Educational Technology

by Edudemic

So you’re about to roll out a fleet of iPads in your classroom. Or perhaps you’ve finally gotten at least one. Either way, you’re going to want to install some apps at some point. While we don’t recommend pre-installing any paid apps (read more about that in the upcoming August issue of the Edudemic Magazine), we do think it’s worth knowing about the most popular iPad apps being used in actual classrooms around the world. We worked with INTO to figure out which apps they’re seeing in classrooms around the world right now. Some may be a surprise, some not. Either way, it helps to know what other students are using right now.

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/the-top-5-ipad-apps-being-used-in-classrooms-right-now/

by Edudemic

Sadly, we all still live in a world filled with PowerPoint presentations. But the popular tool Prezi has just unveiled some new information that may change that soon. Prezi, a free interactive presentation creation tool, has just added a couple new features that will be really fun for teachers to try out when they head back to class. Prezi also announced some other fun news that’s worth knowing about. It’s all wrapped up in nice, easy-to-digest bits below:

1) 3-D Prezis……

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/5-big-prezi-updates-you-should-know-about/

by Edudemic

Data mining, for better or worse, is having a major impact on numerous facets of American life. While many of the changes have been related to business, especially online business, education is also tapping into the power of data mining in a big way. Much like Netflix and Amazon use consumer data to recommend products and tailor customer experiences, colleges are using student data to help recruit students, offer them career advice, or even to help them excel in their courses. While the practice has its critics, many of whom believe it’s an invasion of privacy and creates a watered-down, prescriptive education system, there is no doubt that the applications and the impact of the data mining will grow in the coming decade. These are just a few of the ways that dating mining will transform higher ed in the coming years, whether students and teachers like it or not.

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/data-education-evolutiong/

by Virginian-Pilot editorial board

Students in Virginia’s public schools have long been expected to graduate with a solid grasp of the technology affecting every facet of daily life. The state’s Standards of Learning call for students to learn, as early as kindergarten, about computers, and the framework provides a pathway for incorporating technology in the classroom and discussing its impact. It only seems natural that state officials would push deeper. And they are. Lawmakers approved a requirement, to take effect in the fall of 2013, for students entering high school to take at least one online course as a condition of graduation.

http://hamptonroads.com/2012/08/class-requirement-reflects-new-reality

by Carmen McCullom, the Times

No longer are tech devices forbidden in Northwest Indiana schools as many were a few short years ago. Now, more region students are taking advantage of the full social networking platform that includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and texting, as well as their own school-issued computer — and using that technology in the classroom. This will be the first year Tri-Creek School Corp. offers take-home laptops to about 900 Lowell middle and 1,200 high school students, said Jay Blackman, Tri-Creek’s director of information and educational technology.

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/valparaiso/classrooms-embracing-social-media/article_f4e83fd4-5d83-59e7-9b2f-c3ff91f10a2a.html

By Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

Elizabeth on ifixit tells us the heartwarming story of Robert Litt, a teacher at ASCEND, “a small arts K-8 school in the Alameda County School District.” Litt needed a computer lab. His school had no budget, So he called around to local businesses and individuals and collected all their “broken” computers (refusing anything made before 2002 or with less than 512MB of RAM) and installed Ubuntu GNU/Linux on them. What he got was a free, robust computer lab. Litt says “”Discarded computers are our most wasted educational resource,” and that we are “starving in the midst of plenty.”

http://boingboing.net/2012/08/15/howto-make-a-school-computer-l.html

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

The two companies seem fated to compete ever more fiercely over mobile computing. Apple’s relationship with Google recently reached a new low. The Cupertino, California, company announced it would drop Google Maps from the iPhone in favor of its own software and retire the YouTube app from the start screen of its mobile devices. It also launched legal action to halt sales of Google’s flagship Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which it claims infringes on several of its patents. The tussle is far from over. The direction that both tech companies are headed—toward greater reliance on mobile computing for their revenue—is setting them up for a long-term fight over the same technological turf.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428863/apples-spat-with-google-will-only-get-worse/

by Jessica Leber, Technology Review

Branch—a startup created by two Twitter cofounders—hovers in a space between a private, lengthy email thread, a public stream of tweets. Twitter cofounder Evan Williams took less than 140 characters to ask on Monday: “What are the limitations of an invite-only conversation? What do you gain and what do you lose?” The question was followed by a link to a discussion on Branch, a new site that he helped launch in public beta this week that enables this kind of conversation. Billing itself as a “new way to talk to each other,” Branch is a startup launched through Obvious Corp., an incubator started by Williams and fellow Twitter cofounder Biz Stone. Paired with a second Obvious Corp. launch this week, Medium, a publishing tool “built from scratch,” it’s clear the two Web entrepreneurs believe there is still wide room for innovation in online discourse.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428924/a-twitter-tweak-or-a-revolution-in-online/

