Educational Technology

by MARLENE HABIB, The Globe and Mail

As Jason Nixon watches his twin seven-year-olds kick their way through karate class, the dad, husband, politician and champion for the homeless can often be seen booting up his computer – to work toward earning his bachelor of commerce degree through Alberta’s Athabasca University. At 34, Mr. Nixon possesses many of the traits of the typical Canadian taking an undergrad program online – he’s older than the average early-20s student attending university in person, has been working for years, and has a growing family.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/the-average-undergrad-getting-an-online-degree-is-older/article21627226/

By the Midland Daily News

Clare-Gladwin Regional Education Service District recently unveiled the Middle Michigan Regional Online Collaborative (MROC), offering students in grades 9-12 with an online learning option. The program gives high school students in Beaverton, Bullock Creek, Clare, Coleman, Farwell, Gladwin and Harrison school districts the opportunity to take up to two high school courses online each semester. Unlike a traditional online education experience, MROC provides multiple systems of support to help ensure student success. MROC courses are taught by a teacher from a local participating school district who is qualified a specific subject area.

http://www.ourmidland.com/news/clare-gladwin-resd-offers-online-learning-option/article_0cf7dd90-4e0b-502b-ad15-f9d95080ab6a.html

By Cedra Mayfield, WAVE 3

While November 17 marked the first snow day of the season for many schools throughout Kentuckiana, for Mercy Academy students and staff it proved to be a day in rather than a day off.As her younger brother sat and watched television Monday morning, Kayla Fitzgerald, 16, kept her eyes glued to her iPad. “It’s basically like Facebook for school,” said Kayla, a sophomore at Mercy Academy in Louisville. “This is a rubric that our teacher sent us of a project that we were going to do in class today.” Unlike many other school districts that opted to cancel classes after the season’s first snow, Mercy Academy leaders decided to promote productivity by holding classes online Monday.

http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/story/27412903/all-girls-academy-activates-online-classes-instead-of-snow-day

by Seb Murray, Business Because

Two leading US business professors have said that the disruptive technology used by Moocs poses a “real threat” to business schools and could replace some classroom teachers. Two leading US business professors have said that the disruptive technology used by Moocs, or massive open online courses, pose a “real threat” to business schools and could “replace a large number of classroom instructors”. The professors also envisaged a scenario in which the “fundamental architecture of the business school could crumble” in the face of wide-scale adoption of distance learning technology. In comments that echo their research earlier this year which forecast that two-thirds of MBA professors could be sacked due to the emergence of Mooc tech, Wharton School professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich say business schools and faculty are “clearly vulnerable”.

http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/2916/learning-tech-poses-real-threat-to-vulnerable-business-schools

by Nick Echavarria, BackerJack

The mission behind Pi-Top is simple: focus on teaching people how to create and code great hardware. Initially, the open source laptop is shipped in pieces: a 13.3″ HD LCD monitor, various PCBs, keyboard, trackpad, Wi-Fi adapter, wiring, battery, and a Raspberry Pi to control it all. Instructions are included to lead users in the Pi-Top’s construction, and serve as an introductory lesson to everything the Pi-Top does. Afterwards, it functions as a laptop dedicated to teaching the skills necessary to transform a pure novice into someone who can design printed circuit boards, 3D print, and code anything they’d want using free online lessons direct from the company. In addition, the Raspberry Pi’s HAT specification allows small add-on boards to add functionality, a consideration Pi-Top was built with.

http://www.backerjack.com/pi-top-is-a-chunky-open-source-laptop-to-teach-you-about-coding/

By gearfuse, Before It’s News

Technology has become an integral part of the student experience. There’s no shortage of apps to help students organize their schedules, stay on track with homework, and pay the bills on a tight budget. Students taking online or distance courses have additional needs that can also be assisted with today’s best apps. Take a look at these options, most of which are free to download.

http://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-technology/2014/11/the-10-best-apps-for-online-students-2732414.html

by the University of Michigan

The impact of technology and networks on our lives, culture, and society continues to increase. The very fact that you can take this course from anywhere in the world requires a technological infrastructure that was designed, engineered, and built over the past sixty years. To function in an information-centric world, we need to understand the workings of network technology. This course will open up the Internet and show you how it was created, who created it and how it works. Along the way we will meet many of the innovators who developed the Internet and Web technologies that we use today.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/insidetheinternet

by Portsmouth UK News

Year 5 pupils at Stamshaw Junior School have been using tablets in lessons in a bid to boost their learning. The Samsung Digital Classroom pilot is being run in 10 primary schools in disadvantaged areas across the country. As a part of the programme, Samsung gave the devices to schools. A study is being carried out as part of the project to see if it increases learning. Lewis Parr, nine, said: ‘For Christmas last year I got a tablet. Once I started using it and got used to using it. I really enjoyed it. ‘It’s fun and it helps me learn. Normally we use paper and pencils and do all our learning there but it’s nice to use this to work.’

