Educational Technology

By RICHARD WATTS, Times Colonist

Computers are now a fact of life in classrooms, from kindergarten to high school graduation, but preschools continue to provide kids a refuge from technology. While school districts such as Greater Victoria embrace information technology from laptops to smart boards, the nursery school is still seen as a place where interaction, play and personal exploration are paramount. “I would never bring technology into the classroom,” said Gail Atkins, an early-childhood educator at the co-operative Strawberry Vale Preschool. “We are a play-based centre and our philosophy is very strong that children learn through play and interaction with their peers. “Children need to learn to share and co-operate and talk and explore the little things in life, like the bugs and the leaves and what’s happening all around them.”

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Wired+inspired/6719860/story.html

by Amy Southernland, the Atlantic

On May 22, Ithaka S&R released “Interactive Learning Online at Public Universities: Evidence from Randomized Trials,” a study that helps validate the efficacy of online learning at the college level and points to some of its potential benefits. The full report is worth a look, but here are the basics: 605 students at six public universities were randomly assigned to take an introductory statistics course in either a traditional format or a hybrid format. The hybrid format combined machine-guided instruction–what the researchers refer to as ILO, or “Interactive Learning Online”–along with one hour of face-to-face instruction each week. Matthew M. Chingos, a fellow at the Brown Center on Education at The Brookings Institution, was one of the study’s co-authors, and here’s how he summarized the findings: “We found that students in the hybrid format did just as well–in terms of pass rates, final exam scores, and performance on a standardized statistics test–as their counterparts in the traditional version of the same course.” The study also found that online learning was more efficient, at least for this particular class.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/workforce-of-tomorrow/archive/2012/05/putting-online-college-classes-to-the-test/257928/

by ALLEN GANNETT, The Next Web

The tech boom will keep accelerating. Anyone who writes about the entire web technology sector experiencing a bubble is missing the point. The web is now a market of two billion users. It’s still a wild west of new ideas that has an unprecedented level of opportunity. Watch as investors start moving more money into mobile, enterprise tech, and emerging markets. The social media bubble may be over, but the web boom is just beginning.

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/06/02/the-social-media-bubble-has-popped/

by NANCY MESSIEH, the Next Web

Bitly had pretty much positioned itself as the leading URL shortener in a sea of way too many options, by offering its users a set of robust features – analytics, Bitly bundles, and more. With its latest major revamp, however, it has its many fans disappointed. One major complaint is that Bitly has thrown simplicity out of the window. A two-click option to shorten and share URLs on Twitter has been replaced with a confusing, meandering workflow that takes longer, is more annoying, and adds unnecessary features. If you’re one of the people who’s incredibly frustrated with the new setup, we’ve put together a list of alternatives, so in no particular order, here they are….

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/06/02/not-a-fan-of-the-big-bitly-revamp-here-are-9-alternatives/

By All Things Digital

Stanford President John Hennessy and Khan Academy founder Salman Khan are coming at online education from very different angles — one is an elite institution being shaken up by experiments, the other is a widely loved upstart that’s increasingly being used in traditional schools. In conversation with Walt Mossberg at D10, Hennessy and Khan talked about the future of the education credential; the opportunities for “flipped classroom”-style education, where class time is spent on collaboration, tutoring and projects; the move away from lectures and toward social media; and the opportunity to provide practical education for kids in a sort of “shadow school district,” as Khan called it, with classes in computer science, statistics and law.

http://allthingsd.com/20120531/how-do-credentials-change-as-education-goes-online-stanford-and-khan-academy-respond-video/?mod=googlenews

by Chelsea Shank, The York Dispatch

Google released details last month about Project Glass, one of the company’s secretive initiatives being worked on in the Google X laboratory near its home base in Mountain View, Calif. The video released by Google displays the functionality of the glasses through the eyes of someone wearing them. The wearer is able to eat breakfast while responding to a request to meet up, snap pictures, save time by receiving a notification that the subway is closed, and easily follow directions to his destination while wearing the glasses. Photos on Google show people wearing what look like a pair of eyeglasses minus the lenses, with a thicker band resembling a USB-drive on the right side of the device stretching slightly into the field of vision.