By KLINT FINLEYEMAIL, Wired

With so many resources for learning to program, from a children’s book that teaches basic computer science concepts to The Khan Academy’s new interactive programming lessons, you have to ask: Do any of them work? Is anyone out there learning to program and, more importantly, are they applying those skills to real-world problems? Corinne Salchunas thinks so. She’s a data analyst at customer loyalty software company FreeCause. Earlier this year she learned to program in JavaScript and has already started contributing code to the company website. Last February FreeCause announced its “Codinization Project” to teach all 60 of its non-engineering staff to code. CEO Mike Jaconi says the idea was inspired by a similar project at FreeCause’s parent company Rakuten, which taught English to all its employees in Japan.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/a-code-literacy-success-story/

By Yasmeen Abutaleb, USA TODAY

While several colleges across the country are pushing electronic textbooks, touting them as more efficient and less cumbersome than regular textbooks, students are reluctant. “How excited can you expect to get about an e-textbook?” Student Monitor President Eric Weil says. “It’s not a fashion statement, it’s not a status symbol; it has to overcome the advantages that students see (in) a printed textbook.” Typically, students don’t save much when opting to buy an e-textbook. For example, an organic chemistry e-textbook costs about $100, while the print version of the same book costs just $15 more.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-13/etextbooks/57039872/1

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

While the Common Core State Standards focus on math and English language arts, they also emphasize technology as a way to learn knowledge and skills in these areas. On Wednesday, the state-led standards initiative published its recommendations, and states now will consider whether they want to adopt these standards or keep their own. Basic technology skills will allow students to succeed in college and careers, said Chris Minnich, director of standards and assessments for the Council of Chief State School Officers, which coordinated the standards initiative along with the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. That’s why technology should be integrated into academics instead of taught separately.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/Technology-Permeates-Common-Core-Standards.html

By Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Researchers, publishers, and librarians have spent a lot of this year firing up the longstanding debate over access to published research. You’ve probably heard the big questions: Who gets to see the results of work the public helps pay for, when should they get to see it, and who’s going pay for it? This summer, the fervor has gone global, with policy makers in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, and in Australia signaling that they’re ready to come up with some answers. Details vary from country to country and proposal to proposal, but the overall warming trend looks very clear.

http://chronicle.com/article/Push-for-Open-Access-Goes/133561/

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

Seton Hall University is known for piloting mobile devices. Each year, part of student tuition and fees cover new devices for freshmen and juniors. But this fall, the university will test something different: a tablet running Windows 8. That’s right. At a time when universities are choosing Apple (think Abilene Christian University) or Android, this New Jersey university picked Windows. Instead of providing laptops for every student, Seton Hall plans to go with a Samsung Series 7 tablet for 400 students.

http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/How-Seton-Hall-University-Decided-to-Pilot-Windows-8.html

by Josie Loza, Omaha.com

Colleges have offered Web-based courses for years, but the free offerings by top-tier research universities are a milestone. They’re called MOOCs, or massive open online courses. And they could transform higher education at a time when schools are grappling with shrinking budgets and protests over soaring tuition and student debt. Suporters say the online courses can lower teaching costs, improve learning both online and on campus, and expand access to higher education. “It holds the potential for serving many, many hundreds of thousands of students in a way we simply cannot today,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education. Last month, a dozen major research universities announced they would offer MOOCs on the Coursera platform, invented by two Stanford professors. This fall Coursera will contain 116 courses from 16 universities. Enrollment so far: 900,000 students. Other schools are using edX, a competing Web portal that Harvard and MIT built. So far, students can’t earn college credit for the courses, but that hasn’t dampened demand.

