Educational Technology

by Martin Fleming, Gateway News

We can reduce the load the younger children and older students carry, we can provide instant test results, reducing the educators load of taking work home to grade., grades for test automatically recorded to save the educator time, state and federal reports satisfied by the system, greater participation of the students who all love working with technology, excitement in the classroom creating the desire to learn more than the next student, or the excitement in the student that is learning as much as the next. The student inherits the feeling of being just as important as the next and wants to show off their newfound skills. All the textbooks for every class built in. Tablets can be utilized to access the schools books, library, courses, and many more features of the district at the tap or stroke of a finger. Many different classes with the same field such as biology could be combined and an educator available in the field guiding each student in their choice of study working as a facilitator of sorts.

http://www.thegatewaynews.com/news/simple_article/5165526

By Lee Bessette, Inside Higher Ed

On Friday, we went to the computer lab, watched this video, and then spent the rest of the class playing and then discussing Ayiti: The Cost of Life and Spent (special thanks for Mark Sample for the suggestions). These two games were great because they were largely text based so didn’t rely on fine motor skills. They were like the Choose Your Own Adventure books I used to read (and throw across the room in frustration). The games were a huge success and largely unwinnable: it’s almost impossible to keep a family of five alive in rural Haiti for four years. Between a lecture about the economic realities of rural Haiti and playing an interactive video game about living in rural Haiti, I know which one would have more of an impact on the students. And, telling your students that you’re going to spend time playing video games makes you instantly more popular. Your colleagues, however, look at your weird.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/college-ready-writing/now-you-see-it-gamification-fyc

By Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The nonprofit group called TED, known for streaming 18-minute video lectures about big ideas, today opened a new YouTube channel designed for teachers and professors, with videos that are even shorter. The new channel, called TED-Ed, was announced a year ago, but its leaders are only now unveiling the project’s first videos. There are only 11 as of today, but the goal is to add new ones regularly. Within three months from now, a new video could appear each day, said Chris Anderson, TED’s curator, in a conference call with reporters late last week.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/ted-known-for-idea-talks-releases-educational-videos/35745

by eSchool News

Apple Inc. has given the latest version of its iPad tablet several new features but no new name. And in a move that could prove useful for schools, the company will continue selling the older iPad 2 model, but at a reduced price. When it goes on sale next week in the U.S. and several other countries, the latest version of the iPad will simply be “the iPad” or perhaps “the new iPad”—not “iPad 3″ or “iPad HD,” as some had speculated. The new iPad, unveiled March 7, comes with improvements that might not be readily apparent to the casual observer. It has, as expected, a sharper screen, driven by a faster processing chip that acts as the “brains” of the device. What was more surprising was that the new features mean the tablet computer will be slightly thicker and heavier than the iPad 2, because it needs a larger battery to power the high-resolution screen.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/03/08/apple-unveils-new-ipad-with-sharper-screen/

by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNET news.com

For the blind and visually impaired, it can be nearly impossible to follow along when a math teacher spends most of a lecture in front of a blackboard or projector drawing shapes, parabolas, X-Y planes, and other visuals.  It’s about time there’s an app for that, thought mechanical engineering grad student Jenna Gorlewicz, who’d spent a few years at Vanderbilt’s Medical and Electromechanical Design Laboratory miniaturizing endoscopic robotic capsules and was looking for a more people-oriented project. So Gorlewicz, who says she loves both teaching and math, set out 18 months ago to try to develop a tablet app that uses haptic (or tactile) technology to help the visually impaired learn math and other subjects with a strong visual component. Using a Samsung Galaxy Tab, which can generate hundreds of different sounds and vibrations with various frequencies, Gorlewicz was able to assign different tactile queues for different features. On an X-Y grid, for example, she was able to set the horizontal and vertical lines to vibrate differently, and then set points on the grid to generate certain tones.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-57392568-247/haptic-app-helps-visually-impaired-learn-math/

