July 31, 2015
By Nick Anderson, Washington Post
On Wednesday, a new sequence of lessons for high school Advanced Placement courses in calculus, physics and macroeconomics went live on a free Web site founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. The lessons, developed by Davidson College for the site called edX, represent a new step in the evolution of ties between the popular AP college-level program and the “massive open online courses” known as MOOCs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/07/22/the-new-frontier-for-advanced-placement-online-ap-lessons-for-free/
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by Associated Press
North Carolina’s Virtual Public School will be launching an online high school physical education class this fall. Multiple media outlets report that the state’s Department of Public Instruction announced the plan for the pilot program on Tuesday. The state says students will watch an online video demonstration given by a teacher. Pupils will then be tasked with filming themselves practicing the physical activity or sport. The state says the course could be useful for students trying catching to up on credits or for others who are homebound.
http://www.greensboro.com/news/north-carolina-rolls-out-online-physical-education-classes/article_2f4d3846-3066-11e5-b178-abe7306c3dcb.html
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by Leif Nelson and Daniel L Gold, EDUCAUSE Review Online
Key Takeaways: A dialogical approach to learning technology initiatives at Boise State University ensures transparency and buy-in from the campus community. Project management methodologies add value to academic initiatives — finding similarities among business and academic processes can help create a common understanding. An ongoing dialogue between business and academic cultures will lead to success in higher education institutions.
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/dialogical-approach-learning-technology-success
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July 30, 2015
by Brandon Zoras, Edutopia
Hackathons have become a new way of doing business, creating products, advancing healthcare, and innovation. The energy is high, and so are the stakes. Can you turn an idea into a product over the course of a weekend? But let’s move beyond that. Let’s look at the teaching and learning within a hackathon. Hackathons are really the ultimate classroom. That is why Joe Romano and I (Brandon Zoras) thought it would be great to have a youth-focus hackathon across our school district. Hackathons usually take place over a set time frame such as a weekend, where different people with different skills and abilities work together to propose a solution to a problem. The solutions can be code based, wearable technology, analog, or any type of product imaginable.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/hackathons-as-a-new-pedagogy-brandon-zoras
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By Rhea Kelly. Campus Technology
Students at California State University, San Bernardino will soon be able to charge their mobile devices wirelessly all over campus. The school is installing the Powermat wireless charging platform in high-traffic common spaces, student union areas, study areas, and on-campus cafes and restaurants to help students stay connected to the information and learning resources they need. The next step will be a broader implementation in the university’s library and classrooms. “E-learning has become part of every student’s lifestyle with course materials, assignments and videos hosted online and accessible via mobile,” said Gerard Au, associate vice president, Information Technology Services at CSUSB, in a press release. “As mobile device usage increases, we need to extend our capability to keep up, and the Powermat platform is an important part of that infrastructure as it will allow our students to stay connected and learning all day long,”
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/07/14/cal-state-san-bernardino-powers-up-with-wireless-charging.aspx
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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A new application programming interface (API) is designed to enable education developers to introduce scoring analytics into simulations, games and other open-ended assessment items and digital learning objects. The API toolkit, developed by metacog, is intended to be added to programs used by educators to examine the work and thought processes done by students as they interact with digital lessons and assessments. “Our goal with metacog’s scoring service API is to enable a new generation of instruction and assessment products where students create responses instead of merely picking them,” said Owen Lawlor, the company’s chief digital officer.
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/07/21/new-rubric-based-scoring-api-evaluates-student-performance-in-digital-lessons.aspx
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July 29, 2015
by WBNS
You can find some great resources online to make sure your kids keep learning year round. Many of them are free. Social media behavioral expert Michele Cuthbert with Baker Creative recommends these apps and websites that are not only educational, but fun: Timeforkids.com has a variety of tools to learn, for example, about Antarctica. It also has fast facts, printable items for various grades, a slide show of explorers and info about animals. WBU.com (wild birds unlimited.com): offers live video feeds of all types of birds in their natural habitat. It also teaches kids how to set up their own wildlife habitat. Thekidzpage.com has online color pages, math and number games, picture games and paint puzzles for younger kids.
