Educational Technology

BY SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS, THE WICHITA EAGLE

Peek inside Brittany Horning’s second-grade class at L’Ouverture Elementary School, and you’ll see kids sprawled on large ottomans, perched atop bouncy seats, lying back on gamer-style recliners and using footstools as makeshift desks. It looks more like a living room or a neighborhood coffee shop – minus the whirring espresso machine – than a traditional classroom with rows of desks. “The kids really enjoy being in this environment. It feels comfortable to them,” said Janelle Roland, who oversees the school’s teacher training and behavior plan.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/10/05/classroom-future-look-like-coffee-shop/

BY TOM DACCORD, eSchool News

Schools must articulate a vision to teachers before they see the merits of technology. As I look back on the summer, one of the things that strikes me is how often a workshop I’ve given has followed a “technology training” at a school. In other words, faculty had already received tech training on the particular platform, device or tool I was asked to address. Sometimes this training had been administered in-house, but often it had been delivered by a technology company who came in and explained how their product works. Often, the school administrator would explain the reason for my workshop like this: “Well, the company came in and showed us the product, but the teachers don’t understand how and why to teach with it.”

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/10/06/when-learning-goals-are-clear-teachers-get-more-out-of-pd/

By Irina Chris, Parent Herald

It was once said by the former U.S. Secretary of Education that the best investment America could make was through education. Currently, there is a competition between traditional and alternative ways of learning, which includes online courses, but which do you think is the best option? There are criteria that need to be considered in selecting the right school for you, such as the curriculum, length of the study, location and tuition fee. If you are still confused, knowing and comparing the advantages of traditional and online education, this article may help you decide.

http://www.parentherald.com/articles/71842/20161007/traditional-online-education-comparing-their-advantages-for-undecided-students.htm

by Shalini Rajvanshi, Indian Express

Technology is slowly and steadily making a foray in education. Knowledge is no more limited to books and the use of platforms such as websites, apps, videos, live chats, etc., have taken it to another level. A lot of schools and colleges – mostly in tier 1 and tier 2 cities – have embraced technology to make learning fun and interactive. Interweaving technology with education seems to be helping students at all levels. Many educators in the city swear by instructional videos while parents are gradually opening up to the possibility of a platform which may help their wards learn something new in an innovative manner.

http://indianexpress.com/article/education/edtech-how-important-is-technology-in-education/

by Azzam Sheikh, Huffington Post

Learning through educational apps and digital environments can offer many more advantages than traditional learning styles, but personal factors such as a student’s familiarity with technology can have an impact upon learning preferences and effectiveness. The future for digital learning is certainly a trend that cannot be ignored, as the next generation who are native with digital technology will no doubt create more demand for it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/azzam-sheikh/are-educational-apps-and-_b_12390480.html

BY JERRY HAMEDI, edX Blog

Times Higher Education (THE) recently released its 2016-17 World University Rankings list, and we’re excited to announce that eight of the world’s top 10 universities are edX partners! Among the top 10 are Caltech, MIT, Harvard University, Princeton University, Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, UC Berkeley, and University of Chicago – with even more edX partners appearing on the full list. In THE’s rankings each university is comprehensively evaluated on 13 performance indicators across all of their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

http://blog.edx.org/edx-partners-times-higher-education-world-university-rankings

by Kim Kozlowski, The Detroit News

University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel on Wednesday challenged faculty and staff to venture further into digital technology and innovation, hailing them as the university’s next frontier in educating traditional students and lifelong learners. Launching the Academic Innovation Initiative during the annual Leadership Breakfast, Schlissel harkened to UM’s legacy of leadership and encouraged university researchers, teachers and practitioners to evolve further with students, their studies and university partnerships and networks around the world. “Academic innovation is where creativity, comprehensive excellence and our aspirations for societal impact all come together at the University of Michigan,” Schlissel said.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/10/05/schlissel-initiative/91597788/

BY: Kate DeNardi, MeriTalk

Over the next five years, technology is going to shake up K-12 education. The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2016 K-12 Edition, published by the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking, shares the technology that politicians, education experts, school administrators, and teachers should be integrating into classrooms.

https://www.meritalk.com/articles/virtual-reality-makerspaces-and-online-learning-on-the-horizon-for-education/

