Educational Technology

September 30, 2014

Blended learning comes to Tift County classrooms

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by Tifton Gazette

Changes in technology are changing the way we educate students. This school year marks the beginning of a new program that allows Tift County students to learn online. Blended learning is a new format in which students are taking online classes, but are doing so in a classroom with a Tift County teacher. Blended courses allow students to take advantage of the flexibility and convenience of an online course while retaining the benefits of face-to-face classroom experiences with a certified classroom teachers. It allows students to experience components of online learning, while maintaining the social and instructional interactions that may not readily lend themselves to online delivery, such as lab assignments.

http://www.tiftongazette.com/news/article_acaf2a98-440c-11e4-b748-8f43281ef335.html

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Protecting Student Privacy in Online Learning

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

by Ozier Muhammad, The New York Times

Schools are increasingly using online learning technology. Advocates tout its use in tailoring lessons to each child’s pace and ability as a revolution in education. But privacy advocates have warned that the vast amounts of personal data students generate with the products can be misused. California, for instance, is set to pass the first law prohibiting companies from selling students’ personal information or using it for marketing purposes.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/09/24/protecting-student-privacy-in-online-learning

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English class a unique option for senior students

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by KAYLEIGH RAHN JG-TC

Windsor Junior Senior High School this year has offered seniors a new course option with an online-based English class. The course is taught by Windsor teacher Shanna House, but there is no class time; the work is done on the students’ own time. The curriculum is exchanged through an online teaching aid called Google Classroom, and since students have an extra class hour they are able to take another course they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to, says Principal Erik Van Hoveln.

http://jg-tc.com/news/english-class-a-unique-option-for-senior-students/article_8c32ab50-2b0c-512f-813c-a1a2bed27be4.html

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September 29, 2014

The Top 5 Blended And Flipped Classroom Tools

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By Hardik Parikh, Edudemic

Blended and Flipped Classrooms can give students more control over their learning path. Added to that, the teachers get more insight into the learning of the class and can intervene as required. Technology plays an important role in blending the classrooms. User-friendly technology ensures that the student has more control over the time, place and pace of the curriculum. It also ensures that the teacher has the necessary visibility and tools to intervene effectively.

http://www.edudemic.com/blended-and-flipped-classroom-tools/

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A Straightforward Guide To Creative Commons

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By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Way back when, research meant going to the library, finding something in a book, and indicating what book you found the information in when you created your bibliography. The internet has brought a significant amount of grey area to the world of citations and bibliographies. Students need to understand how to distinguish relevant, reliable material from the wasteland of trash that otherwise litters the internet. How do you cite a tweet, or other social media post? Is that considered ‘reliable’? And when it comes to sharing that information – especially on the internet- things get even hairier. Enter Creative Commons. (And thank goodness). The Creative Commons licenses allow any internet user to easily understand how they can (and can not) share what they find on the web. The licenses are visual, and if you aren’t sure of what you see on the work you’d like to use, you can refer back to the CC website to see. The handy infographic linked below gives a pretty thorough overview of the licenses and what they mean.

http://www.edudemic.com/guide-creative-commons/

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What to Ask Before Joining an Online Learning Program

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by D. Frank Smith, EdTech Magazine

Students looking to achieve a work-life balance while expanding their higher education horizons have plenty of options today, thanks to the growth of online education. Universities have been making online education more accessible, attracting students who want to fit education into their busy schedules. To help orient students interested in pursuing an online course, Online Schools Center, a distance-learning resource organization, has created a seven-question infographic quiz linked below covering the basics on what’s involved with online education.

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2014/09/what-ask-joining-online-learning-program-infographic

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September 28, 2014

Tablet LMS: Build It Yourself

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:39 am

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

When Lynn University couldn’t find a suitable gradebook and attendance-tracking application to fit its tablet-first campus, the institution decided to build one itself.  Lynn is now two years removed from hosting the third presidential debate between President Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, an event that prompted a major renovation of the university’s networking infrastructure. Since then, Lynn has gradually replaced textbooks with iPad minis, using content produced by its own faculty members hosted on Apple’s course management platform, iTunes U. The move to a tablet-centric model has not been without its growing pains.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/24/lynn-u-free-itself-its-learning-management-system-creates-its-own-software

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College Campuses Get An “F” In Cybersecurity

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by Abigail Wang, PC Magazine

BitSight Technology used external data that involved identifying the type of malware infections that struck the schools to rate the groups of universities’ performances on a scale from 250 to 900. The Big 12 had the best security rating with 661 while ACC performed the worst at 588. Overall, however, colleges and universities seem to fail to adequately address security challenges. BitSight notes that the security rating of the education sector as a whole is alarmingly lower than retail and healthcare, two industries that have suffered recent serious data breaches. The schools that did demonstrate a higher performance rating have a dedicated CISO or Director of Information Security on staff, which is crucial for better security on campus. As the school year progresses from September through May, security performance dips drastically due to the increase of students and devices on campus. These institutions also experience high levels of malware infections, including the Flashback malware that targets Macs, as well as adware and Conficker.

