Educational Technology

By Katharina I. Boser, Sarah Wayland; THE Journal

Visual and sonic aids can help students with language disorders improve their reading, writing and speaking. You can see more great feature articles in the latest issue of our monthly digital edition. Mobile devices can help students who have trouble communicating orally by allowing them to converse using pictures and the written word (what’s known as augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC). Any number of apps can facilitate AAC, but some of them are particularly well-suited for helping students with language disorders learn how to read and how to effectively express themselves in writing. See the link below for reviews of some exciting new features in apps that teach these skills.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/03/20/7-apps-that-teach-literacy-skills.aspx

By Graphite

Common Sense Media’s service Graphite, which offers independent ratings and reviews on learning apps and websites, has compiled this list of its top apps and websites that help teach algebra. See the apps/sites at the link below. For complete reviews, and for each app’s “Learning Rating,” visit the Graphite website.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/03/20/algebra-apps.aspx

By Mary Grush, Campus Technology

The University of Tennessee, Martin has a strategy in place to comply with a statewide outcomes-based funding mandate. Their initial work, completed during the 3-year “hold harmless” implementation window, was done in response to the Complete College Tennessee Act of 2010, which rewards institutions for outcomes related to retention, progression, and student success. All state-funded higher education institutions in Tennessee, through the Tennessee Board of Regents and the UT system, are aligned with the state’s master plan and the “Drive to 55” — the governor’s push toward a 55 percent rate of Tennessee residents possessing a higher education credential. These institutions, along with the independent schools of the state, work in consort to help more citizens achieve their credentials, and those colleges and universities receiving state funding must demonstrate specific outcomes — rather than just tracking enrollments as was done in the past.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/03/19/the-role-of-technology-in-an-outcomes-based-funding-environment.aspx

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

There are a boatload of awesome Google tools that we use every day. And they’re free, too, which tends to be a big winner for teachers and students. Free is probably the number one reason for giving Google’s tools a try – you haven’t lost anything but a bit of time if you decide you don’t like the tool. All of the tools also integrate well with one another, have similar user interfaces, and are pretty darned easy to use, so if you can use one, you’re sure to feel right at home using many of the other tools, too. While Google’s search may be their ubiquitous tool, there are a lot of others that you may have not heard about yet. Keep reading at the URL below to learn about the tools and some ideas to use them in your classroom.

http://www.edudemic.com/ways-use-google-tools-maximize-learning/

by Bill Aulet, BostInno

To all who ask, “Can entrepreneurship be taught?” MIT is here to say, “Yes.” And who better to educate the masses than the school producing alumni and students collectively starting anywhere between 900 and 1,000 companies annually?The Institute unveiled a new massive open online course on the MITx platform, called “Entrepreneurship 101: Who is Your Customer?” The class, now open for registration, is being taught by Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and already has a proven track record of success.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/03/20/mitx-15-390x-course-entrepreneurship-101-who-is-your-customer/

Syracuse University offering free, online class about lava

by Dave Tobin, Syracuse

Want to learn about lava? For free? Two Syracuse University professors are teaming to teach their first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) together. It’s called “The subject is Lava.” Bob Wysocki, assistant professor in the department of art, and Jeff Karson, professor in the department of earth sciences, have become a lava-making celebrity team, holding monthly lava pours on SU’s campus, and being reported on by national media outlets like Earth magazine and Gizmodo. Their lava project website has received more than 5 million hits in the last 18 months, said Karson, so they are expecting a large turnout for the class. The seven-session, non-credit, online class will be offered between April 7 and May 26. People who enroll can take their sessions whenever they want during that period. Students can post questions and suggestions for experiments and take quizzes.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/03/syracuse_university_offering_free_online_lava_class.html

by Melody Brumble, Gannett

Eighteen Southwood High School seniors face expulsion after allegedly changing grades in a online learning program used by Caddo Parish schools. The Caddo Parish school system and Southwood administrators started investigating the situation Friday after school officials discovered that grades were changed in the Edgenuity E2020 system. Middle and high school students can take courses not available at their schools or retake a failed course required for graduation. Southwood, in Shreveport, piloted the program three years ago before other Caddo schools adopted it as Principal Jeff Roberts sought ways to compete with growing virtual schools. E2020 draws up to 300 students at Southwood now. Participating schools have administrative access to the online learning program. Part of the investigation focuses on whether the students gained administrative privileges, he said.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20140320/NEWS01/303200019/-1/rss01?nclick_check=1

