Educational Technology

by Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

The classroom of the future is on your doorstep. We’re getting slapped in the face with technology (sorry about that, partially my fault), flipped classroom models, and innovative ideas. So what is the current state of the 21st century classroom? How many teachers have computers in their classroom? What are the 3 biggest reasons to use technology in your classroom? A new infographic from Open Colleges spells it out. We had the honor of helping them with this infographic so please spend at least half a second to check it out. Make me think that someone actually sees some of our hard work!

http://edudemic.com/2012/07/classroom-pieces/

by Terry Heick, Edudemic

There is often a big divide between what happens in the laboratory and the way laboratory findings are practically applied. The relationship between neuroscience research and education is no exception. While there are numerous educational products that claim to be based on neuroscience research (often quite dubiously so), the real impact of brain-based research on education has been much more subtle. While neuroscience hasn’t yet radically changed the way we think about teaching and learning, it is helping to shape educational policies and influencing new ways of implementing technology, improving special education, and streamlining day-to-day interactions between teachers and students. While there is still a long way to go before we truly understand the science of learning and how to use those findings in the real world classroom, it’s important to highlight some of the key ways that neuroscience is changing the classroom of today for the better.

http://edudemic.com/2012/06/9-signs-that-neuroscience-has-entered-the-classroom/

by Ani Bally, Edudemic

Because of their youth, students are at the front lines of the parallel digital experience. They were born into a world in which rapid technology, the Internet, even online profiles would play a de facto role in their lives. And whether they’re sharing pop-culture sound bytes or completing online assignments for school, students exist comfortably with an online parallel world. And educators have every opportunity to not only buy into, but reap the benefits of that phenomenon.

http://edudemic.com/2012/07/digital-classroom/

by Carey Cruz, Gary Mintchell’s Feed Forward

Edutechwiki defines it as a research community that is interested in the intersection of artificial intelligence, research, learning and education. Intelligent tutoring systems, intelligent learning environments, adaptive hypertext systems and other computer-supported collaborative learning system all fall under artificial intelligence and education. These are all means educators use to enhance and help students with their learning. More and more Universities and colleges are now offering online degrees and they will all be relying on artificial intelligence programs to help enhance and encourage the learning of their students which only means that more AI systems and programs will be developed. AI in education is here to stay.

http://www.garymintchellsfeedforward.com/feed-forward/2012/7/6/the-role-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education.html

by Gary Woodill, Float

Informal learning and implicit learning occur all the time, and these types of learning are where mobile technologies can shine. Mobile technologies can augment and enable documentation of both informal and implicit learning in that these devices are usually used in the immediate contexts in which a learner is located, rather than in a classroom or conference room. In other words, there is no need for a formal setting for learning if learners use mobile technologies to find what they need when they need it, or if they are learning without realizing it through their immediate experiences in the world around them. (This latter type of learning may or may not be augmented by mobile learning technologies).

http://floatlearning.com/2012/07/mobile-tracking-and-assessment-of-informal-learning-part-of-a-revolution/

by Best Colleges Online

If you were busy playing Call of Duty and you missed it, July 8 was Video Games Day. While most people’s experience with gaming involves mindless destruction or sports competition, educators have begun to see the value in the medium for helping students learn. While the research is still developing and some professors are still skeptical, these 10 colleges represent your best bets for learning while playing video and other games.

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2012/07/08/10-best-colleges-for-game-based-learning/

by School CIO

The Val Verde Unified School District (VVUSD) in Southern California has outfitted more than 800 teachers with Splashtop Whiteboard. VVUSD is a winner of the National Blue Ribbon School award and multiple California Distinguished School awards. VVUSD teachers can now use an iPad to control and annotate any content on their PC. “As a teacher I can bring the lesson to an individual student to see what they are learning through their fingertips and the whole class can share in that experience,” noted Kevin Ho, Bethune Elementary School teacher. “They can solve a math problem or write a sentence and identify the parts of speech. With Splashtop Whiteboard and an iPad I can see learning through the eyes of a child, instead of a one-way teaching experience.”

http://www.schoolcio.com/article/ca-district-adopts-ipad-controlled-whiteboard-technology/52658

By Jen LaMaster, CIO Advisor

The feedback loop is hinting that @jdferries and I are speaking a little too “techie” these days for the local school community. And that feedback is probably correct, as we hang out with tech-types and each other so much we speak in what sounds like code (and sometimes is code—but I digress)… So I am starting this BYOT Glossary for the school community.

