Educational Technology

May 31, 2013

Harvard Faculty Wants Involvement in EdX Online Venture

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

By Oliver Staley, Harvard Crimson

Harvard University professors expressed concerned that HarvardX, the school’s offering on the EdX online teaching platform founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is operating without the involvement of its faculty. Almost 60 professors signed a letter to Michael Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, requesting that he form a committee “to draft a set of ethical and education principles” that will govern the faculty’s involvement in HarvardX, according to the letter sent yesterday and reprinted in today’s Harvard Crimson.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-05-24/harvard-faculty-wants-involvement-in-edx-online-teaching-venture

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K-12 Blended Learning and Disruptive Innovation Theory

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

By Reihan Salam, National Review

Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, and Heather Staker have a new paper on the coming transformation of K-12 education. Rather than displace traditional modes of instruction, online learning will co-exist with them in the medium-term, particularly for younger students. Online learning will be incorporated in such a way as to extend the viability of the existing business model of K-12 schools, in part because in the earlier grades, there is no non-consuming population that constitutes a potential market for truly disruptive low-cost online learning models, as virtually all children have access to publicly-financed schools. In the higher grades, however, online learning may well prove truly disruptive, e.g., online learning might prove more effective at meeting the needs of students who might otherwise drop out of high school, many of whom would prefer more flexible schedules that allow them to combine education or work or, in some cases, education and child-rearing.

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/349209/%5Btitle-raw%5D-reihan-salam

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Is K-12 Blended Learning Disruptive?

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by Michael Horn, Forbes

The disruptive models of blended learning ultimately introduce new benefits that focus on providing individualization; universal access and equity; and productivity. Over time, as the disruptive models of blended learning improve, these new value propositions will be powerful enough to prevail over those of the traditional classroom in secondary schools. As this happens, the role of schools is likely to pivot. Schools will leverage online learning for academics, which means they will be able to act as community centers in essence and focus far more on providing well-kept facilities that students want to attend with great face-to-face supports, high-quality meals, and a range of athletic, musical, and artistic programs—things that receive short shrift all too often today.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2013/05/23/is-k-12-blended-learning-disruptive/

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May 30, 2013

Mapping the global Twitter heartbeat: the geography of Twitter

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by Kalev H. Leetaru, et. al., First Monday

In just under seven years, Twitter has grown to count nearly three percent of the entire global population among its active users who have sent more than 170 billion 140–character messages. Today the service plays such a significant role in American culture that the Library of Congress has assembled a permanent archive of the site back to its first tweet, updated daily. With its open API, Twitter has become one of the most popular data sources for social research, yet the majority of the literature has focused on it as a text or network graph source, with only limited efforts to date focusing exclusively on the geography of Twitter, assessing the various sources of geographic information on the service and their accuracy. More than three percent of all tweets are found to have native location information available, while a naive geocoder based on a simple major cities gazetteer and relying on the user–provided Location and Profile fields is able to geolocate more than a third of all tweets with high accuracy when measured against the GPS–based baseline. Geographic proximity is found to play a minimal role both in who users communicate with and what they communicate about, providing evidence that social media is shifting the communicative landscape.

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4366/3654

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Higher Ed in 2018

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

 by Jeb Bush and Randy Best, Inside Higher Ed

Rising tuition, declining government subsidies, stagnant endowments, and increased competition are challenging higher education like never before. College and university leaders are struggling to understand where these changes will lead and how they can make higher education more affordable, more accessible, and of greater quality for an increasingly diverse and aspiring student. Based on our interaction with university leaders and policy makers, we believe that the timeline for transformational change has shortened to five years.  During this time, higher education will have moved from a provider-driven model to a consumer-driven one and, in so doing, upend a system that had endured for centuries. We believe that public universities that have moved with urgency to embrace this new reality will thrive. And so, too, will the students they serve. By 2018, higher education will be truly globalized and we will see greatly expanded access, reduced costs, more virtual campuses, and, most important of all, the increased competitiveness of our universities and our students. That’s a future we should all embrace.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/05/23/essay-predicting-radical-change-higher-education-over-next-five-years

