his administrative assistant call Oregon CIO Dugan Petty and Utah CIO Steve Fletcher to set up a brief conference call. “Right there, by the side of the road, I explained to them I wanted to work on a request for information with cloud storage vendors to pool our purchasing power.” Clark’s big idea was for the states to band together and purchase cloud storage in volume, driving down each state’s costs. “I thought we could start with GIS, because there are not a lot of security issues with the data but there are volume and disaster recovery issues.”

http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Shared-and-Regional-Services-Are-on-the-Rise.html

by School CIO

New Media Middle School, in partnership with Samsung Electronics America and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), announced today the launch of the school’s curriculum featuring Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. Opened in August 2011, in the heart of downtown Columbus Ohio, New Media Middle was formed to help urban middle school students bridge the education gap between them and their suburban peers. The school does this by combining a rigorous academic and community engagement curriculum with the latest technology to create an interactive and paperless learning environment.

http://www.schoolcio.com/article/middle-school-students-go-paperless-with-new–slim-tablet/52053

by Eric Stoller, Inside Higher Ed

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has been part of my daily brain sustenance for more than 5 years. Most sites that produce content on a regular basis provide RSS feeds for their readers. The ubiquitous RSS orange logo provides a gateway to a nearly endless stream of information. Using a feed reader (Google Reader is extremely popular), RSS feed data is literally “fed” to you, the reader. I subscribe to more than 400 RSS feeds. It sounds a little intimidating if you’ve never dabbled with RSS. Have no fear. Each feed subscription only shows up in your reader if it has new content. Typically, my feeds in Google Reader churn out about 50 to 100 new post items per day. If I miss a couple of days of reading, I tend to just “mark all as read” (a pseudo-RSS-form of declaring bankruptcy).

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/using-rss-feed-my-brain

By Nancy Caramanico, CIO Advisor

Filtering is an important area for school CIOs and technology and school leaders. There are local and national rules and guidelines to follow. At the same time, tech departments are faced with growing requests for broader access due to the ever-expanding content online. When schools make web filtering and blocking decisions, they need to be sure that they are not also blocking learning, blocking productivity, blocking progress. Shifts have occurred widely over the last couple of years in schools regarding the filtering question. Security still remains a top priority. However, the question of what content to block and not block is one where the winds of change are continually blowing.

http://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=136&EntryId=3578

By Paul Hillman, Business Review

I came home recently to find my lovely, tech-challenged wife had a new slate computer. My wife is smart — a teacher, a former business owner and a school board member. The school district had had a brainstorm that addressed the lack of security inherent in schlepping pre-meeting packets to all of its board members and leaving them on the porch where any Tom, Dick or dog could pick it up, and the cost of printing these weighty tomes that were usually out of date by the time of the meeting. The district had modified the tablets, so they do nothing but provide and update board packets and information. The tablets wake up and search for a wireless network when new packet information is uploaded, so board members know when to check in. So now my lovely, tech-challenged wife, bingo-bango, uses nothing but the finger she’s usually wagging at me to flip through the pages of a PDF to keep up with her school-board business, and she’s ready to rock and roll come meeting night. The moral of this story is you can give technology to non-tech people, and they can make it work.

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2011/12/tablets_can_help_the_tech-chal.html

by John Kennedy, Silicon Republic

Computer programming should be one of the most important subjects in schools. John Kennedy meets the young programmers who prove Ireland is a rich source of talent. At a time when there are currently 5,000 vacancies in IT companies in Ireland, the Irish schools system needs to enshrine ICT skills as a core subject. That’s why it’s both incredible and poignant that a voluntary movement that was born in Ireland during the summer is about to go international. Coder Dojo, the brainchild of 19-year-old entrepreneur and programmer James Whelton from Cork and tech entrepreneur Bill Liao, began as a Saturday morning club for kids to teach each other software programming.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/item/24999-coding-for-our-lives/

By Gary Budzak, This Week

The Hilliard City School District is taking some innovative approaches to reach students, including flipping the classroom. In a traditional classroom, a teacher gives the lesson and assigns homework to be done outside of class. But in a flipped classroom, the student watches a video of the teacher giving the lesson at his or her convenience. The next day in class, students work together in groups on the homework, and the teacher answers any questions. “It’s something we started this year,” said Darby High School principal Ryan McClure at a school board meeting Nov. 28. “Sometimes in math, students won’t do their homework or finish it because they get stuck, so we thought about flipping the classroom.” McClure said the flipping concept is associated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Khan Academy, which produces free instructional videos.

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/hilliard/news/2011/12/14/high-school-classes-flip-make-use-of-technology.html

By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News

Nearly 140 Los Angeles Unified schools that lack Wi-Fi access will get a technology upgrade over the next several years, using $99 million in voter-approved bond funds. About 50 schools in the San Fernando Valley are among the 138 campuses that will benefit from the modernization program approved last week by the school board. Officials say the upgrade will free teachers and students from having to use computers only in hard-wired classrooms, offering greater flexibility in devising more creative lesson plans and better learning tools. “We want a system that gives high-density, industrial-strength technology to every school,” Ron Chandler, the district’s chief information officer, said during a committee meeting on the plan. “We want every school to be wireless.”

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_19574397

By TOM BOTT, the Telegraph

The Jersey Community School District is initiating an ambitious campaign to be on the cutting edge of technology to educate students for the challenges of the modern world. Superintendent Ed Settles was fired up Thursday about digital conversion for the entire district. Citing research by Project RED (Revolutionize Education), Settles talked about the benefits of personalizing education through technology, not only to students but the entire community.

http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/technology-63457-settles-education.html

by Patrick Gibbons, TechCrunch

Many K-12 education technology startups target teachers and administrators by offering tools to become more productive: Lesson plan sharing, gradebooks, training tools, whiteboards and more. Devin Coldewey called them “practical” in his TechCrunch post “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” Inadvertently Touches On Sad Education And Tech Truths.” Coldewey concludes that education needs top-down reforms that utilize these practical technologies. He sincerely believes these technologies can improve teacher and administrator efficiency so the “overworked” staff can gain control of their “oversized” classes in the “pitifully insufficient” resourced schools. Unfortunately, the top down “practical” approach won’t work for some very good reasons.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/18/education-technology-disrupt/