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/education/it-s-goodbye-to-pen-and-paper-and-hello-to-online-learning-1-6420020

By Author Stream

One of the best ways to learn chess online is to set up a chess training schedule with the trainer and then start the classes with the trainer. Some of the tactics the trainers usually use in the training process include puzzles, other mind games that help to refine the thinking process and all the moves and strategies that must be employed to win the chess game.

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/mastervalerililov-2322355-chess-training-schedule/

by Purdue

Purdue University is offering a popular introductory computer science and programming course for free to high school students in Indiana. The online course, “Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming,” offers an introduction to computer science and the Java programming language. The course will not be graded or count toward credit requirements, but it covers material similar to the computer science Advanced Placement course and could prepare a student to test out of Purdue’s or another institution’s freshman programming class.

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q4/purdue-offers-free-online-computer-programming-course-to-indiana-high-school-students.html

By Allie Gross, Education Dive

In the 2013-14 school year, Indiana implemented a “virtual option” for inclement weather, allowing 40 schools to continue learning as the polar vortex bore down upon the heartland. The plan worked so well that Indiana is going to try it out again. Of course, not every school can implement a virtual alternative. Indiana’s Department of Education ultimately required districts providing the option to meet tech criteria.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/will-online-learning-melt-snow-days/330714/

BY KENNETH GOLDSMITH, the New Yorker

Come January, fifteen University of Pennsylvania creative-writing students and I will sit silently in a room with nothing more than our devices and a Wi-Fi connection, for three hours a week, in a course called “Wasting Time on the Internet.” Although we’ll all be in the same room, our communication will happen exclusively through chat rooms and listservs, or over social media. Distraction and split attention will be mandatory. So will aimless drifting and intuitive surfing. The students will be encouraged to get lost on the Web, disappearing for three hours in a Situationist-inspired dérive, drowsily emerging from the digital haze only when class is over. We will enter a collective dreamspace, an experience out of which the students will be expected to render works of literature. To bolster their practice, they’ll explore the long history of the recuperation of boredom and time-wasting, through critical texts by thinkers such as Guy Debord, Mary Kelly, Erving Goffman, Raymond Williams, and John Cage.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/wasting-time-on-the-internet

by Mary Grush, Campus Technology

Open pedagogy, as defined by David Wiley, focuses primarily on the relationship between the open licensing of content and the additional options students and instructors then have to remix that content as part of the work of the course. He stresses the move away from “disposable assignments.” That is undoubtedly important and powerful. Still, a broader consideration may be useful. Looking at open pedagogy as a general philosophy of openness (and connection) in all elements of the pedagogical process, while messy, provides some interesting possibilities. Open is a purposeful path towards connection and community. Open pedagogy could be considered as a blend of strategies, technologies, and networked communities that make the process and products of education more transparent, understandable, and available to all the people involved.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/11/12/open-pedagogy-connection-community-and-transparency.aspx

By Michael Hart, Campus Technology

Two Boston University graduates have invented a technology that led to a state-of-the-art video collaboration wall that is now installed in the lobby of the university’s College of Engineering. Prysm, a company that designs and manufactures video wall systems and is led by Amit Jain (’85) and Roger Hajjar (’88), has installed the video wall system using a technology they invented, laser phosphor display (LPD). LPD uses a laser engine and a phosphor panel to create images with low-power, solid-state lasers. It differs from LED- and LCD-based technologies, according to Jain, because it offers higher image quality with canvas-wide uniformity and a smaller environmental footprint.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/11/13/new-video-collaboration-wall-unveiled-at-boston-university.aspx