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2015/07/19/columbus-summer-learning-apps.html
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By Aziza Musa, Arkansas Daily
Colleges and universities statewide are rebuilding or reinvigorating online offerings in preparation for the fall term. The revisiting of online programs is helping the higher-education institutions to compete in an already crowded field for nontraditional students — students who don’t come directly from high school or who started college but then stopped before graduating. The Arkansas Department of Higher Education has allowed more than 120 distance education providers — both in-state and out-of-state institutions that have online offerings — to operate in the state, officials have said. “There has been a renewed emphasis on improving the college attainment rate, whether certificates or degrees, of adult Arkansans, and online education is an important component of that effort,” said Brett Powell, director of the state’s Department of Higher Education.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/jul/20/online-learning-gets-push-20150720/
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By Susan Edelman, New York Post
Flushing HS put 150 flunking students in quickie online “credit recovery” courses and pressured teachers to reverse failing grades to boost a lower-than-50 percent graduation rate, a stunning internal e-mail shows. “Our benchmark of a 60 percent graduation rate in June is nonnegotiable,” Patricia Cuti, assistant principal for guidance, insisted in a June 1 missive to staff. With fewer than two weeks before the end of regular classes, all 150 students were enrolled in Apex Learning online courses, where they could get a quick and easy replacement for a semester or year’s work. “With 150 students failing a grad requirement, we are looking at a rate of less than 50 percent,” Cuti wrote. “Every effort to assist these students in reaching all the graduation requirements is necessary.
http://nypost.com/2015/07/19/school-saves-150-failing-students-with-quickie-online-courses/
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July 28, 2015
By Chad Hunter, Times Record
Fort Smith schools are the first to connect to Arkansas’ improved high-speed Internet system designed to offer speeds 40 times faster than the current statewide average. The $65 million initiative for improved broadband service in Arkansas schools kicked off at a small ceremony held Wednesday afternoon at the Fort Smith School District’s Rogers Center. “This is a big day for Arkansas,” Arkansas Department of Information Systems Director Mark Myers said. “That equipment is expensive and that connection is expensive, but it’s what the students of Arkansas deserve.”
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/07/20/arkansas-internet-695/
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By Julie Petersen, THE Journal
Throughout the journey from kindergarten to 12th grade, students are supposed to gain appropriate vocabulary and grammar skills that need to be successfully implemented into essay writing. Here are some effective online tools that can help you make the art of essay writing more attractive for your students.
http://thejournal.com/Articles/2015/06/25/15-Online-Resources-That-Help-Improve-Essay-Writing-Skills.aspx
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By David Raths, THE Journal
What happens when a school throws out the textbooks and tells teachers that they are going to become authors themselves by creating curriculum in real time as the semester progresses? That’s what the String Theory School, a charter school in Philadelphia and one of only 37 Apple Distinguished schools in the country, is discovering. Why not eliminate those bulky backpacks full of books and instead send teachers straight to iTunes U to find, customize or create their own lessons aligned to standards as they go? “The teachers themselves could expertly design it, align it with standards and have it be personalized for the students,” said DiPaulo, speaking at an ISTE conference presentation in Philadelphia in late June.
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/07/14/can-teachers-author-their-own-textbooks-on-the-fly.aspx
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July 27, 2015
by Jordan Shapiro, Forbes
Today’s children are extremely savvy. They’ve grown up in a world where information was always just a button away. Buttons? Soon, they won’t even need buttons. With Windows 10, they’ll simply say, “hey Cortana.” She’s more like the world’s greatest librarian than a personal assistant. She delivers content on command. In the future, after children have mastered reading, writing, and arithmetic, will more formal schooling still be necessary? Because of the unprecedented access we now have to information, some folks think that online self-directed learning will soon replace traditional education as we know it. They imagine that open, web-based solutions like Khan Academy, Lynda, EdX, and Coursera—perhaps paired with a system of certifications—can address most of society’s education needs. Professors, in a world where information is ubiquitous, could become more like curators than instructors.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2015/07/19/this-is-what-todays-online-learning-content-tells-us-about-the-future-of-school/
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By Dustin Le, Edudemic
The Maker Movement is a new trend based on old school traditions in which the philosophy of doing, building, and creating prevails over just simply buying. Instead of going to the toy store, people are learning how to design and 3D print their own toys. Instead of shopping for furniture, people are going to local community workshops like TechShop and building their own custom chairs and tables. The Maker Mentality creates a powerful paradigm shift by eliminating the separation between consumer and producer. By looking at the benefits and upsides of the Maker Movement and analyzing why it has reemerged, we can use it productively in the classroom by intertwining these new techniques with the classic methods such as lecture, reading, and so on.