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

One academic department at the University of Arizona is boosting Web accessibility for its students by providing audio navigation tools on its site. UA’s Department of Management Information Systems, which operates out of the Eller College of Management, has adopted Audio Internet Platform 5.0, a cloud-based tool from AudioEye that analyzes site content, normalizes it and then reads information aloud to visitors. It also provides related navigational tools, such as pause and skip, arrow-based navigation, audio prompts for navigation (such as “This carousel contains X items, press left or right to scroll through them”)and optional reader display mode.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/03/20/u-arizona-boosts-site-accessibility-with-audio-internet.aspx

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

A new study from Rice University and Duke University researchers identified a relatively non-invasive approach to improving student achievement — one that doesn’t involve gutting the curriculum or reinventing pedagogy. The researchers found that implementing subtle, technology-based changes to homework resulted in improvements in student performance on tests. The changes included the adoption of a software tool developed at Rice called OpenStax Tutor. According to the researchers, the software is similar to other tools on the market that fall into the broad category of cognitive science-based digital tutors, tools that are designed to differentiate instruction based on the needs of individual students.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/03/20/change-the-homework-improve-student-achievement.aspx

By David Nagel, THE Journal

There will be 26 billion “things” making up the Internet of Things within six years, according to a report released by Gartner. The implications for IT are profound — in particular for data center operations. “IoT threatens to generate massive amounts of input data from sources that are globally distributed,” said Joe Skorupa, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, in a statement released to coincide with the report. “Transferring the entirety of that data to a single location for processing will not be technically and economically viable. The recent trend to centralize applications to reduce costs and increase security is incompatible with the IoT. Organizations will be forced to aggregate data in multiple distributed mini data centers where initial processing can occur. Relevant data will then be forwarded to a central site for additional processing.”

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/03/18/what-the-26-billion-thing-internet-of-things-portends-for-it.aspx

By Leila Meyer, THE Journal

Google Fiber is the company’s fiber optic Internet infrastructure being implemented in select cities throughout the United States. Google Fiber is already in place in Kansas City and is set to roll out in Provo, UT and Austin, TX next. Cities on the shortlist for potential future rollouts include Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Nashville, TN; Salt Lake City, UT; San Antonio, TX; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; Raleigh-Durham, NC and San Jose, CA. Google provides free gigabit Internet to public and nonprofit organizations such as schools, libraries and community centers selected by the city as part of the company’s Community Connections program. Schools can use Google Fiber to provide students with access to online learning resources, as well as for collaboration and communication.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/02/21/google-fiber-shortlist-cities-eyeing-free-gigabit-internet-for-schools.aspx

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

As mobile device usage has exploded, some people are questioning the proper use of these devices among children. Most teachers and parents agree that this technology is a valuable tool—but are students too “plugged in”? How much screen time is too much. Although schools sometimes struggle to manage smartphone usage in class, they are also embracing the technology as 17% of schools require the use of tablets or other devices in the classroom. Parents seem supportive of the technology with 90% saying that mobile devices make learning fun and 76% believe that tablets encourage curiosity. Even though 71% of parents believe mobile devices provide irreplaceable learning opportunities for their children, 43% still say they need help finding the best apps for education, and 62% worry about the devices as distractions when not used properly.

http://www.edudemic.com/how-has-technology-changed-younger-students/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

The equipment that will be available to students may soon be nearly unrecognizable. While laptops and tablets are in some classrooms now, in the future, each child could well have a wrist-mounted computer. More conveniently, students might have a computer chip implanted somewhere on their person that could communicate with whatever serves as the equivalent of the internet in their decade. In such an environment, teachers will need to figure out how to do more than merely direct students to websites for facts and then ask them to regurgitate them. Teachers will need to be able to teach kids how to think critically and apply the information that is available to them in solving problems. With any luck, and the right preparation, the kids of the future will go on to solve world problems such as hunger, environmental degradation, and geopolitical conflict.

http://www.edudemic.com/future-education-sci-fi-think/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

There’s also lots of green technology out there. That is, technology devoted to alternative resource use, or items being designed to use as little energy and physical pieces as possible. But what about the materials that go into our beloved technology? And what about recycling them? Technology changes so rapidly these days. Our need and desire for the latest model sometimes cause us to quickly discard our once trusted devices for the next best thing or the newer model, leaving outdated gadgets with a shelf life in some cases of a matter of months.The handy infographic linked below takes a look at how our love of technology is affecting our environment and why is it important we alter our recycling habits.