http://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=136&EntryId=4385

By Kyle Berger, School CIO

The school worked with the community to develop community-based Internet hot spots that would allow anyone to gain access to the Internet and AISD resources for free. The result? C.L.I.C.K — Community Located Internet Connected Kiosks. The program began with five community kiosks, which are located in restaurants, retail stores, grocery stores, and anywhere there is an electrical outlet. They feature:

• Dual display

• Fully functioning PC with Internet access

• Broadband Internet hotspot

• District branding

Each kiosk displays the district colors and logos and includes advertising to generate revenue. Below the ads is a fully functioning PC that provides access to all district online sources.

http://www.schoolcio.com/article/wifi-for-sale/52711

By Nicholas C. Stern, News-Post

Nicholas Churilla, a rising third-grader at Yellow Springs Elementary School, makes a Chinese lantern at New Life Christian School as part of the STARTALK summer program that teaches children Chinese culture and the Mandarin language.bWhen the Asian American Center of Frederick approached Jason Johnson to plan lessons for a Chinese-language camp, some novel circumstances presented themselves. Johnson, an advanced math and science academics instructor who develops curricula for Frederick County Public Schools, had no model for a program that integrated Mandarin Chinese with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subject matter.bBut he figured if Chinese people learn math and science every day, the task had obviously been accomplished before.bThe three-week STARTALK program, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, is designed to develop skills for young American students in languages critical to national security, including Arabic, Russian and Chinese.

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=137879

By Elizabeth Marie Himchak, Pomeradon News

Six local incoming eighth-grade girls have learned how various types of science can be applied to real-life situations due to sponsorships by Rancho Bernardans. Selected by Rancho Bernardo AAUW to participate in this year’s Tech Trek were, front row from left, Jessica Tian, Kseniya Belsheva, Allison Finnecy and Allison Rasche. Back row, Kinley Williams and Piper Langer Weida. Allison Finnecy and Allison Rasche from Bernardo Heights Middle School in Rancho Bernardo, Kseniya Belsheva and Jessica Tian from Oak Valley Middle School in 4S Ranch, and Piper Langer Weida and Kinley Williams from Twin Peaks Middle School in Poway were nominated by their teachers. They were selected after an application and interview process conducted by American Association of University Women Rancho Bernardo members. From June 24-30 the girls attended classes and lived in dorms at the University of California San Diego. AAUW, along with major donors Sony Electronics, Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary and Rancho Bernardo “Noon” Rotary, sponsored the girls.

http://www.pomeradonews.com/2012/07/06/girls-learn-about-science-careers-through-camp/

by Brent Hannify, TechnApex

James Puliatte teaches business classes at Fort Lee High School in New Jersey. He’s quick to point out he is under the age of 30 and cringes when someone calls him “sir.” He has developed a reputation on campus as the resident tech expert and contributes to the school’s modern methods for educating teenagers. FLHS experienced some budget woes and cutbacks in the recent past but the school was not deterred from its goal of integrating technology into its classrooms. Instead of dealing with the high cost of sending teachers to workshops to learn certain technology, the school named Puliatte its “tech staff developer” and gave him the responsibility to bring teachers up to speed on the usage of certain technology in an effort to modernize the school. “When I tell people my title I get blank stares. So I just say that I teach teachers how to use technology.”

http://www.technapex.com/2012/07/a-conversation-with-a-21st-century-teacher/

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Technology today is all about facilitating collaboration. Collaboration within and across our institutions. Collaborations around data and ideas. Collaboration on multiple screens on multiple (and mobile devices). Robust collaboration requires communication, flexibility, resiliency, and choice. A collaborative organization provides platforms and tools that allow individuals and groups to connect, build relationships, and form networks. A system built for collaboration pushes people to the front and technology to the rear.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/lets-rebrand-it-department-collaboration-department

by Ricardo Bilton, ZDNet

With the tablet becoming more and more commonplace, here are ten options for getting kids in on the fun. Here’s ZDNets review of the top ten tablets with special features and capabilities to enhance use by youth.

http://www.zdnet.com/photos/10-best-tablets-for-kids/6330739

By Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

Electronic textbooks and computing tablets have a lot of buzz, but the old bound volumes and desktop models still dominate on four-year college campuses, according to a new survey. The Apple iPad, which many pegged as the device that would finally make electronic textbooks appealing to students, is enjoying a lot of hype but less uptake, according to data collected this spring by Student Monitor, a market research firm. Sixty-six percent of respondents to the firm’s latest survey — which queried 1,200 full-time students at four-year colleges and universities — said the iPad was “in” on their campuses. But fewer than 6 percent actually own an iPad, down from 8 percent in last spring’s survey; and only 1 percent of students plan to purchase an iPad in the next year.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/05/survey-ipad-adoption-sluggish-e-textbooks-booming