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What 5G Will Be: Crazy-Fast Wireless Tested in New York City

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

By David Talbot, Technology Review

The world’s biggest cell-phone maker, Samsung, caused a stir last week by announcing an ultrafast wireless technology that it unofficially dubbed “5G.” And the technology has, in fact, been tested on the streets of New York. The system is impressive but is still in development—which is true of all the technologies that will underpin the next generation of wireless communications. When 5G does arrive, it will likely combine new wireless protocols with new network designs, spectrum-sharing schemes, and more small transmitters. Samsung says its new transceiver can send and receive data at speeds of more than a gigabit per second over up to two kilometers—and it could deliver tens of gigabits per second at shorter distances. This compares to about 75 megabits per second for the latest standard, known as 4G LTE. The Samsung technology relies on 28-gigahertz frequencies, which can carry commensurately more data but can be blocked by buildings, people, foliage, and even rainfall.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514931/what-5g-will-be-crazy-fast-wireless-tested-in-new-york-city/

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May 29, 2013

How Online Education Can Help Special Needs Children

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:39 am

by Lauren Martin, Think Tank 12

Special needs children often struggle in traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Whether they have autism, dyslexia, or ADHD, children with learning disabilities often need an education that suits their unique needs. A student on the autism spectrum may not be able to keep up with a teacher’s lesson. Children with ADHD may need to take frequent breaks to reduce anxiety and increase attention span. A child with multiple sclerosis may need to adjust their day based upon their physical limitations.

http://blog.k12.com/online-public-schools/how-online-education-can-help-special-needs-children

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Why Every Education Leader Must Be a Tech Visionary

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

by Jose Ferreira, Knewton Blog

Education, like many industries before it, is now having its internet moment. There are two great phases unfolding. The first is the shift to digital materials for use either in blended learning courses or as a replacement for the printed textbook. This shift is now well underway in the U.S. Before long, there will be no more printed textbooks. The second phase is the shift of part of every student’s coursework to purely online formats. This phase is now beginning to seriously pick up steam, as evidenced by increasing numbers of for-credit online courses, MOOCs, and archived video lesson repositories like Khan Academy. And what we’re seeing now is only the beginning. There are so many implications of all these changes that one can be forgiven for thinking it is hopeless to make sense of them. But the alternative — not worrying about it at all — probably isn’t the right answer either.

http://www.knewton.com/blog/knewton/from-jose/2013/05/21/education-tech-visionary/

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Cal State moving to offer online science labs

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times

California State University is moving aggressively to offer web-based science labs, a systemwide virtual campus and online advising as remedies for “bottlenecks” that impede student progress and graduation rates, officials said Tuesday. Some of these efforts will be ready to roll out this fall. The detailed strategies were presented in a meeting of the Cal State Board of Trustees in Long Beach as a response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s call for the Cal State and University of California systems to improve student performance in exchange for long-term funding increases. Brown’s 2013-14 budget provides $125 million in new funding each for the two systems, including $10 million each to boost online learning and develop other technologies to help students attain degrees faster.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calstate-20130522,0,6029166.story

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May 28, 2013

The Digital Sociology Classroom

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed

Half of sociology departments are offering at least one course online, and most are using more than one new technology teaching tool in classrooms, according to a new survey. The survey, by the American Sociological Association, was conducted of the chairs of departments that award bachelor’s degrees in the field, and responses were obtained from 645 of 1,025 potential respondents. The association periodically conducts such surveys, and focused on technology this year, in light of the widespread public discussion of new methods of teaching and learning. While much of that discussion has noted the way fields such as business or computer science use technology for teaching, the sociologists’ survey suggests considerable change in a traditional liberal arts discipline.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/21/study-documents-use-technology-sociology-courses

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5 Things You Need to Know About Coursera’s New Teacher PD Section

