Educational Technology

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

I tend to be an extremely linear thinker, so I don’t always love mind maps. Even though each branch can be fairly linear, something about the whole branching visualization of it doesn’t usually speak to me. I ran across this one today, and despite its many branches, I really like it. The graphic below breaks down basic English grammar into eight branches, and then breaks down each branch a bit further. Despite my chronic linear thinking issue, I find that it is quite easy to understand. It might be a useful tool for your classroom, or even for yourself!

http://www.edudemic.com/grammar-mind-map/

by Tim Dodd, Financial Review

The Big History Project, the story of the past on the largest possible canvas, is now available as a free online course. Big History was originally a university course taught at Macquarie University by its inventor, historian David Christian. It spans the history of the universe from the big bang until now, explaining how galaxies, stars and planets came to be, and then how life evolved and eventually led to humanity. It also glimpses into where our future history may be heading. Five years ago, when Bill Gates heard about it, he paid for the development of a big history high- school course, which is now being piloted in schools in Australia and the US. His support has led to this MOOC, which is pitched at a level suitable for junior high school and older.

http://www.afr.com/p/national/education/bill_gates_backed_history_course_nsvX8VLdaka7x8NbKjuSmO

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

The iPhone wouldn’t stop chirping. On a recent morning I was riding in a car through Silicon Valley with three people from a startup called Iotera. A small tracking tag was attached to the passenger-side sun visor. Our mission was to see how far we could drive from Iotera’s office building before the tag would stop transmitting its location to a small base station on the building’s roof—which meant the location-logging app on the phone would go silent. It took several miles. That’s good news for Iotera, which is developing tracking technology that can work throughout cities without requiring access to a commercial wireless network or even a short-range wireless protocol like Bluetooth. The system uses GPS-embedded tags that can last for months on a single charge, occasionally sending their coordinates over unlicensed wireless spectrum to small base stations with a range of several miles.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/521811/the-internet-of-things-unplugged-and-untethered/

By Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

If you have an iPad or use one in a classroom, then listen up. There’s a new Kickstarter project that, as of this writing, is still in need of some funding. It’s a fascinating take on the classic video game controller. The new project being called cloudBoard (lower case ‘c’ apparently) lets students create sequences to try and solve problems. They do this by playing adorably educational video games that require critical thinking and careful planning. It’s like learning to play chess but, you know, with iPads and video games. So, win-win.

http://www.edudemic.com/cloudboard-ipad-controller/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Twitter chats are probably the aspect of Twitter that I find to be the most interesting and most useful. I follow a lot of different people on Twitter for a lot of different reasons (I can easily find out what’s going on in town, what cool restaurants are opening, if my favorite online shop is having a sale, etc), Twitter chats give you the chance to focus on a specific topic with a like-minded group of people. Especially for professional development, this can be immensely helpful. You can connect with other educators around the globe who are doing what you’re doing. You can learn from their mistakes, share your experiences, get advice, and quite generally, learn from everyone around you. There are about a gazillion educational Twitter chats that happen regularly, but we thought we’d give you some information on a few of the big ones.

http://www.edudemic.com/great-edtech-twitter-chats/

by Rhema Thompson, PNJ

A new initiative is allowing University of West Florida students in Networking and Telecommunications online courses to conduct experiments remotely. UWF’s Robo Explore Lab, launched over the summer as part of the College of Professional Studies Emerge Program, will allow students to apply and test their knowledge online in ways similar to a classroom environment, according to the university. The interactive laboratory was developed by Lakshmi Prayaga, assistant professor in the UWF Department of Applied Science, Technology and Administration, through the physics department. It is among the nation’s first to utilize tele-robotics in an online classroom setting, according to a UWF release.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20131119/NEWS01/131119012/UWF-online-students-can-access-robots-remotely-through-Robo-Explore-Lab?nclick_check=1

by Digital Journal

A recent Gallup poll discovered that many adults recognize the flexibility of online education, saying it provided a format most students can succeed in and that it provides a variety of choices for highly regarded curriculum. One-third of the more than 1,000 adults surveyed also said the value of tuition they paid is better than traditional classroom-based education, and 34 percent said it is equal to the value of a traditional education. Chancellor Gary Brahm of Brandman University in Irvine, California, part of the Chapman University System, has been at the forefront of providing high quality, cost efficient online education for adults. “Critical for those considering online education options in 2014, one should be thinking outside your geographical box. Whether you live in an area with many colleges or in an area with few or none, the beauty of online education is that the teaching comes to you,” said Brahm.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1596867