http://www.yorkdispatch.com/news/ci_20750762/york-native-part-google-xs-project-glass

By Brian Mathews, Chronicle of Higher Ed

I spent time in California interviewing graduate students about their work processes. Something that stood out to me was how science and engineering students typically looked for people (rather than subject headings) during the information gathering stage. The objective was to find researchers working in particular areas and then mine their websites for additional papers. That’s exactly the approach that Scholrly hopes to improve upon. I first came across Scholrly about a year ago when a friend of a friend liked them on Facebook. I explored and this is what I found:

“Scholrly aims to give its users, from the garage inventor to the tenured professor, a single stop for finding research connections and insights faster than ever before.”

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2012/05/30/the-launch-of-scholr-ly-new-search-engine-seeks-to-change-the-way-people-find-research/

By Jon Castelhano, CIO Advisor

Educational Administrators create, promote, and sustain a dynamic, digital-age learning culture that provides a rigorous, relevant, and engaging education for all students. Building and promoting a digital-age learning culture can be difficult with the rapid change of technology. Every week a new shiny device is released and it can become distracting from the educational goals of a district, unless the focus is on good teaching and not the device. The device type will continue to change, but good teaching must remain constant and use whatever tool best meets the needs of their students. Take the time to collaborate and create a foundational plan that will guide good teaching practices that support the learning goals. The “College Readiness for All” is our foundational guide in the Apache Junction USD.

http://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=136&EntryId=4331

By Jacqueline Lee, TMC Net

Skype in the Classroom has just joined forces with Penguin Group, Save the Children, the New York Philharmonic, Peace One Day and the Science Museum London to deliver access to expert speakers as well as access to educational content via video calling. Their goal, according to Skype Division president, Tony Bates (News – Alert), is to connect one million classrooms globally. “Skype in the classroom is excited to collaborate with stellar, like-minded organizations to bring relevant content directly to innovative teachers who are looking to create unforgettable shared learning experiences for their students,” said Bates, in a press release. “We are dedicated to making education accessible via technology and will continue to look for ways to remove barriers to communications and connect to classrooms across the globe.”

http://skype-news.tmcnet.com/skype/articles/290598-skype-wants-connect-one-million-classrooms-worldwide.htm

by School CIO

Adaptive Curriculum (AC), a web-based concept mastery solution that aims to strengthen math and science performance by helping students build a deep understanding of core concepts and skills, has been selected as a key content provider for a new blended learning model that will be implemented at Kramer Middle School in the 2012-13 school year. Part of District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), Kramer is undergoing a comprehensive transformation that will center around curricula delivered through a 50-50 combination of traditional face-to-face instruction and online courses. The new blended learning approach is the brainchild of Principal Kwame Simmons who was brought to Kramer in 2010 to help the school achieve the goals laid out in DCPS’ new five-year strategic plan, “A Capital Commitment.” According to Simmons, the model is designed to improve college readiness through 21st century skills, intensify a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) instruction, and keep students engaged through technology and a robust curriculum.

http://www.schoolcio.com/article/dc-school-transitions-to-blended-model-stem/52576

By Christopher Dawson, ZDNet

Summary: The new Chromebooks and Chromeboxes may not have gotten much attention outside of tech circles, but Chrome OS will be everywhere…and soon. Google’s first round of Chromebooks met with mixed reviews and far greater adoption in schools where their easy management and fast boot times made them more popular than with consumers. Google and Samsung announced yesterday that next-generation Chromebooks were rolling out, along with a major release of Chrome OS and new devices call Chromeboxes.  All in all, it was a big day for Chrome OS, and yet, as Larry Dignan pointed out, the pricing on Chrome OS devices remains too high for serious consumer or enterprise adoption. However, in computer-land, three years is forever, and in that period of time, I expect that Chrome OS will be all over the enterprise, consumer spaces, schools, and SMBs. In fact, I expect that it will be ubiquitous in the way that Linux and Java are: we don’t even know we’re using them on our phones, in our TVs, in our DVRs…everywhere. Here’s 5 reasons why.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/5-reasons-everyone-will-be-using-chrome-os-in-3-years/3649?tag=nl.e539