By Roger Riddell, Naomi Eide, Education Dive

Security has often been an afterthought as technology evolved, and now many sectors are facing cyberthreats that are increasingly difficult to defend against. In higher ed, cybersecurity concerns are ever present as open networks create a broad attack surface, and limited budgets make defense a challenge. As the threat landscape evolves, there is only so much that campuses can do, but many defense strategies start with awareness, networking, enacting perimeter security and budgeting for the known unknowns organizations may face. IT security is “really about protecting your data and applications that matter most rather than endpoint devices,” said Sasi K. Pillay, vice president for IT services and CIO at Washington State University. “But in the meantime, we’re not there yet, so we have to come up with compensating controls.”

http://www.educationdive.com/news/cyber-threats-cybersecurity-higher-ed/427704/

By KHALEDA RAHMAN, the Daily Mail

A New Jersey college student’s iPhone exploded in his pocket during a class despite the device being turned off. Darin Hlvaty was in a class at Rowan College in Glassboro when his iPhone 6 Plus caught fire last week. He said he threw the device on the ground as it burst into flames, but not before it burned a hole in the back pocket of his jeans. Students were forced to evacuate the building after the incident, CBS News reported.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3821499/New-Jersey-college-student-s-iPhone-explodes-class.html

By MIKE HIBBARD, Finger Lakes Times

Middle-school math teachers throughout Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES have an opportunity to participate in an online-based, professional development model geared toward rural school districts. The project is part of a $2.8 million grant awarded to the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education by the National Science Foundation. The funding covers a four-year period. “This program will expand our current professional development and research efforts to reach and benefit rural teachers, who have had limited access to high-quality professional development resources and experiences in the past due to geographic isolation,” said Jeffrey Choppin, chair of teaching and curriculum at the Warner School. “Our ultimate goal is to influence student learning and outcomes in all areas of the country, regardless of geographical access to resources.”

http://www.fltimes.com/news/ur-offers-middle-school-math-teachers-an-online-assist/article_8239c064-8840-11e6-809f-67440e78a026.html

by the New York Times

Whether you’re here for the first time or have been visiting our site regularly for the last 18 years, we invite you to take a look around. Every school day since 1998, we have offered fresh classroom resources — from lesson plans and writing prompts to news quizzes, student contests and more — all based on the articles, essays, images, videos and graphics published on NYTimes.com. As we transition from the blog that has been our home since 2009, we’re bringing along our most popular features, but organizing them in a way we hope makes them easier to find. And, since our new site is mobile-friendly, we hope they’ll be easier to access too. One thing we haven’t changed: a commenting system that, over the years, has brought us hundreds of thousands of responses from teenagers around the world. So whether the students you know are interested in politics or pop culture, science or sports, fashion, food or foreign affairs, invite them here to join the conversation.

http://www.nytimes.com/section/learning

by LAUREN PIESTER, Enews

Malcolm Barrett explains Timeless is the one most easily described. The series follows three time travelers who chase an evil time machine thief around through different real-life historical events, complete with period costumes and recognizable historical figures. “Each and every episode is a completely different adventure in history,” Barrett continues in the video above. Since each episode takes place during an actual historical event, you can definitely expect to learn a few things that high school history might not have covered. Basically, Timeless is TV’s most interesting and most varied non-drunk history lesson, and it really is a lot of fun. It’s also very pretty, which always helps, so if you’re looking for a fun, pretty time travel show that comes with some cool trivia facts.

http://www.eonline.com/news/799230/nbc-s-timeless-is-a-history-class-you-ll-want-to-attend-thanks-to-time-travel

by Jessica Whitesel, the Peak

I’ve never been one for classroom learning. I hate the concept of just sitting in a lecture hall that is either too hot or too cold, being talked at for what seems like forever. The worst is when the lecture content comes directly from the textbook that I had to buy for the class anyways. It just seems counterintuitive. That’s why online courses work for me: they cut out the middleman. I’ve had some good professors, but it seems like I’ve had more bad ones. I’ve realized the professors I think are bad might actually be good, but I can’t learn from them. Their teaching style just doesn’t match my learning style. Online courses are reading intensive, but that’s why I like them so much. I can just sit down, read, synthesize some information, and move on to the next thing. It makes the process of learning much more active, and there’s just something about being able to combine homework and lecture that makes learning feel that much more time-efficient.