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:34 am

By Adam Heckler, Fractus Blog

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rug for the past couple years, you know that MOOCs are a pretty big deal. And you also know that Coursera is one of the biggest MOOC organizations out there. While Coursera offers some great classes, they were mostly centered on things like physics, statistics, computer science, and so on. Recently though, Coursera unleashed a bucket of awesome on the edtech crowd when they debuted a new “Teacher Professional Development” section. Here are some of the great new classes I spotted!

http://www.fractuslearning.com/2013/05/21/coursera-teacher-pd/

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Technology Gives Students with Disabilities Access to College Courses

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:28 am

by Michael Yudin, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U.S. Department of Education

The Mission Middle College educational program is a collaboration of Santa Clara Unified School District and Mission Community College. The program takes on a student-centered learning environment where seniors can complete required high school courses while accumulating college credits. Each student focuses on individual educational choices and academic and vocational studies relevant to future goals. The idea is to provide learning choices and empowerment for students. The program is inclusive of all students, with or without a disability. Some of the students have print and learning disabilities that impede their ability to easily read and comprehend grade-level text and complex curricula in print. Many of these students felt stuck and considered dropping out of school. Their instructors believe in every student’s learning potential and set high expectations. They teach students first to choose appropriate reading technologies for their learning needs, and then to find the reading assignments in digital accessible format, such as DAISY text and DAISY audio.

http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/05/technology-gives-students-with-disabilities-access-to-college-courses/

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May 27, 2013

3-D Printer Powers High School Project

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

By Tanya Roscorla and Paul Williams, Center for Digital Ed

In an Algebra and physics class called Scientific Studies, students are using a donated 3-D printer for their projects this year. “We can build things now that we could only imagine before.” He challenged one student to create a hypercube, which is similar to a 3-D cube, but has four or more dimensions. “My teacher, Mr. Carlton, he’s a big fan of hypercubes,” said Addison Williams, a junior at Napa New Technology High School. “I personally am not an expert as to what they are. But he showed me a model on the computer, and he said, ‘If you can print this, I’m going to give you extra credit.’ So that’s what I’ve set out to do. Addison and other students design objects in Google SketchUp, run them through a software program called MakerWare and watch as the printer executes their designs with melted plastic. “You can actually see and, like, touch and feel what you’ve created, what you’ve printed, and it kind of gives you a better sense of what’s really going on.”

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/3-D-Printer-Napa.html

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Program Motivates Native Alaskans to Pursue STEM Careers

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

By Colin Wood, Center for Digital Ed

The STEM shortage problem, however, won’t be solved by simply throwing money at it – U.S. education needs quality control, says Herb Schroeder, founder of the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP). Starting with a single student in 1995, the program has grown over the years and seen about 250 native graduates. Currently, it has about 1,000 native students, from grade six through graduate school. More than 83 percent of its students complete Algebra 1 by the end of the eighth grade, compared to a national average of 26 percent. And more than 70 percent of ANSEP students who begin a four-year degree in a STEM field graduate. The program has also been replicated in at least 11 other locations around the country, Schroeder said, and in some cases with better results than seen in Alaska.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/Program-Motivates-Alaskans-to-Pursue-STEM-Careers.html

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Youth group teams up with silver surfers for iPad course

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by the News Leader

From checking the weather forecast ahead a group trip to emailing a friend some of the latest pictures of their grandchildren, the silver surfers of one Co Armagh community club are well and truly online after a free iPad training course. Diamond Senior Citizens’ Club in Maghery and the local youth group teamed up to show that both the young and young-at-heart can appreciate the benefits available at their fingertips. Thanks to funding from the Southern Trust the club was able to purchase 10 iPads and take part in a six-week course entitled iPads for Beginners with BT Connected Communities.

