Educational Technology

by the Herald Online

As the skills gap and challenging economy continue to affect the abilities of employers to fill jobs and workers to find suitable employment, emphasis has been placed on more closely aligning college education with the needs of employers. However, a recent University of Phoenix® survey finds that only a quarter (25 percent) of working adults say college education today effectively prepares students for employment in the workforce, with only 10 percent saying it prepares students very effectively. Nearly nine-in-ten (87 percent) working adults say there are benefits to online learning, with the larger majority citing the ability to go to school while working full-time or part-time (78 percent) and the ability to learn from anywhere in the world (63 percent).

http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/08/02/5079823/only-35-percent-of-college-educated.html

by the New York Times

You don’t even have to log in. A handful of companies have taken the essay mill to the next level. NoNeedtoStudy.com, WeTakeYourClass.com and BoostMyGrades.com, among others, will take an entire online course for you. They “guarantee” at least a B.  BoostMyGrades wants $700 for an eight-week graduate course, syllabus unseen. Payment is in advance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/paying-for-a-pass-in-an-online-class.html

By Randa Bessiso, Gulf News

The world is changing through technology and this includes higher education, where ICT (Information, Communication and Technology) is helping to put students at the centre of the learning experience, allowing them to be in control of the process and providing them with a range of options to consume and share this educational content — using smart devices anywhere, anytime. But the question is, will more technology in blended learning improve the blend or dilute the mix? How can we be sure that it is the right mix?

http://gulfnews.com/life-style/education/what-s-the-right-mix-for-blended-learning-1.1216150

by Katie Lepi, Edudemic

While iPads might be taking up a lot of buzz in the classroom technology world, laptops are still a widely used tool for both personal and classroom use. Choosing a laptop may not be a simple task, either – there are a lot of choices out there. Making sure it has the right tools you need and falls into a price range that works for you tend to be the top two factors for most people who are in the market for a new laptop. So we thought it’d be useful to tackle the best laptops for teachers in a world filled with iPads and smartphones.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/how-to-choose-a-laptop/

by Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Who runs the internet, anyway? It’s a pretty big question, and one that ICANN is hoping to help clarify with this handy infographic (see URL). The answer to the question is not an easy one. The internet is not ‘run’ by any one person, group or organization. It might be better to think of it as an entity that is governed by a number of different groups from different backgrounds (private sector, government, academia, national and international organizations, etc). Collectively, they work to develop standards and policies to ensure the Internet is usable and appropriate globally. The infographic (see URL) outlines some of these stakeholders and what they offer.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/who-runs-the-internet/

By Beth Werrell, Connections Academy

Parents choose to educate their children at home using virtual school for a variety of reasons. In fact, most families name several contributing factors. After all, with so many ways to customize the learning method, schedule, and environment, online school can be personalized to a child’s needs. Yet, while there are many reasons for choosing this form of education, recent data revealed that the most common fall into several broad categories.

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/blog/posts/2013-08-02/Why-Families-Choose-Online-School.aspx

by Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

The future of learning is exciting, filled with innovative ideas, and no one in their right mind knows more than that. Anyone who says otherwise is pulling your leg. In any case, it’s fun and quite useful to think about what the future of education may actually look like. The team at KnowledgeWorks assembled about a dozen different features they think will be present in the world of education many years from now.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/08/12-changes-coming-to-the-future-of-learning/

By Kevin Carey, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The same technological tools that are making academic labor more productive are eliminating the need for top-heavy academic administration. Professors—the good ones, anyway—have the expertise and teaching skills that students need. They can cut out the middlemen and thrive on the flip side of labor productivity. Not fewer educators, but more and better education for more people. These new colleges would be built where people want to live, and taught the way people want and need to learn. The long cold war between administration and professoriate would fall to history, where it belongs.