By Jeffrey Sparshott, Wall Street Journal

The head of Maryland’s university system on Wednesday said higher education needs to embrace disruptive technologies such as massive online courses in an effort to serve more students and contain costs. “If at the end of the day this means there aren’t as many universities or some people don’t have jobs, you know, this is not a welfare business,” William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council annual meeting. “We have the interests of the nation at stake.” Mr. Kirwan said educators have to be “brutally honest” about the need to educate more people at a lower cost in an effort to create a better educated, more socially mobile society. “Higher education has got to be able to find ways of providing lower cost, high-quality education. Add I believe these disruptive technologies hold that promise,” he said.

http://on.wsj.com/1b67tFs

by Your Houston News

Doing math and helping feed the world are two projects that don’t normally work together but in Courtney Barrington’s third grade class at Cline Elementary, the two worked well together. Barrington introduced a really fun learning website called Free Rice to her third grade students this past week when they started memorization of multiplication facts. The website freerice.com is a site that has many different topics to practice learning for students. For every answer that is right, 10 grains of rice are donated through the World Food Program to help end world hunger. Students find it fun to see the rice accumulate from correct answers.

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/friendswood/living/online-game-learning-tool-fights-world-hunger-while-educating/article_449a5294-f2d4-5243-8bab-5ed16e5aafa2.html

 by Dan Hope, the Lantern

A quarter of Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences faculty and staff were scheduled to receive new computers this academic year, but when the nearly $500,000 funding was cut, some programs were left scrambling. The college paused its annual Computer Refresh Program, which grants funding to replace 25 percent of full-time faculty and staff members’ computers each year, for the 2014 fiscal year in September. The program had created a four-year refresh cycle for the faculty and staff in each of its departments and schools by providing a yearly financial allocation. With the program paused, that cycle has been pushed back a year. “The decision to pause the program was necessary to address two critical needs,” said John Nisbet, chief administrative officer in the College of Arts and Sciences, in an email to The Lantern. Those critical needs, Nisbet said, were a “major firewall refresh” budgeted at $200,000, and a budget of approximately $204,000 to cover the cost of OSU’s agreements with Microsoft, Adobe and Box.

http://thelantern.com/2013/11/500k-budget-cut-keeps-ohio-state-faculty-staff-members-new-computers/

by The Associated Press

Hundreds of students from Israel and across the Arab world will soon be headed to school together. YaLa-Young Leaders, which calls itself the largest online peace movement, says it’s recruiting 1,500 students from the region for its first online Israeli-Arab Peace Institute. The group says the yearlong course will include online lectures by former peace negotiators from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Northern Ireland, Rwanda and South Africa. Founder Uri Savir, himself a former Israeli negotiator, says the students are being selected from the 420,000 people who have joined YaLa’s Facebook page.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/nov/16/ml-israel-online-peace/

by BELLE BETH COOPER, Fast Company

If you’re managing social media for your business, it might be useful to know about some of the most surprising social media statistics this year. Here are 10 that might make you rethink the way you’re approaching social media.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3021749/work-smart/10-surprising-social-media-statistics-that-will-make-you-rethink-your-social-stra#!

By talslome, Edudemic

As a result of my occasional frustration with web 2.0 tools that require the creation/ability to remember usernames and passwords, I’ve decided to start building a list of websites which can be used in the classroom without these. It is not that I am against usernames/passwords – they can often be extremely useful for tracking student progress, online safety etc, but here are some links that do not require these for teacher and student use.

http://www.edudemic.com/web-tools-for-teaching-without-student-logins/

by Online Learning Insights

Over the last few months I’ve conducted extensive research into instructional design models used in the process of course design. I’ve researched the history of instructional design [also known as ‘instructional systems design’] and its applications from the 1930’s to present. I’m writing, or least attempting to write, a book for educators that describes how to develop effective, relevant courses in our digital age using a dynamic instructional design model. The first chapter covers the history of instructional design with a focus on education learning environments as opposed to business or military settings. And though I’ve found considerable literature about design principles, methods and models applicable to higher education, there is dearth of published writings on instructional design models specific to K-12.