http://www.edudemic.com/maker-movement-classroom/
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By Elvyn Jones, LJ World
All is on schedule for the Baldwin City campus to have fiber optic gigabit Internet access in the first or second week of August, said Bosch and Andy Jett, Baker’s chief information officer and vice president of strategic planning and academic resources. With that, gigabit access will be available in all university academic halls, sports venues, the Harter Student Union and residence halls, where 500 of the about 930 undergraduates on Baker’s Baldwin City campus reside. Faster Internet access will help improve Baker’s administrative efficiency and will have significant academic consequences going forward, but Jett said an important immediate factor for Baker administrators was the competitive edge it affords in recruiting high school graduates who grew up socializing, playing games, watching movies and TV shows and completing homework assignments on laptops, tablets and smartphones.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/jul/20/baker-sees-gigabit-internet-important-competitive-/
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July 26, 2015
By Paul Schott, Greenwich Time
In the past, a lack of numbers would have meant those classes could not be run. Students would have to make up the courses another time, likely during the school year. For some, the delay in catching up could have meant having to spend another year in high school. Administrators did not want to see that scenario, so they came up with an alternative: The students would become their own teachers, by doing the coursework with Odysseyware, online academic software. “We’ve canceled these classes in the past, and the kids were out of luck,” said summer school co-coordinator Lori Mulligan, who is also a math teacher at Greenwich High School. “This is a first step in making sure they’re always offered. This is a way to keep the kids on track and moving forward.”
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/On-line-learning-gets-tryout-at-summer-school-6392587.php
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by Ben Allen, WITF
Online classes aren’t just a part of the usual school year; summer school is now online in some areas. In a handful of Lancaster County districts, some students are paying to take online summer school classes to get ahead. In the Susquehanna Township School District, the online courses are offered at the high school itself, says principal Keith Still. “If the student doesn’t understand their interactive teacher, he still has access to a live person to answer questions they may have on a content area. So they get the best of both worlds,” says Still.
http://www.witf.org/news/2015/07/some-midstate-schools-shifting-to-online-summer-classes.php
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By Business Wire
CyberLink Corp. today launched the CyberLink Learning Center to complement the use of its creativity software. The Learning Center provides educational and training materials in an easily accessible interface, with content searchable by subject, user skill level or software application. The CyberLink software covered in the new Learning Center includes PowerDirector, one of the most flexible and powerful video editing solutions available, and PhotoDirector, a professional quality photo editing and management solution. Additional tutorials are available for AudioDirector, ColorDirector, and CyberLink’s popular YouCam Makeup and YouCam Perfect apps for mobile devices.
http://news.sys-con.com/node/3372875
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July 25, 2015
by Jamil Ezzo, the Peninsula
Being born into the age of information and communications technology (ICT) does not certify today’s youth to be experts in digital technology. Today’s generation admittedly have exceptional proficiency in the use of computers and laptops along with mobile and social media technologies, possessing a good level of digital literacy. Nevertheless, they still need to be formally educated to use technology to advance society further; otherwise, they will become ‘digital orphans’ who lack the qualifications or experiences to get meaningful employment. Surveys suggest that the majority of young people do not possess the skills and abilities required by today’s job markets. It has become a challenge for companies to recruit somebody who is digitally literate and can make the most of the internet and what digital technology has to offer rather than just a digital native who has led an active virtual life but lacks the skills to use the medium to deal with the needs of the work environment.
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/life-style/techfile/347876/internet-and-technology-are-digital-natives-really-equipped
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by Roz Bahrami, IT Business Canada
Engaged workers matter because they are the loyal ones who will go the extra mile, offer the innovative idea, and work with passion when needed to meet deadlines and keep a company going. Actively disengaged employees can harm a company, acting out their disgruntlement and unhappiness. Companies despair when they think that the price of engagement may be too high an investment for them to offer during tough and competitive times. But it doesn’t have to be. One highly effective way you can change the morale and engagement in your workplace is to offer training as part of your employee development activities. Even with a very small budget, you can offer online courses that send the message you believe and value to your employees as you want to tie your employees to you for the future.
http://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/how-online-training-increases-employee-engagement/56882
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By JACOB STARK, Waseca County News
A new math curriculum coming to Waseca schools will offer a different approach for students from fourth through 12th grade, showing a shift toward more direct mastery of mathematical concepts. At the high school level, four different textbook series were examined. While the classes had online portions previously, Swanson said that they left room for improvement. “You really have to know the material and know the math to know what you’re looking at,” she said. The difference with the online portion for the new series is that the online lessons are aligned directly with lessons from the book, allowing students to have a lesson retaught if there was something they didn’t understand in class.
http://www.southernminn.com/waseca_county_news/news/article_9a879ef0-40ce-5e13-876f-ebe4d001354d.html
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