http://chronicle.com/article/Embrace-the-New-Freedom-/140569/

by Official Google Blog

Coffee shop + Internet—it’s a pairing that many of us have come to rely on. WiFi access makes work time, downtime, travel time and lots of in-between times more enjoyable and productive. That’s why we’re teaming up with Starbucks to bring faster, free WiFi connections to all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks stores in the United States over the next 18 months. When your local Starbucks WiFi network goes Google, you’ll be able to surf the web at speeds up to 10x faster than before. If you’re in a Google Fiber city, we’re hoping to get you a connection that’s up to 100x faster.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/starbucks-wifi-goes-google.html

By Brittany Ballenstedt, Next Gov

Online training that incorporates social learning tools may soon be coming to your agency, thanks to a successful pilot project by the Office of Personnel Management and GovLoop. Earlier this year, OPM approached GovLoop to convert a two-day classroom-based course for federal human resources professionals into an online platform that included social learning tools like social networks and online discussion forums, said Andrew Krzmarzick, director of community engagement at GovLoop, on Monday.

http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/wired-workplace/2013/07/social-learning-may-soon-come-your-agency/67673/

by Danielle Allen, Delaware Online

Whether for good or ill, MOOCs augur a disruption of the relationships among students, colleges and trade schools, and the credentials those schools offer – a relationship that has stabilized higher education for at least a century. Yet if done right – a big if, as recent events at San Jose State and Colorado State universities have shown – they may help address the quality and cost of higher education.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130731/OPINION16/307310010/Online-courses-might-transform-higher-education

by Anya Kamenetz, Diverse Education

It’s pretty easy to guess why most of the students didn’t pass these courses. Most fundamentally, many of them lacked basic access to computers or the Internet at home.

Second, the course was basically being designed and taught at the same time, which is hardly best practice for any kind of course. This resulted in many errors and lapses in communication.

The third issue could be dubbed the “worst of both worlds” problem. Students in these courses didn’t have face-to-face support from qualified instructors, as they would in the classroom. They also didn’t really have the leisure to explore their curiosity or to work at their own pace, as they would in a truly open online learning environment, because the course was shoehorned into a traditional 12-week semester with deadlines, exams and grades—a factor that probably contributes to the generally poor completion rates of MOOCs as well.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/54903/#

by Danielle Hartman, Edudemic

This post was co-authored by Danielle Hartman, English/Literacy Specialist, Technology Integration teacher, Burlington County Institute of Technology, NJ, USA @danielle6849 and Miriam Orlando, ESL teacher and teacher trainer, Liceo Celio-Roccati, Rovigo, Italy, EU

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/07/10-tips-for-an-effective-global-collaboration/

by Christina Inge, Edudemic
In today’s connected world, students are increasingly comfortable using video to communicate in their personal lives. From using Facetime to keep in contact with families at home to connecting via Google Hangout with friends studying abroad, students are coming into the classroom with a rich skill set of video collaboration methods, often without knowing it. Video has become second-nature to so many students. For effective learning, incorporating real-time video is increasingly important and can truly enhance student outcomes. Designing video into traditional, online, and hybrid classes is surprisingly easy:

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/07/5-ways-to-use-video-collaboration-for-effective-learning/

by Sylvie Light, Edudemic

If you’re a teacher, you probably already know about the steep rise in distance education and how integral the internet has become in teaching. But you might not realize how widespread the change has really become. In 2012, Edtech Magazine published some surprising statistics about distance learning, including the fact that 65 percent of college students have taken an online class, and 65 percent of full-time college faculty teach distance courses.

http://www.edudemic.com/2013/07/what-to-know-about-the-rise-of-distance-learning/

By Lucy Ferriss, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Online-Writing-Jobs1A new Pew study is out, reporting the effects of the digital revolution on student writing. It’s a broad study with dozens of both thought-provoking conclusions and what strike me as flawed equivalencies. For now, I’ll focus on just two points. The first is that I learned of the study through an article on Atlantic Wire titled “The Internet Is Making Writing Worse.” Well, dog bites man, I thought. But I clicked on the link to learn that the Pew study reaches no such conclusion. It opens with the statement, “A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies are shaping student writing in myriad ways and have also become helpful tools for teaching writing to middle and high school students.” How did we get from that opener to the Atlantic Wire headline? Well, the reporter focuses on what he calls “academic atrocities” that the Pew study supposedly reveals, “including using informal language in formal papers and plagiarizing” and having “trouble reading long texts.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/07/29/our-favorite-scapegoat-the-internet/