by David Raths, Campus Technology

Electronic portfolio projects have great potential to impact learning, assessment, and professional development. Yet expanding e-portfolios campuswide and sustaining the program isn’t easy. Here are four pitfalls to watch out for. CT spoke with Hepler and Teggin Summers, who was associate director of the e-portfolio program at Virginia Tech for six years before recently becoming director of that institution’s Innovation Space, about what it takes to roll out e-portfolios campuswide. Although their experiences are quite different — e-portfolios have taken hold in every college on Virginia Tech’s campus — both Hepler and Summers offered some observations on the key challenges of e-portfolio diffusion.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/11/12/4-common-e-portfolio-mistakes-to-avoid.aspx

by Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet

Last year, one Microsoft exec showed off a prototype of what email could look like in the future if it were to embed contextual information supplied by Bing on the back-end. A “Bingified” version of Outlook could allow users to see entity information right inside their e-mail. The same way that Microsoft Office apps currently alert users with a squiggly line to a potentially misspelled word, a Bing-enriched mail app could show users information about entities embedded in their e-mail messages — things like bands, venues, nearby restaurants and more. It sounds like Microsoft is continuing its efforts on this front. Last week, at a private press event, Microsoft showed off a coming Windows phone app called “Revolve,” according to Fast Company. That app “melds aspects of a calendar and contact manager, and presents you with information about people you’re going to meet with that it’s collected from multiple sources.”

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-pushes-ahead-with-its-quest-to-make-apps-more-intelligent-7000035605/

by Aaron Brower, EDUCAUSE Review

Although the need for more college degrees among the U.S. population is widely acknowledged, meeting that demand in the face of dramatically increased higher education costs, decreased state funding, and increasingly varied student demographics is a huge challenge. To address this, the University of Wisconsin (UW) launched its Flexible Option (UW Flex) direct-assessment CBE model, through which students can earn degrees and certificates from UW institutions. UW Flex focuses on assessment rather than credit hours, letting students undertake academic work at their own pace and prove mastery of required knowledge and skills through rigorous assessments. To help ensure student success, UW Flex supports students through an optimal blend of materials, people, and technology.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/flexible-option-direct-assessment-competency-based-education-model

By Ann Elliott, Edudemic

After weeks of comparing reviews and conducting trials in my classroom, I can say unreservedly that Aurasma offers the best augmented reality (AR) experience for classrooms of any iOS or Android app. The Aurasma app is more versatile and classroom-friendly than any AR app; it enables teachers to bring curriculum to life, turning almost any environment into a classroom or object into a lesson.

http://www.edudemic.com/aurasma-for-your-classroom/

by Kyle Potter, Associated Press

The early arrival of wintry weather in the Midwest this week gave Grewing an opening to test out a virtual class day at St. Cloud Cathedral high school in central Minnesota, having students whip out laptops or iPads and work from home. After a successful test run, Grewing declared Tuesday that students’ cherished snow days are a thing of the past — at least at Cathedral. “This is what we will be doing every single snow day going forward,” she said. “I’ll be honest. There has been some grumbling.” Private schools like Cathedral — and, increasingly, some public school districts — across the nation are starting to use the flexibility technology provides to work around weather, meeting school mandates without make-up days.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/goodbye-snow-days-students-study-home-26844708

By Michael Hart, Campus Technology

Columbia University has launched an initiative to turn more of its traditional lecture courses into hybrid learning experiences that would incorporate the use of audiovisual materials, social media, flipped classrooms and real-time feedback from students. The Provost’s Faculty Advisory Committee on Online Learning has asked faculty members to submit their proposals to either turn existing courses into hybrid online courses or create new courses. A faculty committee will review the proposals and make recommendations to Provost John Coatsworth, who will announce November 24 which proposals the university will pursue. A second round of proposals will be accepted in the spring.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/11/10/columbia-launches-hybrid-learning-initiative.aspx

BY KYLE VANHEMERT, Wired

At WIRED by Design, Sarah Stein Greenberg, executive director of Stanford Design School, shared a handful of concepts for redesigning college, culled from a year long workshop. Specifically, they look at how to keep the on-campus experience relevant in an age where online learning is becoming increasingly common. One of the provocations, called Open Loop University, wonders what could happen if you gave students six years of college to use whenever they wanted throughout their adult life. This sort of speculative thinking is meant to address growing concerns about the traditional four-year undergraduate track—basically that today’s system makes way for a bunch of well-trained sheep. “This is a generation of students who are incredibly highly structured, but they’re going to be entering an increasingly ambiguous world,” Stein Greenberg says. “We need to be training our students not just to expect that they will be society’s leaders, but also to be our most creative, daring, and resilient problem solvers.”

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/radical-ideas-reinventing-college-stanfords-design-school/