Educational Technology

by admin, After School Africa

Udacity, online learning platform offers new online courses open for Enrollment for students from any part of the world. Follow any of the links below to enroll now for the online course. Minimize the risk and maximize your startup’s success potential. Leading Silicon Valley startup guru Steve Blank will teach you to “get out of the building,” and guide you in engaging customers to help refine your product, marketing, and and business model…testing and improving it at every step.

http://www.afterschoolafrica.com/2012/08/udacity-introducing-new-online-courses-in-entrepreneurship-maths-software-debugging-and-computer-science.html

by Joe Callahan, Ocala.com

Scattered across Marion County, students of all ages — primarily in middle and high school — are taking online courses for a variety of reasons. Some students take one or two advanced college-prep courses to get ahead. Others are looking for “grade forgiveness,” taking online courses to make up for the classes they failed or did poorly in. Still others are home-schooled, or are taking a full load of online courses but split time between home and school. They are among a growing number of students nationwide who are turning to “virtual schools” for some, or all, of their schooling.

http://www.ocala.com/article/20120826/ARTICLES/120829763/-1/news?Title=Virtual-schools-help-some-students-get-ahead

by Emily Boles, Evolllution

The explosion in popularity of mobile devices raises a host of new possibilities for higher education providers, but there are a number of questions that still need to be answered. Mobile learning, devices and apps are hot topics in education. Though I tend to become very excited about the potential of new technologies and, to be honest, their “cool factor,” it is important to remember the purpose for implementing them. Does the technology assist students in achieving the objectives of the course? Does it improve outcomes? Increase learning? Improve access? As educators we should carefully consider the move toward mobile learning.

http://www.evolllution.com/media_resources/online-and-on-the-move

by Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

If higher ed is to change then our educational technology leaders must play a central role. This call for change in higher ed begs the question – what sort of change? I’ll suggest 3 dimensions that I view as imperative that we address in the next decade: productivity, relevance and access.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/3-goals-and-3-challenges-our-educational-technology-leaders

by Jon Marcus, London Times

Anant Agarwal looked out the window of his new office on the seventh floor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences and mused aloud – and without evident irony – about the future of online education. “We’re going to change the world,” said Dr Agarwal, who is heading edX – the MIT-Harvard University collaboration to provide such education. Courses from edX could reach 1 billion people, he said. And, no, he was not trying to compete with other universities that plan to teach online. There was room for everyone, Dr Agarwal said, with a smile.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=420923&c=1

by Bill Ferriter, Smartblog Education

You can’t motivate students with technology because technology alone isn’t motivating. Worse yet, students are almost always ambivalent toward digital tools. While you may be completely jazzed by the interactive whiteboard in your classroom or the wiki that you just whipped up, your kids could probably care less. Basically what I’m arguing is that finding ways to motivate students in our classrooms shouldn’t start with conversations about technology. Instead, it should start with conversations about our kids. What are they deeply moved by? What are they most interested in? What would surprise them? Challenge them? Leave them wondering? Once you have the answers to these questions — only after you have the answers to these questions — are you ready to make choices about the kinds of digital tools that are worth embracing.

http://smartblogs.com/education/2012/08/17/are-kids-really-motivated-technology/

by Online Courses

Like other areas of education, tutoring has seen some radical changes in the past decade courtesy of new and increasingly innovative technologies. Students and their tutors can now interact at any time and from anywhere in the world, and tutors can create and share educational resources with their students in minutes using high-quality and often low-cost online tools. Learn more about some of the websites and resources that are helping to define the new face of tutoring by reading about a few of the best of these new tools that we’ve collected here.