by Michael B. Horn, Christensen Institute

I’ve written a few times (here and here, for example) about the great work that the Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) is doing to help schools push the design envelope on what’s possible for students. Last week the group announced its latest set of grants—$6.6 million all told to 38 grant recipients working to personalize learning for students spanning grades 6 through 12. The grants were divided into two categories this time around. Eight schools received launch grants to support their opening this fall, and, in a smart new category of grants, 30 schools intending to launch programs in the fall of 2014 received funds to help them in their planning process (full disclosure: I served as a reviewer for the launch grants). The latest set of grants took several encouraging steps forward.

http://www.christenseninstitute.org/moving-schooling-forward-next-gen-grants-possess-promise/

by Education News

The National Education Association (NEA) has issued a policy statement on digital learning that calls for equity of access to technology for every student and highlights professional development of teachers as an important goal for 21st century teachers. The NEA said that traditional school models are not capable of meeting the needs of the 21st century student. All students, from pre-K to graduate, need to develop advanced critical thinking and information literacy skills and master new digital tools, stated the NEA. According to the union, optimal learning environments should neither be totally technology free, nor should they be totally online and devoid of educator and peer interaction. An environment that maximizes student learning will use a “blended” and/or “hybrid” model situated somewhere along a continuum between these two extremes.

http://www.educationnews.org/technology/nea-policy-statement-advocates-blended-digital-learning/

by Quick Lessons

The application Izzui lets you create, publish, share and sell online courses targeting the 1.060 million users of the leading global social network. To help users create courses, Izzui ( provides free and integrated access to the QuickLessons authoring platform that is currently used by leading companies. With the launch of Izzui, Facebook grew from an environment focused primarily on publishing photos, sharing events and making friends, to become a powerful platform for virtual training for individuals and organizations.Izzui, an innovative free application aimed at social learning, provides a space for knowledge sharing and an open learning marketplace to create, publish, share and sell e-learning courses. With Izzui (https://www.facebook.com/izzui.info) installed on their profile, Facebook users can access free and paid courses, and leverage their specific knowhow to create and publish at no cost courses targeting a potential universe of 1,060 million users.

http://www.quicklessons.com/blog/2013/07/a-new-free-app-brings-e-learning-to-facebook/

By Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary, Gulf News

Imagine sitting in a class room in Dubai and being taught Economics by a teacher based in Hawaii! Technology enhanced learning is here to stay and Dubai-based International Horizons College offers a unique US curriculum based transfer programme where students get and opportunity to not only study with their faculty on premise but also connect with expert faculty from around the world via video conferencing. About 20 per cent of IHC’s lectures are held via video conferencing provided with Polycom video solutions. Dr MichaelE Dobe, the President of IHC and an educationist and Information Technology expert, spoke to Education about the numerous possibilities such technological aids have opened up for his students.

http://gulfnews.com/life-style/education/teaching-via-video-conferencing-1.1213714

By Sydney Michael Atkins, Gulf News

Today’s classrooms do not look, feel or function like they did ten or fifteen years ago and the best teachers in my humble opinion, are the ones who embrace and adapt to these changes. They are the ones who are prepared to sacrifice their many many years of experience at the altar of new learning and innovation. Convention has failed us, it will not work much longer and there is no better time than now for invention and transformation! About a year ago I took the plunge into using EdTech for myself. Baby steps of course, I began using a blog, twitter and youtube to connect with my pupils online and what an experience it has been. I am still getting used to the idea of having my face on youtube but it’s my educational blog that has got me most excited. The blog has allowed me to introduce my students to the responsible use of social media. I love it when I see them use twitter to ask me course-related questions, but reading their responses on the blog and getting an insight into what they’re thinking and why they think that way, has been both a revealing and rewarding process.

http://gulfnews.com/life-style/education/time-for-innovation-and-change-1.1213699