http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/review-of-instructional-design-models-applied-to-k-12-learning-environments/

by: Kevin Brown, Magna

We often wonder what we can do to help students engage with the material so they can learn it at a deeper level. Students don’t make that an easy task. They arrive in class having not read the material or having not thought about it in meaningful ways, and that keeps them from being engaged in class. Several years ago, I read George Kuh’s article “What Student Engagement Data Tell Us about College Readiness,” in which he writes, “Students who talk about substantive matters with faculty and peers are challenged to perform at high levels, and receive frequent feedback on their performance typically get better grades, are more satisfied with college, and are more likely to persist” (Peer Review, January 1, 2007, p. 4). Here are three ways I try to provide feedback that engages students and not overwhelm myself with grading tasks in the process.

http://www.magnapubs.com/blog/teaching-and-learning/quick-feedback-engaged-students/

by Jason Perlow, ZD Net

This trend in the PC industry towards more appliance-like, non user-servicable devices and systems and away from those that are friendly to the home brewer/PC is analagous to how the automobile industry has also evolved, where component integration has driven down manufacturing costs. This has come at the expense of being able to self-service vehicles as well as no longer being able to repair or recondition many parts, and an increased dependency on dealership and authorized service center expertise. The car has become, in effect, an appliance as well. It’s not just the PC, Apple products are following the same path. As we have learned recently, maxxing out a commodity Mac and using Apple’s latest OS doesn’t necessarily yield optimal results.

http://www.zdnet.com/its-not-about-windows-the-repairable-pc-is-dead-7000023214/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

But how can you get your students to think as problem solvers? You can break down the learning process for them – scaffolding. If the students can begin to understand (even subconsciously) where their information is coming from and how to attain that information, they’ll become more efficient learners and excellent problem solvers. Mia MacMeekin has created this great infographic on scaffolding for deeper understanding in your classroom. It is broken down into nine simple steps, using ants as an example. Keep reading to learn more.

http://www.edudemic.com/scaffolding-for-deeper-understanding/

By Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

Hypothetical situation: you’re a student and your teacher has tasked you with identifying a topic that is important to you, understanding it, interpreting it, and then delivering a report to your classmates. Aside from the nerve-wracking part of talking at the front of the classroom (eep!) there are a lot of things to consider. Check out the fabulous visual below that maps out everything in a flowchart. It’s quite clear and great for someone looking to get the basics of the process plus have something colorful to print out. Who doesn’t love printing stuff out!?!

http://www.edudemic.com/inquiry-process/

by David Jones, David T. Jones Blog

Effective record-keeping, and extraction and interpretation of activity logs recorded in learning management systems (LMS), can reveal valuable iriformation to facilitate eLearning design, development and support. In universities with centralized Web-based teaching and learning systems, monitoring the logs can be accomplished because most LMS have inbuilt mechanisms to track and record a certain amount of information about online activities. Starting in 2006, we began to examine the logs of eLearning activities in LMS maintained centrally in our University (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) in order to provide a relatively easy method for the evaluation of the richness of eLearning resources and interactions.

http://davidtjones.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/evaluations-of-online-learning-activities-based-on-lms-logs/

by Kerry Watson, Hastac

It’s news that the percentage of internet users is rising with absolute rapidity. Since the year 2000 till now, over 2.6 billion people have been found to be getting solely dependent on computers and mobile devices. In fact, the massive developments in technology have made it clear that books are no more going to be the priority in classrooms. Rather, the brick and mortar institutions are facing threats from online learning providers who have been found to be quite successful in making new age learners complete their curriculums with the help of kindles and even smartphones.

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/kerry-watson/2013/11/15/traditional-styles-obtaining-education-are-dying-%E2%80%93-what-matters-now-on

By Mike Orcutt, Technology Review

One of the most important innovations in Apple’s latest iPads lies behind the screen. In many of the tablets, the pixels in the display are controlled by transistors made of a material called indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), a promising replacement for the conventional amorphous silicon. Displays featuring “backplanes” of IGZO transistors should make it possible for tablets and TVs to have much higher-resolution displays while consuming significantly less power. The technology has already cropped up in low volumes of high-end smartphones and televisions, but its appearance in iPads suggests we can expect IGZO to improve several more popular products over the next year.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/521611/lurking-inside-the-ipad-is-the-future-of-high-def-displays/