By Stephen Noonoo, THE Journal

After noticing an uptick in ELL and other students with below average reading scores at his school, Skip Johnson, principal at El Crystal Elementary in San Bruno, CA, created a forward-thinking reading program pairing iPods and print books that has helped to successfully boost reading comprehension scores among non proficient readers.  The idea for letting struggling readers follow print and iPod audiobooks simultaneously was first sparked when Johnson was browsing the iTunes store trying to spend a $50 iTunes giftcard–a generous gift from a teacher. “I happened to notice audiobooks for sale and I went, ‘Hmm, there are a lot of books here that kids want to read,” he said. Johnson then piloted the initiative with a single iPod and just a handful of audiobooks that he introduced to just three students. Now in its fourth year, the program maintains a library brimming with more than 400 audiobooks on 50 devices, and has caught on school wide.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/03/07/ipod-audiobooks-help-improve-reading-scores.aspx

by Otago Daily Times

It’s a computer that costs $48, which makers hope will get every child programming – and the initial run of 10,000 has been snapped up by eager customers. While it may not look as attractive as its more expensive cousins, the credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi was launched last week in the UK to much fanfare, and will be coming to New Zealand on the next run. Equipped with two USB ports and an ethernet port to access the internet, it is capable of running word processing, internet, games, and high-definition video – the same capabilities as PCs costing 10 times its price.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/technology/200094/here-comes-48-computer

By Sajid Farooq, NBC San Francisco

Stanford will be offering free classes online again in January. Here Professor Douglas Osheroff, a Nobel Prize in physics, teaches. Last Fall, Stanford University tried an experiment in free education. The elite university put its most popular computer sciences classes online and free to the public. The demand was so high that the university is doing it again. This month the university will launch five more free online classes. “Stanford has been a pioneer in online education for many years, and we are pleased to continue expanding and refining our online offerings to benefit both our own students and students around the world,” Stanford University Provost John Etchemendy said. The classes last fall drew more than 350,000 students from 190 countries across the globe. About 43,000 of them actually completed the courses.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Stanford-Offering-Free-Classes-to-the-Public-141629813.html

BY KIT EATON, Fast Company

Fast Company is tracking developments in the increasingly intense competition between Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon to show just how fast the big four are creeping into each others’ spaces. Here’s what changed in the 30 days since we published The Great Tech War of 2012.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1788728/the-great-tech-war-of-2012-ongoing-skirmishes

by Grace, Simple k12

The following is a guest post from Steve Katz, who currently teaches social studies and is the middle school technology integration specialist at Korea International School in Seoul, Korea. 37 Teacher Favorite iPad Apps. Steve Katz currently teaches social studies and is the middle school technology integration specialist at Korea International School in Seoul, Korea. You can connect with Steve via Twitter @stevekatz or by visiting his blog, Teach with Video.

http://blog.simplek12.com/education/37-teacher-favorite-ipad-apps/

by Simple K12

Educational Technology compiled a list of great education apps for Android tablets. The information is organized on a slideshow and contains beautiful screen shots of each of the apps, as well as links to review & download each app. Wow! How awesome is that? (Click here to see the slideshow.) So if you’re an Android tablet user/lover/fan/groupie … check out the following recommendations.

http://blog.simplek12.com/education/top-25-android-apps-for-educators/

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Ten years ago, the vice president of IT at Indiana University told Brad Wheeler — then the associate dean for teaching and learning — that they needed to update their homegrown teaching and learning systems. But after some research, building a system didn’t seem like such a bad idea, especially if he could partner with other universities. In 2003, Indiana University launched its Sakai project to collaboratively create open source teaching and learning systems. And the university worked again with multiple institutions to build an open source suite of administrative applications, saving $17 million. “This isn’t just hobbies and chess,” said Wheeler, now the university’s CIO. “This is the real deal.”

http://www.govtech.com/top-25/Brad-Wheeler.html

by the Calgary Herald

Does computer technology have a positive overall effect on learning in the classroom? Concordia University researchers set out to answer that very question with a recent study published in the Review of Educational Research. Their findings, based on thousands of studies that compare achievement in classrooms that used computer technology versus those that used little or none, suggest that classrooms where computer technology was used to support teaching had a “small to moderate positive” effect on learning and attitude in students.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Computers+schools+live+chat/6215854/story.html