http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/2012/08/20/25-tools-that-take-tutoring-to-a-new-level/

by Dean Takahashi, Venture Beat

Sleek, fast and slim notebook computers are coming as early as this fall. But that might be the last hurrah of the laptop, as tablet computers are expected to overtake sales of notebook computers by the end of 2016. That’s the forecast for the changing computing landscape, according to Richard Shim, senior analyst for mobile devices at DisplaySearch. The change reflects a shift in consumer preferences, Shim said at the Emerging Display Technologies conference on Tuesday in Santa Clara, Calif. Tablets have screen sizes ranging from 5 inches to 10 inches, while notebook computers range from 10 inches to 17 inches. Tablets are focused on convenience, while notebooks are built for performance. Tablets are selling strong in mature markets like the U.S., while notebooks are selling better in emerging markets. That’s because notebooks are often the only computing devices in a household and they have to be used for high-performance tasks and productivity apps.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/15/tablet-computer-sales-will-overtake-notebooks-by-2016/

by Northeastern College of Professional Studies

Northeastern University today announced the launch of a new educational website and course module, “U.S. Political Conventions & Campaigns,” designed to fuel excitement and understanding around the current presidential campaign and upcoming national political conventions in Tampa and Charlotte. Northeastern faculty developed the nonpartisan website with original video content and an open online course module for teachers, students and the general public. Each module offers rich, high-quality content that will help educate voters surrounding the processes, players and history of U.S. presidential campaigns and convention practices that have transpired over the last 50 years.

http://www.cps.neu.edu/news/conventions-and-campaigns-online-course-module.php

by Lindsey Burke, Education Views

Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, an online learning platform that offers free courses to anyone in the world from some of the U.S.’s top universities, explains the massive potential customization that online learning holds. Koller describes how one of her Stanford colleagues had over 100,000 students enrolled in a machine course online. “So to put that number into perspective, for [the professor] to reach that same size audience by teaching a Stanford class, he would have to do that for 250 years.” Koller goes on to describe a Princeton Sociology 101 course hosted on Coursera, which included a question-and-answer forum. Students from all over the world enrolled in the course, which meant that if a student was up at 3 a.m. working on an assignment and posed a question, “somewhere around the world, there would be somebody who was awake and working on the same problem,” Koller explains. As a result, in some of their courses, the median response time to student-posed questions was just 22 minutes, “which is not a level of services I have ever offered to my Stanford students”

http://educationviews.org/the-rise-of-customized-education/

by Edudemic

Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom.

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/50-education-technology-tools-every-teacher-should-know-about/

by Gary Wise, Living in Learning

Two-thirds of all new job in the U.S. require post-high school education. With the rise in high school and college drop outs, the United States is scrambling to keep the attention of its students and develop a positive way to keep them involved. Experts agree that technology can save education if it is used by prepared teachers who can provide guidance to their students. The Internet is the driving force for all technological innovations. Some specific examples of technology saving education include the following.

http://livinginlearning.com/2012/08/21/can-tech-save-education-5-ways-it-could-be-done/

by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

The majority of professors are excited about various technology-driven trends in higher education, including the growth of e-textbooks and digital library collections, the increased use of data monitoring as a way to track student performance along with their own, and the increasingly popular idea of “flipping the classroom.” However, other technology trends are more likely to make professors break into a clammy sweat. These include the proliferation of scholarship outlets operating outside the traditional model for peer review, the growth of for-profit education, and the intensity of digital communications. These are some of the findings in the second of two reports from surveys conducted by Inside Higher Ed and the Babson Survey Research Group. The first report, focusing on faculty views of online education, was published in June.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/digital-faculty-professors-and-technology-2012

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Busy schedules are one reason why educators don’t collaborate and connect through social networking platforms. But a lack of time isn’t the main issue. It’s priorities. And because this month is Connected Educators’ month, this is a good time to share why educators need to get connected, said Derek McCoy, the new principal of Spring Lake Middle School in North Carolina. “The Connected Educators Month is a great movement, and it’s not about big grand gestures,” McCoy said. “It’s about doing something that you normally have not done and reaching out and making new connections.”

http://www.convergemag.com/training/Why-Educators-Should-Spend-Time-Daily-on-Social-Media.html