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/security/326921-college-campuses-get-an-f-in-cybersecurity

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Co-Teaching a Blended Class Across Universities

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Tom Gleeson, Inside Higher Ed

Last term I co-taught a graduate class in advanced groundwater hydrology with Grant Ferguson (University of Saskatchewan) and Steve Loheide (University of Wisconsin – Madison). It is mostly win-win for students and professors, but I’ll describe some of the disadvantages below. Instead of being a MOOC , the course is a SPOC – a small, private, online classroom.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/co-teaching-blended-class-across-universities

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September 27, 2014

5 Tips For Keeping Students On Task While Using Technology

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By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Playing games, chatting with their friends, and browsing the internet are all likely suspects drawing your students’ attention away from whatever the task at hand happens to be, but just because students have access to technology doesn’t mean you have to transform into device police and forget about teaching. Even if your students would much rather be watching videos on YouTube than learning about the Roman Empire, you still have the upper hand: they want to be using the device. Period. So how can you leverage that into students who are actually working on what they should be? Linked below are a few tips.

http://www.edudemic.com/5-tips-keeping-students-task-using-tech/

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Key strategies for tablet success

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by Laura Devaney, eSchool News

It seems tablets are in more classrooms, in more districts, each day. But as experience shows, simply purchasing and distributing tablets doesn’t mean students will be more engaged with their learning, and it doesn’t guarantee teachers will embrace tech-enabled instruction. Implementing tablets and leveraging the tools to support teaching and learning goals might be easier with the right approach, according to Doug Fisher, professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and teacher leader at Health Sciences High; Nancy Frey, professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and teacher leader at Health Sciences High; and Alex Gonzales, technology leader at Health Sciences High.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/09/22/strategies-tablet-success-930/

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Cognitively Priming Students for Learning

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:28 am

by Judy Willis, Edutopia

There are some standards or units of instruction that, for whatever reason, you know aren’t going to be runaway hits with students. While you can certainly reconsider the unit design, there are other strategies you can use to help prime student brains for learning. Among the simplest of these strategies is promoting curiosity — and students’ natural tendency to predict — by advertising the content the same way that a marketing company might. This promotes advance interest, and the resulting questions increase the student curiosity, opening the brain’s attentive intake filter. In short, it preps their minds to engage.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/cognitively-priming-students-for-learning-judy-willis

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September 26, 2014

From Cell Phone Bans to BYOD

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

By Christopher Piehler, THE Journal

Christopher PiehlerA couple of years ago, the first and last word in mobile devices for education was “iPad.” The Apple tablet’s dominance of the ed tech market has been gradually eroded by an armada of Android and Microsoft tablets boasting lower prices, easier enterprise management and integrated access to the Google or Windows cloud ecosystems. These days, though, with districts across the country preparing for online assessments that require keyboards, it’s no coincidence that the most-purchased category of device is the notebook, with the Chromebook especially popular. But the era of one device dominating classrooms is over.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/09/17/from-phone-bans-to-byod.aspx

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7 resources for student collaboration

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

By Laura Devaney, eSchool News

Collaboration is increasingly emerging as one of today’s top skills. Part of the 4Cs, it is needed in K-12 classrooms, in higher education, and in the workforce. Students who leverage technology to build collaboration skills are building strong college- and career-ready skills. More and more classrooms are going mobile, whether that is through school-issued laptops or tablets, or via BYOD initiatives that allow students to bring and use their personal mobile devices in school.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/09/19/resources-student-collaboration-543/

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10 ways ed-tech tools promote academic honesty

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

By Andy Trus, Campus Technology

Instructors need to be familiar with methods that make cheating far more difficult than traditional paper and pen homework assignments, and how to check for signs of cheating in their class. With the help of sophisticated ed-tech tools, instructors can easily check for signs of cheating and employ methods to crack down on student dishonesty. The following tactics help provide peace of mind when it comes to academic honesty and ensuring that students maximize their learning potential. These best practices can be used for homework, quizzes, or exams.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/tech-academic-honesty-329/