By Julian Joyce, BBC News

The hope of Britain’s future computer science industry is gathered around a tiny device in a school classroom in Cambridgeshire. The pupils of Chesterton Community College ICT class have been invited to road-test the long-awaited Raspberry Pi computer. A projector throws the image of what the Pi is generating – a simple game of Snake (available on any Nokia phone near you) – onto a whiteboard. The atmosphere is feverish as the 12 year olds compete for the keyboard. Crucially, they are not just playing the game – they have created it by writing their own computer code.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17192823

by Stefanie Knowlton, Statesman Journal

Nearly one out of five computers in Salem-Keizer School District is eight years old or older. The aging computers require more maintenance; can’t run the latest software; and take longer to log in, which eats into instruction time. Salem-Keizer Director of Technology and Information Kristen Duus said schools could fall behind if the district doesn’t fund technology. “Students need to be 21st-century learners,” she said. “To provide that opportunity for them is extremely important.” The gap in technology is one impact of recent cuts that the district budget committee will hear Tuesday night. It’s the final informational meeting before members discuss how to tackle next year’s $20 million shortfall.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120228/NEWS/202280332/Nearly-20-percent-schools-computers-need-upgrade

by Don Power, Sprout Social

Remember movie day back in grade school? Your teacher would wheel out the old projector but you probably didn’t care what the movie was about — you were more concerned with getting away with some hijinks with your classmates under the cover of darkness. The use of video in education has come a long way since those days. Today, students view videos on school supplied iPads or smartphones and in some cases, they’re creating videos themselves for class credit. Here are three examples of educators using YouTube in creative ways, including a free and powerful educational resource from YouTube itself.

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2012/03/educators-use-youtube/

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

The annual RSA computer security conference, in San Francisco this week, offers one of the world’s greatest concentrations of well-founded paranoia. Experts from the highest levels of government mingle with enterprising hackers working for no one but themselves. And, as far as I can tell, all of them share the opinion that things are worse than most of us realize and set to get worse. On the conference’s first full day, some experts told attendees about which specific bogeymen we need to be wary of. Here are seven taken from talks at the event today, starting with some surprising ones from influential security expert Bruce Schneier:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27614/?p1=blogs

By Tom Simonite

A chilling demonstration to a small, packed room at the RSA security conference today showed how clicking a single bad Web link while using a phone running Google’s Android operating system could give an attacker full remote control of your phone. Once George Kurtz and colleagues from security startup CrowdStrike were done, they could record phone calls, intercept text messages, and track the hacked phone’s location at all times. “What is ubiquitous, has a camera, a microphone, knows where you are at all times, is always on, and stores your sensitive information?” asked Kurtz. “The smart phone is the ultimate spying tool.” Smart phones have been hacked before, but Kurtz said this was the first public demonstration of an end-to-end system able to wrest control of one remotely with just a single click on a Web link.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39824/?p1=A2

by David Zax, Techology Review

Adobe Photoshop Touch came to the iPad this week. The app, which had been available for Android for a while, is downloadable for $10. Jacob Schulman of The Verge, for one, was impressed with the app. He called it “surprisingly functional”–twice!–and demonstrated how it was good, especially, for quick-and-dirty photo editing. He summed up that the app “takes the best elements of its desktop counterpart and gives them applications that make sense for a tablet.” He was pleased enough to even pose the question, in his headline, of whether the app represented “the future of content creation.” Schulman’s post is thought-provoking, and worth reading in full, but where it really gets interesting is in the comments section. His readers quickly take the conversation in another direction. As one asks, “I wonder how long it will be until the iPad is stylus-compatible (not a capacitive stylus, at that). This looks like a great app, but I’m not sure exactly how useful it’s going to be on the iPad.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27617/?p1=A4

By Ellen Ullman, ZD Net

Proponents of “bring your own device” (BYOD) programs like them for a lot of reasons: budgets keep dwindling, students already bring devices to school, and technology isn’t getting cheaper. “People are saying ‘It’s happening in the real world. Let’s mirror that in our schools,” says Lucy Gray, project director ofthe Leadership for Mobile Learning (LML) initiative at CoSN, the Consortium for School Networking. But this article isn’t meant to convince readers to try BYOD. It’s about how to make it work once you’ve decided it’s the way to go. Here are the methods three districts took to make BYOD happen.

http://www.schoolcio.com/article/byod-strategies/52201

By Rachel King, ZD Net

One of the primary goals of McAfee’s new mobile security solutions is to provide further support (and reassurance) for the bring-your-own-device to work trend. McAfee has unveiled a new collection of mobile security solutions designed to protect devices, data, and apps for both consumers and businesses. Compiled into the McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) 10.0 product, one of the primary goals of this initiative is to provide further support (and reassurance) for the bring-your-own-device to work trend. Essentially, EMM 10.0 has been designed to enable IT managers with more controls over identities and policies assigned to both employee- and business-owned smartphones and tablets.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/mcafee-rolling-out-new-security-privacy-options-for-mobile-devices/70196