http://www.edudemic.com/sustainable-technology/

By Gayle Christensen and Brandon Alcorn, Slate

At least in their early stages, these courses are not providing the revolution in access that proponents claim. Two-thirds of participants come from the developed world—the United States and other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of leading industrialized countries. This is despite the fact that these 34 countries only account for 18 percent of the world population. And 83 percent of MOOC students already have a two- or four-year diploma or degree, even in regions of the world where less than 10 percent of the adult population has a degree. Meanwhile, 69 percent of them are employed. Furthermore, 56 percent are male, rising to 68 percent in the emerging BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and to 62 percent in other developing countries. Even more alarming, the gap between male and female participation is far greater for these courses than in traditional education. The 36 percent gap between male and female uptake in BRICS countries is nearly three times as large as in traditional higher education there. The United States is one exception, where males and females participate in equal numbers in both.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2014/03/mooc_survey_students_of_free_online_courses_are_educated_employed_and_male.html

by Sara Agnew, Iowa City Press-Citizen

When organizers launched the University of Iowa’s first Massive Open Online Course — better known as a MOOC — they figured participation would rise initially and then level out. That hasn’t been the case. Now in its second-to-the-last week, participation in Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” continues to rise, reaching more than 2,100 people at last count. The six-week course offered through UI’s International Writing Program has used video lectures, live breakout sessions and moderated online discussions to guide participants from across the globe through Whitman’s epic poem. “We had hoped for great conversation, but it has been extraordinarily exciting to see how deeply engaged people are and posting so many different perspectives,” said Susannah Shive, IWP’s distance learning coordinator.

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20140318/NEWS01/303180011/MOOC-class-far-exceeding-UI-hopes?nclick_check=1

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

The question has so far gone unanswered (though not undiscussed) even at some of the earliest entrants into the massive open online course market, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since MOOC providers have gotten out of the intellectual property rights debate by saying they will honor whatever policy their institutional partners have in place, it falls on the universities to settle the matter.  Almost two years after Harvard and MIT jointly launched the MOOC provider edX, Sanjay E. Sarma, director of digital learning at MIT, said his institution has “figured it out.” “Faculty have always had certain expectations and rights, and we want to respect them,” Sarma said. “In other words, we don’t want any new policy to change any rights they have right now.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/18/if-mooc-instructor-moves-who-keeps-intellectual-property-rights

by Todd Zakrajsek, Teaching Professor

Learning is enhanced when the material to be learned is thought about deeply and also when related material is retrieved from memory and associated with the new material. When students have an opportunity to work together to learn course content, particularly when applying that material to a new challenge, both deep thinking and retrieval of associated materials are realized. Active and collaborative learning are regularly discussed in the literature, and when done well few debate their value in terms of impact on student learning (1, 2). Although some students resist anything that even resembles group work, most students understand the value of working in teams or in discussion groups. Responses from students indicate that they learn when they “reflect, dialogue, question, write, summarize, and create their own knowledge” (3).

http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1315

By Christopher Piehler, THE Journal

Eight years ago, One Laptop Per Child started on its quest to provide computers to the developing world. This Tuesday, OLPC News posted an article called “Goodbye One Laptop Per Child.” In it, author Wayan Vota wrote, “With the hardware now long past its life expectancy, spare parts hard to find, and zero support from the One Laptop Per Child organization, its time to face reality. The XO-1 laptop is history. Sadly, so is Sugar. Once the flagship of OLPC’s creativity in redrawing the human-computer interaction, few are coding for it and new XO variants are mostly Android/Gnome+Fedora dual boots…. OLPC is dead.” On Wednesday, Giulia D’Amico, Vice President of Business Development for the OLPC Association, the Miami-based group focused on XO sales, responded that “OLPC’s mission to empower the world’s children through education is far from over.” As evidence of this, she pointed to a recent strategic alliance with the Zamora Teran family to deliver XO laptops to Central America, South America and Africa.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/03/14/whats-new-with-olpc.aspx

by John Eggers, Bemidji Pioneer

Schools as we know them today will no longer exist in 2114. School buildings are still constructed today, but before long, one of the questions that communities should begin to ask is “Do we still need a school building?” As you know, it is now possible to get a high school diploma by attending a virtual high school where everything is online. Colleges and universities have been operating “schools” without campuses for many years and more and more classes are being offered online every year. Online learning is big business. At one time, our college campuses were filled with meandering summer school students but today’s campuses are pretty quiet.

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/content/john-eggers-do-we-still-need-school-buildings