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/features/youth-group-teams-up-with-silver-surfers-for-ipad-course-1-5107885

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May 26, 2013

Great tips, resources and ideas for going paperless

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by David Andrade, School CIO

I use my Android smartphone, Nexus 7 tablet, Chromebook and desktop computers, along with apps like Evernote (essential to going paperless), email, online faxing and signing, Google Docs and Drive, Dropbox and Sugarsync and PDF tools, a Boogie Board electronic notepad, a Livescribe Sky Smartpen, and a scanner (Fujitsu Scansnap) to go as paperless as possible. Going paperless—it’s good for the trees, good for budgets, increases efficiency and organization, and makes life easier in many ways. But how do you go paperless? I used to use paper planners (Franklin Quest) until I got my first PDA (Palm IIIxe) in 2000. I also try to go paperless in as many other ways as possible.

http://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=136&entryid=5815

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Schools Turning To Free, Curated Open Educational Resources

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:36 am

by School CIO

In the last hundred years students have gone from attending one-room schoolhouses with handheld slates, to classrooms with handheld devices of a more high-tech sort. Yet, one thing hasn’t changed — the use of expensive and, in many cases, outdated textbooks as their main source of content. The Internet has made it possible for teachers and experts to share a wide variety of open educational resources (OER), but organizing, managing and delivering this content has been an arduous, time-consuming challenge. Now that may be changing. Net Texts is a free, web-based system that provides teachers access to a library of OER content, which they can then combine with their own resources to create and publish lessons directly to students’ iPads, Android tablets, or computers. Schools can save up to $250 per student per year by reducing or eliminating costs for textbooks and curriculum materials. “Our teachers are delivering content in ways our students find interesting and engaging, and outside the classroom it’s really no different than if they took their teacher home with them. It is simply amazing,” said Patty Childs, principal of St. Jude the Apostle, one of the Atlanta schools that piloted the system in 2011 as part of a Diocesan 1:1 iPad initiative for eighth grade students.

http://www.schoolcio.com/cio-back-office-business/0104/schools-turning-to-free-curated-open-educational-resources/53760

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How Emerging Technology Is Transforming Higher Education

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:29 am

by Course Hero

From smartboards to immersive virtual environments like Second Life, higher education is fertile ground for new learning technologies. These technologies will have a lasting impact on the way students learn, the way teachers teach, and everything in between. They are designed to make use of the incredible advances in information communication and collaborative consumption technologies, and they will prepare students to live in the modern world. Education technology, or edtech, comes in many forms. Let’s take a look at a few of the major ways it will change our educational system.

http://www.coursehero.com/blog/2013/05/17/how-emerging-technology-is-transforming-higher-education/

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May 25, 2013

What are some effective study strategies for students of online courses?

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:42 am

by Educare Lab

A growing number of universities are now offering online courses which have come as a boon for working professionals looking to continue their education. There is a lot of flexibility in online courses, and they are accessible to anyone with an internet connection. However, since the setup is different than a traditional classroom, students of online courses need to strategize their learning process in a different way than traditional courses. Since the classes are all online, one of the most common problems of online learning is that students tend to procrastinate in the absence of supervision. Only a self-motivated student can successfully complete an online course. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of an online course.

http://www.educarelab.com/2013/05/19/what-are-some-effective-study-strategies-for-students-of-online-courses-2/#.UZoMJqI-anI

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No Strings (an iPad Band)

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

by Herman Berliner, Inside Higher Ed

Last Tuesday, I attended the middle school concert, which included my younger daughter who is a clarinet player in the band. The band section of the program was second on the schedule and I was hoping that the first part of the program would be brief. But once the players started playing, what came second in the program was no longer the major focus of my attention. It turned out that the first part of the program was the middle school IPad band and they were great. Their selection was Sunshine of My Love by Cream and it was as well performed as I had ever heard it. Ten middle schoolers with IPads and a mixing board had redefined what constitutes a band performance.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/provost-prose/no-strings

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Crowdsourcing the Curriculum

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

By Michael P. Ryan, Inside Higher Ed

Undergraduate students should join professors in selecting the content of courses taught in the humanities. This is the conclusion I came to after teaching Humanities on Demand: Narratives Gone Viral, a pilot course at Duke University that not only introduced students to some of the critical modes humanists employ to analyze new media artifacts, but also tested the viability of a new, interactive course design. One semester prior to the beginning of class, we asked 6,500 undergraduates — in other words, Duke¹s entire undergraduate student body — to go online and submit materials they believed warranted examination in the course.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/05/20/essay-crowdsourcing-humanities-curriculum

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