Educational Technology

By Laura Devaney, eSchool News

The emergence of open educational resources, coupled with students’ desire for more personalized learning, has fueled a need for content repositories that enable teachers, students, and parents to locate effective learning resources and educational content quickly. Now, the state of Illinois is developing efforts to help teachers and students leverage tagged educational content to make learning more customized, and effective, for students. The Illinois Shared Learning Environment (ISLE) will help educators use data and other tools to connect students with the learning resources and instructional content best suited to their needs.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/02/24/learning-repositories-personalize-927/

By ALAN FARNHAM, GOOD MORNING AMERICA

There’s a reason why nearly 10 million kids a month come to Shmoop to get help with test-prep and studying: The site is funny — funny in an adolescent way — their way. Why the yuks? Because Shmoop surveyed students and found that what they disliked most about conventional test-prep and online learning was that it’s boring. So, Shmoop adds jokes, word-play, sarcasm and whimsy. Its philosophy is best summed up by a quip from its introduction to SAT-prep: “Why learn about geometry without ninjas when you can learn about it with ninjas?” The company is on track to offer some 2,200 educational videos by year’s end on topics ranging from Victorian fiction to the periodic table of elements. Its learning guides cover math, science, social science, literature, the arts and music. It offers test prep for the ACT, the SAT, AP exams and more. The one thing tying together this multiplicity of offerings is Shmoop’s irreverent, sophomoric sensibility.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/shmoop-humor-makes-test-prep-learning-fun/story?id=22607323

By Jay Halfond, the Evolllution

In just a few years, digital learning has emerged front-and-center as the critical component of the future of higher education, and schools are scurrying to figure out their strategy for entering this sphere. This visibility and prominence has led to clashes over who will lead these now-important efforts, what direction should be taken and how this will impact the traditional mainstream order. Despite its newness, this controversy resurrects century-old unresolved conflicts within the academy. The online factor is simply the current nuance for otherwise perpetual dilemmas. Should online education be run professionally or professorially? Should it run through a centralized structure or remain respectful of a more decentralized model? What should be the incentives and priorities for faculty? How should scarce resources be distributed? What is the proper division of labor for new online initiatives?

http://www.evolllution.com/media_resources/story-cover-growing-controversy-online-learning-leadership/

By Leila Meyer, THE Journal

Google has announced a shortlist of 34 cities in nine metropolitan areas that could be next to receive Google Fiber, and the company may also provide free gigabit Internet service to some schools in those cities. Google Fiber is the company’s fiber optic Internet infrastructure being implemented in select cities throughout the United States. According to information on the company’s site, it provides connection speeds of up to 1 Gbps, also known as gigabit Internet, which is “100 times faster than today’s basic broadband.” Homes in the neighborhoods served by Google Fiber can subscribe to the company’s gigabit Internet and TV services. The company also provides free basic Internet service of 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speed to anybody in the areas served by Google Fiber.

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

By D ROBERT CURRY NewsStar

Reaching out to get kids excited about learning by connecting sports with science education, NASA may have hit a home-run of its own with its innovative online educational program. Dubbed the “NASA STEM Mania”, this online distance-learning educational program allows teachers and students to learn, among other things, the science behind scoring a touchdown, making a slam-dunk or a hitting a homerun.

http://newstaar.com/nasa-links-science-education-with-sports-in-its-stem-in-sports-online-series/3510007/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Short, watchable snippets of useful information, thought provoking questions, personal stories, inspiration, and learning. While I always take something away from every TED talk that I watch, some stick with me more than others. That said, most don’t come with a specific list of takeaways meant to help you with your everyday life. This talk, from David Pogue, offers 10 time saving tech tips. Most are for technologies that we use every day. They’re simple, easy-to-do, they’ll save you time, and make you feel like a suave tech person who can (seemingly) make their technology do whatever they need it to do with little effort. The video is embedded in the link below, but we’ve typed out the handy list also at the link below for you to reference later.

http://www.edudemic.com/tech-tricks-david-pogue/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

The drivers of blended learning was sort of buried towards the bottom of the infographic, and we thought it could use a little spotlight of its own, so we’ve taken that part of the original infographic and are showcasing it on its own below. Why? Because there are really good reasons to give it a shot. If you look at the ten reasons listed below, we’re pretty sure you’ll find at least a couple that you’ll benefit from, or are already trying to do in another way. If you read each item as a sort of question to yourself, they can also serve as a handy little go-to list that you should be asking when you’re implementing anything new in your classroom.

http://www.edudemic.com/new-technology-questions/

By Nikolaos Chatzopoulos, Edudemic

The basic premise behind app smashing, sometimes referred to as “app synergy”, is to find a number of key apps that “play well” with other apps and can communicate information across platforms. Some of the native iPad apps have this capacity. Also, Explain Everything, arguably one the most comprehensive, Swiss-Army type apps ever created, is ideal for such tasks. However, the app that is the most powerful and is used in almost every app smashing activity is Apple’s Camera App. It allows the user to store pictures, video, and sound files, which can be accessed later by other apps, which is what makes app smashing possible.

http://www.edudemic.com/app-smashing-education/

By shanehaggerty, Edudemic

There are some educators out there that make classroom technology integration look easy. For most of us, it’s a daunting task: converting your paper-and-folder, marker-and-poster classroom systems to mobile devices and the cloud. And the ones who dig right in, despite their reservations, to equip their students with the educational technology experiences they need for a 21st century education seem to have an invincible air about them. So what’s different about these teachers? What key traits do they have in common that make them stand out as leaders and technology whizzes in their communities?

http://www.edudemic.com/makes-change-agent/