By Robert Talbert, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Let’s start with what Khan Academy is. Khan Academy is a collection of video lectures that give demonstrations of mechanical processes. When it comes to this purpose, KA videos are, on the average, pretty good. Sal Khan is the main reason; he is approachable and has a knack for making mechanical processes seem understandable. Of course, his videos are not perfect. He tends to ramble a lot and get sidetracked; he doesn’t use visuals as effectively as he could; he’s often sloppy and sometimes downright wrong with his math; and he sometimes omits topics from his subjects that really need to be there (LU decomposition in linear algebra, for example). But on balance, KA is a great resource for the niche in which it was designed to work: giving demonstrations of mechanical processes. But let’s also be honest about what Khan Academy is not. Khan Academy is not a substitute for an actual course of study in mathematics. It is not a substitute for a live teacher. And it is not a coherent curriculum of study that engages students at all the cognitive levels at which they need to be engaged. It’s OK that it’s not these things.

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2012/07/03/the-trouble-with-khan-academy/

By Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Ed

College leaders just keep demanding more out of their technology. And that’s created challenges not just for presidents, but for CIO’s: How do you ward off information overload? What about those rising tech bills? The Tech Therapy team talks to the president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Freeman Hrabowski III, and the CIO there, Jack J. Suess, to find out how they’re coping.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/techtherapy/2012/07/03/episode-97-campus-leaders-drink-big-gulps-of-technology/

By Maggie Koerth-Baker, Boing Boing

Xeni posted last week about the EU’s rather ridiculous “Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” video, which was aimed at recruiting girls to science careers and, instead, hit enough vacuous stereotypes of femininity that it ended up seeming like a parody of itself. This seems like a nice moment to note that the Txchnologist website is currently posting articles in the theme of “Women in Science and Technology”. One of those pieces is an interview with Margo Seltzer, an actual female scientist. Dr. Seltzer teaches computer science at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Most science and technology professions have a hard time attracting and retaining women, and computer science is no exception. Only a quarter of employed computer scientists are women. Txchnologist asked Seltzer about her perspective on the problem, and what steps she thinks might help make computer science more female-friendly.

http://boingboing.net/2012/07/03/public-image-self-image-and.html

by: The Australian

PERU’S distribution of more than 800,000 low-cost laptop computers to children across the country easily ranks as one of the world’s most ambitious efforts to leverage digital technology in the fight against poverty. Yet five years into the program, there are serious doubts about whether the largest single deployment in the One Laptop Per Child initiative was worth the more than $200 million that Peru’s government spent. Ill-prepared rural teachers were often unable to fathom, much less teach with the machines, software bugs didn’t get fixed and most had no way to connect to the internet. Many could not take the computers home as the initiative intended. And some schools even lacked electricity to keep them running. “In essence, what we did was deliver the computers without preparing the teachers,” said Sandro Marcone, the Peruvian education official who now runs the program.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/kids-global-laptop-scheme-gets-mixed-grades-after-its-massive-rollout-in-peru/story-e6frgakx-1226416897708

by the iLearn Project

Last week we took a pretty depressing look at what’s wrong with public education and why. But I promised then it wasn’t all bad news, and I’m sticking to my word. Digital learning has the potential to reverse the backward trend of education. Let’s look at how.

http://ilearnproject.com/top-5-reasons-digital-learning-could-be-the-key-to-success-for-this-generation-and-the-next/

by Byron, Pete Sharma Blog

I woke up to wikis about two years ago at a conference and it took me about a year to actually design one myself. Why? Because I was afraid I didn’t know enough about them and that I’d get it wrong. Then I saw a talk on using ICT in ELT and I was convinced that I could learn by doing four things. 1 Do a little at a time (say 20 mins). 2 Do it often (or you’ll forget what you learned). 3 Expect to make lots of mistakes. 4 Don’t give up. I’ve heard a lot of resistance to learning how to use tools like this, but I’m not buying any of it. Education is moving on to what is called ‘21st Century Skills’, which refers in part to how digitally literate young people need to be to cope in a digital world. I think that as a result of this view of education, we as teachers need to have our set of digital literacy skills, in addition to our set of teaching skills. You may know the term ‘Bring your own device’ (BYOD) which refers to jobs where you have to provide your own tablet, smart phone or laptop. Well, I think that soon, in job interviews, we will be asked to ‘Bring your own digital literacy skills’ or BYODLS!

http://www.psa.eu.com/general-posts/wake-up-to-wikis