Educational Technology

by Sarah Cargill, Getting Smart

Carnegie Speech and Magma Studios recently partnered together to create a game to transform online language learning for primary and secondary students. The game uses Voice-Activated Spy Tech (VAST) to recognize students’ speech and patterns in order to provide immediate, constructive feedback on pronunciation, prosody, fluency, and more. Paul Musselman, President and CEO of Carnegie Speech, and Angela Kennedy, President of Carnegie Speech International, join us today to discuss why game-based learning online is effective in language development and learning.

http://gettingsmart.com/blog/2012/09/qa-games-transform-online-language-learning/

By Jessie Chuang, classroom-aid

It may sound like Science Fiction, but gone are the days when video games are the only way to experience a virtual reality. Today, many industries are changing the way they approach training. The futuristic worlds created by these environments replicate real life situations and provide unique teachable moments. It shouldn’t surprise you that virtual worlds are becoming more sophisticated than ever before.

http://classroom-aid.com/2012/09/21/using-virtual-worlds-in-education/

by Katherine Long, Seattle Times

Why would any university — especially now, when so many are straining to pay the bills — give away the store? Each has answers. But basically it comes down to these: To serve the greater good. To win a public-relations race. And, most especially, to enhance reputations. “One of the great drivers in higher education is reputation — who’s the most innovative, which encourages people to push the envelope in what is a slow-moving field,” says Josh Jarrett, deputy director of postsecondary success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation is watching all of this closely. In May, Harvard University and MIT announced a $60 million collaboration to offer free online courses; it’s called edX, and the Gates Foundation has awarded several million-dollar grants to discover how these classes might best help boost learning, especially by marrying those courses to community-college classes. With top-tier universities offering free courses, “it became easy for others to follow,” Jarrett says, “and hard for others not to follow.”

http://seattletimes.com/html/pacificnw/2019133492_pacificpedupunk23.html?syndication=rss

by TopHatMonocle

Flipping the classroom has many teachers doing cartwheels. The “flipped classroom” model is a restructuring of the traditional classroom dynamic. Instead of listening to a teacher-centric lecture, students watch instructional videos at home in order to increase active participation in the classroom. In this post, we’ll dive into the flipped classroom and discuss how it can be applied in a higher education setting.

http://blog.tophatmonocle.com/2012/09/flipping-the-higher-ed-classroom/

by Edudemic

Taking classes online used to be something that was done by people who couldn’t afford to go to college, or perhaps didn’t have time. When the practice of taking classes online first started, many ‘in-person’ teachers looked down on it as an inferior way of trying to learn, because we thought we had all the answers about the right way to learn. While we’re sure that there are still people out there who look at online education as a lame substitute for more traditional styles of learning (read: sitting in a classroom being lectured at), all signs are positive for online learning. More students are doing it, big institutions are embracing it, and quality is continually on the rise.

http://trap.it/#!traps/id/5a946279-9ad4-452a-b18f-b1f8cc166a09/articles/6As2wRPit002q6ID9ikJ

by Susan Eaton, FE Week (UK)

The concept of learning innovation is not new, as adult learning practitioners and providers continuously review and revise their practice and delivery models. What is new, are the rapid, startling and increasingly frequent changes in technology, and the potential for these to support and initiate learning innovation. Technology can facilitate learning at any time and almost anywhere; using audio, video and text content from broadcasters, education providers or their other learners; through social media; and through an increasing number of devices, including smartphones, games consoles and tablets.

http://feweek.co.uk/2012/09/22/innovating-learning/

by Jessie Woolley-Wilson, edtech digest

So what does a blended learning classroom look like? In Wendy Funk’s classroom, students have 20 minute rotations through an 80-minute math block that include whole class instruction, collaborative learning in groups, small group or one on one time with Wendy, and time in an adaptive program in which they learn at their own pace. It is the time within the adaptive program that qualifies the model as blended. It allows all students — advanced, on-level, and struggling — to persist through challenge, and progress toward proficiency with confidence and with a motivating sense of empowerment.

http://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/blended-learning-a-winning-proposition-for-all/

by JESSIE CHUANG, OnlineCollege.org

It can be hard to keep up with the ever-growing list of free educational sites out there, much less distinguish which ones will best meet your needs and help you learn skills you really need without shelling out big bucks. New sites are always being launched and even those that have been on the scene for a while sometimes don’t garner enough attention to make it onto your radar, often getting overshadowed by more high-profile sites. As a result, even those who are in the ed tech loop can miss out on some seriously helpful free learning sites. Here we highlight just a few of these under-the-radar free learning sites, that run the gamut from providing full degree programs to simple job-skill training tools, offering a little something for every kind of learner.

http://classroom-aid.com/2012/09/20/15-free-learning-resources-for-independent-learners/

by EduTech Associates

Mark Weiser from the Xerox PARC Lab ‘fathered’ UL more the twenty years ago. He envisioned three computer waves: mainframes which were prevalent at the time, personal desktop computers which were just appearing, and ‘Ubiquitous’ computing (also known as ‘ubicomp’), as the future. This third step is often referred to as reaching a point where the user is not aware of the computer, whatever form it has taken, but focuses only learning and the related materials.

Weiser identified three types of computer devices:

Wearable

Handheld

Interactive Boards

And their main characteristics would be:

Helpers/Servants

Quite and Invisible

User not necessarily aware of their presence, just the interaction

Should not demand attention

http://edutechassociates.net/2012/09/20/what-is-ubiquitous-learning/