By Brian Croxall, Chronicle of Higher Ed

As we near the end of August, most of us are getting ready to begin a new semester and new year, if you haven’t already done so. One of my back-to-school rituals for the last several years has been loading my classes into the iOS app Attendance. The simplicity and stability of this app is one of the reasons I called it one of the five iPod Touch apps I can’t live without two years ago.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/attendance2-an-update-for-the-attendance-app-for-ios-devices/41850

By Audrey Watters, Inside Higher Ed

Highlighter has announced that it’s partnering with the 20 Million Minds Foundation, a non-profit committed to finding ways to lower the cost of textbooks, to product a book for the upcoming Fall term – Introduction to Sociology. The textbook, created by OpenStax College and Rice University is free and openly licensed.  Highlighter and 20MM describe it as “the first student-faculty interactive textbook” insofar as it will offer these social highlighting, annotating, commenting and sharing features. The Highligher version of the textbook will also let professors place students into smaller study groups for easier social interaction and enables them to track students’ reading and note-taking progress within a topic or chapter.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/hack-higher-education/social-free-and-openly-licensed-intro-sociology-textbook

By Anastasia Salter, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Ultimately, the quest for a convergent device is getting closer to a real solution. Processing power is relatively cheap, and dedicated devices don’t make much sense when the versatility of a touchscreen bypasses the need for particular controls or input. For a conference or weekend trip, leaving the laptop behind is a real possibility–and as our model shifts away from desktop dominance, options should get even better. What technology do you travel with? Is a laptop essential, or are other devices beginning to replace it in your conference and vacation luggage?

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/hack-higher-education/social-free-and-openly-licensed-intro-sociology-textbook

by Jeff Dunn, edudemic

Boundless just launched the public beta version of its brand new site. What is Boundless? It’s a way to easily turn all of the open source information that exists in the world into a simple easy-to-use digital textbook. And it’s free. This is one of the most exciting announcements that came across my inbox over the past few weeks. Boundless is shaping up to truly disrupt the digital textbook industry and the newly launched tools are robust enough to do just that. But enough hyperbole and hot air, here’s what you should know.

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/boundless-textbooks-free/

by NMC

The six technologies featured in the NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12 Edition are placed along three adoption horizons that indicate likely timeframes for their entrance into mainstream use for teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. The near-term horizon assumes the likelihood of entry into the mainstream for schools within the next 12 months; the mid-term horizon, within two to three years; and the far-term, within four to five years. Itshould be noted at the outset that the NMC Horizon Report is not a predictive tool. It is meant, rather, to highlight emerging technologies with considerable potential for our focus areas of education and interpretation. Each of the six is already the target of work at a number of innovative organizations around the world, and the projects we showcase here reveal the promise of a wider impact.

http://www.iste.org/Libraries/Documents/2012-horizon-report_k12.sflb.ashx

by edudemic

If you’re looking to deploy iPads in education, you may think that it’s just a matter of expense and storage. Those things are big, but they’re not the biggest problems you’ll face. In fact, this is one of those situations where money is the least of your troubles. I was chatting with an Edudemic reader this week who wanted to know a few tips and tricks about deploying iPads in his classroom this coming school year. I figured it might be helpful to share the results of this conversation with the rest of the Edudemic readers. After all, this site is all about sharing and learning together.

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/ipad-tips-classroom/

by RICHARD MACMANUS, ReadWriteWeb

We have outlined five reasons why Web publishing is undergoing a sea change, via new services like Medium, Branch, Svtle and App.net. In today’s post, we turn our attention to the readers. We’re all readers, in some capacity. So the changes we’re witnessing in publishing affect us all. Here’s what it will mean to you and how you can adapt. One of the curious factors in the new wave of publishing services is that they are restrictive in nature. In all four of the services we mentioned – Medium, Branch, Svtle and App.net – you cannot write to them unless you have been given permission to do so. Essentially, they’re read-only by default. In other words, this new crop of services is less democratic than what came before – Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger and even Twitter.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how-online-reading-is-changing-and-how-to-cope.php