Educational Technology

By Maureen Magee, UT San Diego

Online courses are popular with students who want to make up credits, take classes that aren’t available at their schools or take a break from regular classes. But more students are forgoing mainstream schools altogether as charters and school districts establish online options. The virtual offerings also appeal to traditional home-school families who increasingly rely on online courses. About 310,000 students in kindergarten through high school nationwide were enrolled in full-time online schools in the 2012-13 school year, a 24 percent increase from the previous year, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/may/27/online-students-graduation-san-diego/

By Zachary Walker, THE Journal

One of the benefits of living in Singapore is the chance to visit and work in schools like Nan Chiau Primary. Nan Chiau is one of the schools around the world which is building the foundation for amazing learning through the 1:1 initiative that Elliot and Cathleen started there six years ago. Like many teachers, I was resistant to using technology at the start. I didn’t use any technology my first two years in the classroom (except the days my administrator would evaluate me and, for those days, I would throw together a PowerPoint!). Now I am lucky to work with some amazing districts, schools, administrators and teachers around the world who are revolutionizing education. Here are the first three reasons I don’t think I can be a great teacher without using mobile technology in my classroom.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/04/30/guest.aspx

Krishna Bahirwani, DNA India

In a fast-paced world where competition is tough and the time-frames are small, the format of education today is counterproductive. It tries to make a relationship between time spent and knowledge learnt for all students, which is something that cannot be generalised. This relation fails when it comes to actual knowledge learnt because we simply cannot generalise how much knowledge students can absorb in a credit hour. Education is now set to change as college students are now questioning education in terms of time and money spent. “If I had known that my education was going to be worth Rs 4-5 crore and it would take me four years to completem, the way it turned out, I would have spent my money differently” said Rhea Kanuga, a bachelor of fine arts from the Aacademy of Art University, San Francisco.

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-how-technology-is-changing-the-rules-of-time-and-education-1991287

By Brian Wallace, Business2Community

Online courses were once very rare, and they catered exclusively to nontraditional students. Now one in five students is taking an online course. But they sometimes end up costing more than a traditional college course, so why bother? There are a lot of perks to taking online courses. Many times, you can take classes whenever it works into your schedule instead of having to show up at your university at a set time. Course materials are often available for you to go back through as needed, which can be great if you’ve forgotten something from the beginning of the semester. There are rules and regulations about everything from the certifications of the person teaching the class to the technology being used. The initial startup costs are making online courses more expensive for now, but as technology and training catch up to the standards, these costs will decline in the future. Check out the infographic linked below for more about the benefits of online college courses.

http://www.business2community.com/infographics/online-courses-cost-infographic-0892949#!Q7b6N

Natricia Duncan, Guardian

An African permanent secretary once told me that e-learning is the solution for education in Africa. I pointed out that I come from a generation that was schooled without that technology and is extremely well educated. What is vital, I argued, is adequate teacher training. But e-learning is also very important, especially in the internet, technology-driven world we live in. For Africa it can be a valuable tool in improving access to education. For example, to produce textbooks and distribute them across schools is hugely expensive and very difficult. Whereas online access to information such as teaching resources and lesson plans, which can be used to build a curriculum, is cheap and easy once the technology and infrastructure is in place and the teacher is trained to use it.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/may/26/elearning-africa-education-conference

by Utah Pulse

Beginning in August 2015, students applying to colleges through the Common Application, a standard entrance application being used by many universities, will be able to select robotics as an activity category that will now receive entrance evaluation credit for their participation in a recognized extracurricular learning activity.

http://utahpulse.com/index.php/features/technology/942-colleges-now-recognize-robotics-as-activity-for-entrance-credit

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Perhaps the most important document that we should read and discuss on campus says nothing at all about higher ed. It is the leaked 96 page New York Times Innovation report, called Strengthening Our Newsroom: Digital First, written by 10 Times employees. The authors of the report argue that the Times is failing in its mission to serve its readers because it has not embraced the potential of digital platforms. That the print first culture and organizational structure at the Times has resulted in digital journalism being a “bolt on” to a paper driven organizational structure. That the world’s best journalism is only one part of the equation, as journalism that does not reach a critical mass of citizens due to a failure to embrace digital platforms and to practice best digital practices will ultimately have little positive social impact.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/nytimes-innovation-report-and-higher-ed#sthash.aEoLokwf.dpbs