http://blogs.momaha.com/2012/08/21038/

By Arthur Thomas, Journal Sentinel

Using data from every mouse click a student makes doing online course work, researchers from three University of Wisconsin institutions hope to identify students at risk of doing poorly and potentially dropping out of school. The goal of the project by the University of Wisconsin Colleges, UW-Madison and UW-Platteville is to help more students succeed. The project is funded by a three-year grant worth about $650,000. The grant comes from the UW System, which spends about $2 million annually on grants aimed at improving retention and graduation rates, according to Mark Nook, the system’s senior vice president for academic and student affairs. Using principles similar to those that Amazon.com uses for book recommendations, a computer program will track students’ activity during online course work, looking at things such as how long a person is logged on, how much time is spent on particular problems and whether discussion boards are being used, said Aaron Brower, UW-Madison vice provost for teaching and learning.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/uw-research-seeks-to-identify-students-at-risk-716ei4h-166206046.html

By MARY JANE SKALA, Hub Kearney

UNK’s online class let student learn at ‘own pace’in education enrich and polish their IT skills. Fully online for five years, it meets the Nebraska K-12 supplemental teaching endorsement for informational technology. Students learn how to teach computer skills and how to use computational thinking skills along with critical thinking, when and how to use technology, and a little bit of programming and a language called Scratch.

http://www.kearneyhub.com/news/local/degree-with-a-laptop-and-la-z-boy/article_8ffba4d2-e633-11e1-aeb6-0019bb2963f4.html

by: Bianca Da Silva, College Classes

It was recently announced that Coursera had reached the 1 million mark, in terms of the number of students that have signed up for the courses that are being offered, but the surprising news is that a large percentage of these students aren’t from the States; in fact, it seems as if China, Brazil and India are the nations making the most of these courses with a total of 61.5% of the signups coming from outside of the U.S.

http://www.collegeclasses.com/brazil-china-india-lead-way-coursera-free-online-classes/

by Kaustuv Basu, Inside Higher Ed

Graduate schools need to do a better job teaching their students about responsible and ethical research, according to a report being released today by the Council on Graduate Schools. If they do, they will have more success preventing research misconduct, the report states. The report, Research and Scholarly Integrity in Graduate Education: A Comprehensive Approach, suggests that university administrators should work with faculty members and graduate students across disciplines to boost research integrity. For example, a successful workshop offered in one discipline can be adapted for another discipline or a course in research ethics taught intermittently by one professor could be taught by other faculty members.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/14/making-research-integrity-essential-part-graduate-education

by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed

Social networking tools are everywhere, and a new study documents which ones are being used (and how prominently they are displayed) on the websites of highly ranked colleges and universities. Facebook is by far the most popular tool, but most colleges are using more than one tool, and appear to have different philosophies, according to the study, in The Journal of College Admission, which is published by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Of the top 100 colleges and universities as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, 92 make use of social networking on their websites, and the average number of social media sites being used is 3.7. One college is making use of seven social networking services.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/14/study-documents-social-networking-college-websites

by Profesorbaker’s Blog: A Bit of Everything

In the summer of 2012 the team of teachers and researchers associated with the MSc in E-learning programme at the University of Edinburgh began developing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for the Coursera platform. Launched only a year earlier, this for-profit company founded by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller has focussed primarily on hosting computer science related courses from big name US institutions. What follows are some of our perspectives on the planning and development of a large scale open course, what challenges the MOOC presents for delivering a worthwhile educational experience, and what questions this type of course format provokes for a team already teaching and researching in the field of e-learning and technology in higher education. We are interested in experimenting with the MOOC format to design a course that engages people with the intersection of popular culture and education. The very debates that have swamped e-learning blogs and news channels concerning the institutionalisation of the MOOC are often underpinned by entrenched ideas about the promise or peril of technology, and it is these narratives we’d like to explore…

http://profesorbaker.com/2012/08/12/mooc-pedagogy-promise-or-peril/

By RYAN LYTLE, US News

Many of the issues teachers have faced using iPads in the classroom can be solved through proper training, notes Joel Backon, director of academic technology at Choate Rosemary Hall, a coeducational boarding and day school in Connecticut. Backon will be overseeing iPad training for teachers at The Choate School, and he says most teachers have found iPads to be less intimidating to use than laptops after spending time with the tablet device. Ultimately, the biggest adjustment for teachers will not be in understanding the functions of tablet devices but in incorporating them into their teaching styles, Backon notes. “Most teachers are accustomed to a teacher-centric classroom where the teacher is the center of the classroom and the giver of knowledge,” he says. “Now, the iPad allows us to put the responsibility of learning into the hands of the students.”

http://www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2012/08/03/tablets-trump-laptops-in-high-school-classrooms