By Anastasia Salter, Chronicle of Higher Ed

When Google first made its entry into the mobile market with the launch of Android, they also set about to create a new tool to allow would-be app developers to quickly migrate to the new ecosystem and get their projects working on Android phones. The resulting project was Google App Inventor, a graphical user interface for building mobile apps using drag and drop elements and building block code. Amy wrote about the Google App Inventor beta back in 2010, before the project was shut down and set free as an open source project but without the support of Google’s servers. Thankfully for those of us who were already excited by the idea of a simple tool for rapid mobile prototyping, App Inventor has re-emerged.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/building-with-mits-google-app-inventor/40284

By Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology today announced a research initiative to tame so-called Big Data, sets of information that are so complex and fast-growing that they defy traditional methods of analysis. Examples are the data involved in online financial transactions of major banks or collected by social networks.  Key to the effort will be the creation of the Intel Science and Technology Center for Big Data, which will reside at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The computer-chip maker Intel will contribute $2.5-million per year for up to five years to support the research center. The lab also plans to work with other companies, including AIG, EMC, SAP, and Thomson Reuters, in the project.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/mit-establishes-research-center-to-harness-big-data/36441

by Virtual College UK

The majority (53 per cent) of public school districts in the US were taking advantage of online learning or other remote education tools in the 2009 to 2010 academic year. This is according to the US Education Department’s annual Condition of Education Report, which revealed that 1.3 million high school students were taking part in remote learning during the year, compared with just 300,000 five years earlier. It defined distance education courses as those that are delivered by technology, grant credits and have either the instructor or course content developed and located in a different place than the students. A total of 12 per cent of the nation’s educational districts are enabling individuals to use online learning to fulfil all of the requirements of their high school graduation, with 22 per cent allowing people to take at least one full course load every term using this innovation. Furthermore, the most popular model for remote education was through e-learning courses provided on the internet with asynchronous instruction, rather than simultaneous dialogue.

http://www.virtual-college.co.uk/news/Most-US-school-districts-enable-distance-learning-online-newsitems-801372712.aspx

By: Stephen S. Davis, Faculty Focus

It is my contention that as educational and classroom leaders we have a responsibility to set clear expectations, which is Job One of all good leaders. I’d like to share one practical strategy we used to do just that in terms of communicating our expectations for using technology in the classroom. First we gathered all our small group facilitators (we use clinicians, basic and social scientists and student fellows) for an hour-long event in which we asked them to work together to do three things: 1) identify the assets of these tools; 2) identify the liabilities of these tools; and 3) establish some reasonable ground rules to maximize the assets and minimize the liabilities. Below is one example of what we came up with after just an hour. It’s been very helpful to a) deal with issues overtly, b) wrestle with how to leverage the assets and liabilities, and c) provide a platform for open discussion. As you read it, I encourage you to think about how you might adapt it to work within the context of your courses.