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September 25, 2014

Weston High behind new online learning initiative

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:40 am

by Weston Town Crier

EdX, the online learning venture founded by Harvard and MIT, recently announced a new high school initiative – 26 MOOCs (massive open online courses) in a wide variety of subjects geared to high school students around the world. Three of the selected 26 MOOCs were developed by Weston High School and are featured on edx.org, among courses developed by other leading high school and university institutions like MIT, University of Texas at Austin, Rice, University of California at Berkeley and more. Covering subject areas that range from mathematics to science, English and history, and even college advising and AP onramps, edX high school MOOCs will provide students within the U.S. and around the world the opportunity to pursue challenging, advanced coursework.

http://weston.wickedlocal.com/article/20140919/NEWS/140916638/12423/NEWS

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Lack of encouragement a barrier to girls pursuing a career in science, math, new study suggests

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:35 am

by Payments Business

MasterCard is launching a national campaign to bring more girls and women into the tech field. In partnership with Ladies Learning Code , the cross-country program will see more than 700 girls (ages 8 to 13) and their parents take a free, six-hour introductory coding class, held simultaneously across the country November 8th. The University of Waterloo , another partner, will also participate by hosting a Python-language coding workshop aimed at students who are in non-STEM disciplines in an effort to introduce a variety of students to coding in a supportive and female-friendly environment. In addition, MasterCard is working with the Centre for Education in Math and Computing (CEMC) and the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo to introduce a first-of-its-kind free online teaching and learning resource in 2015 that will be open to everyone. The courseware is designed to help students learn to program and support teachers in their daily classroom work.

http://www.paymentsbusiness.ca/News/Sep192014_MasterCard.htm

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8 Tips to Create a Twitter-Driven School Culture

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:30 am

by Elana Leoni, Edutopia

Twitter is one of the most powerful tools that you can use for your professional development — 24/7. It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of educators around the world are currently using Twitter to connect, share, and collaborate. While it’s fantastic that educators are flocking to Twitter, many of them still feel even more alone and isolated within their own school and district. There’s an unfortunate inverse trend I’ve noticed in education: the more connected you are on Twitter, the less support and collaboration you tend to have within your school. Although many of you may teach in rooms with closed doors, there is no reason not to connect with your colleagues through Twitter. Here’s how administrators can help move this needle.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/create-twitter-driven-school-culture-elana-leoni

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September 24, 2014

Report: 4 in 10 Wristworn Devices Will Be Smartwatches by 2016

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By Joshua Bolkan, Campus Technology

Four out of every 10 devices worn on the wrist will be smartwatches by 2016, according to a new report from market research firm Gartner. That prediction follows a swell in the smartwatches available to consumers as the number of companies offering the devices has increased from just two a year ago to seven with a device either currently on the market or about to ship.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/09/17/report-40-percent-of-wristworn-devices-will-be-smartwatches-by-2016.aspx

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From online dating to driverless cars, machine learning is everywhere

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:29 am

by Nicola Davis, The Observer

With machine learning behind myriad technologies, from online dating to driverless cars, we ask expert Dr Michael Osborne from the University of Oxford to give us the lowdown. Artificial intelligence is really the goal of trying to develop algorithms that can learn and act. Older AI research ran up against this difficulty that people didn’t really know what intelligence was. Machine learning is a much more modern approach to solving the AI problem where we are coming from the bottom up rather than top down, so we are saying, well, let’s define these really crisp, well-defined, sub-problems, like classifying a handwritten digit as being either a one or two, and then use novel techniques within statistics and optimisation to create an algorithm that can improve its performance over time.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/18/machine-learning-artificial-intelligence

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How to Craft Effective Learning Objectives for an E-learning Course?

Filed under: Educational Technology — admin @ 12:23 am

by Neha Goel, eLearning Design

We talk lot about creating interesting and engaging eLearning courses, but do we ever talk about how the course would be relevant to the learners taking it? This is where the necessity of the learning objectives is felt. If the learners don’t find the course relevant, it becomes hard for the instructional designers to keep them motivated. Hence, to overcome this, you need to tell the learners in the beginning of the course itself what they would learn after completing the course and set clear learning objectives.

http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/crafting-effective-learning-objectives-for-elearning

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