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/technology-in-the-classroom-assets-and-liabilities/

by Marco R. delle Cava, Detroit Free Press

Most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how to best explain the financial collapse of the Thai baht in the 1990s. But most people aren’t Sal Khan. It’s not much past 9 a.m., and Khan, 36, founder of the online educational non-profit Khan Academy, gets set to record his 3,081st video lecture in a small office with a view of air conditioning ducts. “In 1997, you see, there was a devaluation of the Thai currency,” Khan says into a beefy microphone as he makes crude sketches on his monitor. If you want gleaming high-tech, go down the road to Google’s campus. If you’re looking for a revolution, this is the right address.

http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/55270348?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CEntertainment%7Cp

by Online Learning Insights

“Welcome to the college education revolution. Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary” Thomas Friedman, NYT Mr. Friedman is right – there will be a ‘revolution’ of some sort coming in the near future with the launch of online learning platforms by the Ivy Universities acting as the catalyst, edX and Coursera, the most recent examples. I’ve been following a number of blog posts and articles this past week about MOOC’s, Massive Open and Online Courses – and there’s been much speculation, misconceptions, exaggerations and misinformation. It’s time to clear the air – in this post I’ll define what MOOC’s are and are not, what the skeptics are saying, and I’ll conclude the post by [attempting] to clarify the differences (and similarities), between MOOC’s, online courses for credit, and traditional face-to-face courses.

http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/mooc-mythbuster-what-moocs-are-and-what-they-arent/

by Niall Firth, New Scientist

We all remember dozing off during a boring class at school. A robotic teacher that monitors students’ attention levels and mimics the techniques human teachers use to hold their pupils’ attention promises to end the snoozing, especially for students who have their lessons online. Tests indicate the robot can boost how much students remember from their lessons. Intelligent tutoring systems that use virtual teachers to interact with students could play a crucial role in the expanding field of online education. The trouble with online courses is that it is usually impossible to know whether the student is concentrating and engaging with the lesson. Unlike virtual teachers, human teachers have a series of tricks for keeping their classes focused – changing the pitch or tone of their voice, for example, or gesturing to emphasise points and engage with their audience. Bilge Mutlu and Dan Szafir at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wanted to find out whether a robot could use some of the same techniques to improve how much a student retains.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428665.500-mindreading-robot-teachers-keep-students-focused.html

By Zack Whittaker, ZDNet

Summary: The world’s “largest cyberattack” has been uncovered. Business and universities — and governments — were the main target of the attack by the data-stealing malware. Security researchers have discovered a new ‘data-vacuuming’ malware which has targeted a number of Middle Eastern countries including Israel and Iran. Kaspersky said it believes “Flame” is larger than its apparent infamous counterparts Stuxnet and Duqu, and has been described as the “most complex threat” ever discovered. Kaspersky’s Alexander Gostev said in an extensive questions and answers SecureList blog post that Flame ”redefines the notion of cyberwar and cyberespionage”. Flame is an attack toolkit — rather than a ‘throwaway’ single-operating piece of malware — like Stuxnet and Duqu — which has the ability to relay back through the “eyes and ears” of a computer.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/flame-most-complex-cyber-attack-ever-discovered/78325?tag=nl.e539

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

District administrators and principals own more smartphones and tablets than the general U.S. adult population, according to the 2011 Speak Up survey from Project Tomorrow. The education nonprofit organization surveyed more than 416,000 K-12 students, parents, teachers, librarians and administrators in fall 2011 and released the results in two separate reports. On Wednesday, May 24, Project Tomorrow published the Speak Up report [PDF] findings from K-12 teachers, librarians and administrators. The study included responses from 814 district and 3,319 school administrators.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/School-Administrators-Open-Mobile-Devices.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Universal Design for Learning is a research-based curriculum framework that came out of a movement to utilize technology to assist learning among students who have physical and cognitive disabilities. In time, the curriculum framework expanded to meet the needs of all students. “It is such an important initiative for all students and teachers. And it’s something that is not only complementary with other reforms, such as RTI (Response to Intervention) and PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports), but it’s essential in order for these other reforms to work to their best ability to help students,” said Ricki Sabia, associate director of the National Policy Center at the National Down Syndrome Society, during a webinar on Tuesday, May 15. Teachers give students choices for how to learn and vary their teaching methods. Those choices could include taking an online class, working on a project the student is interested in, or communicating on social networks.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/The-State-of-Universal-Design-for-Learning.html