http://www.the-peak.ca/2016/10/forget-everything-you-believe-about-online-courses/

by Peter McGuire, Irish Times

Online supports are revolutionising learning and they may even be making learning more enjoyable. Students are taking control of their own learning. Where once it was all school, homework and grinds, the online world has revolutionised learning. In recent years, Leaving and Junior Cert pupils are taking to Khan Academy, Studyclix.ie, TheMathsTutor.ie, the Eir Study Hub and more to complement what they learn in class. And – whisper it – some of these websites, they say, are making learning more enjoyable. But what are the best resources out there and how are they assisting with teaching, learning and revising? We asked the most independent and authoritative critics of all: students.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/the-best-online-study-tools-students-give-their-verdict-1.2810540

By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

Over the next year K-12 will be placing more emphasis on coding as a form of literacy and on students as creators. Schools that don’t already have makerspaces will want to get them and online learning will start to look like something that’s typical rather than out of the norm. Those are the “short-term” trends and technologies that surfaced in the 2016 K-12 Edition of the NMC/CoSN Horizon Report. The move to spur students as creators is an attempt to shift the gaze of students away from display screens as consumers and help them become creators. As the report noted, “Many educators believe that honing these kinds of creative skills in learners can lead to deeply engaging learning experiences in which students become the authorities on subjects through investigation, storytelling and production.”

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/15/newest-nmccosn-horizon-k12-report-emphasizes-kids-as-creators.aspx

by Andy Abeyta, QUAD-CITY TIMES

Once upon a time, almost anyone could coach football at the youth-league level. You needed to know the game, of course, but no special training or certification was necessary. Those days are gone, at least in the Quad-Cities. Every local youth football league in the metro area requires coaches to have some degree of training and certification before they can set foot on the field. Many local programs subscribe to Heads Up Football, a series of online courses to help educate coaches on proper tackling techniques and other fine points. Heads Up Football started in 2013 and was funded by a $45 million grant from the NFL.

http://qctimes.com/sports/football/what-they-re-doing-coach-certification/article_9a2a4363-0f90-5376-88de-78e9110f7632.html

By Seth Daniel, Journal

Flesh-eating Zombies have been slowly taking over one Revere High School (RHS) classroom this school year, but there isn’t anyone fighting it, and in fact the educational experiment has become celebrated. In response to the hugely-popular, Zombie-laden television show, ‘The Walking Dead,’ among students at RHS, teacher Nancy Barile has capitalized on that enthusiasm to use the show as a way to pound home concepts like character development, elements of fiction and essay writing – things teens in almost any classroom would grimace at the mere mention. But Barile said her new ‘Walking Dead’ class, which is for juniors and seniors, has taught students just those very things that many teachers struggle to convey using conventional methods. Now, she said her students are enthusiastically analyzing the popular television show, which features a team of young people fighting to remain human and not being turned into a ‘Walker,’ or flesh-eating Zombie.

http://www.reverejournal.com/2016/10/01/zombies-help-stretch-innovative-teaching-at-revere-high-school/

BY MICHELE EATON, eSchool News

After failing to create usable Individualized Learning Plans, teachers refined it until it worked. Isn’t that what we want from our students? In the MSD of Wayne Township, there are several blended and online opportunities available for students. Perhaps the same is true in your district, but how many of those same opportunities are available to teachers as well? Recently, the teachers in one particular program in the district inspired a personalized approach to professional development. The Ben Davis Extended Day (BDED) blended learning program is an extension of one of the district’s high schools, Ben Davis High School. The program operates in the evenings and serves students who, for one reason or another, are not able to attend during the day.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/09/27/how-one-district-improved-personalized-learning-by-failing-forward/

by eSchool News

Educators searching for flipped learning inspiration can now find it in a list of 100 people who are innovating and inspiring others in their pursuit of flipped instruction. The Flipped Learning Global Initiative (FLGI), a worldwide coalition of educators, researchers, technologists, professional development providers and education leaders, published the FLGI 100, an annual list identifying the top 100 innovative people in education who are driving the adoption of the flipped classroom around the world. “The FLGI 100 list includes some of the most experienced and innovative flipped learning people on the planet,” Bergmann said. “The value of their collective insight into flipped learning is immeasurable and we’re excited to identify them as role models for those new to flipped learning.” The FLGI list will be updated annually and the complete FLGI 100 list can be seen at http://flglobal.org/the-flgi-100/.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/09/28/100-educators-driving-flipped-learning/

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eCampus News

A new open textbook project from Rutgers University includes a grant program administered by Rutgers University Libraries that will give incentives to faculty or department groups that replace traditional textbooks with free, low-cost or open alternatives. The Open and Affordable Textbook Project (OAT) has the potential to save students across the university as much as $500,000 within its first year. At least one Rutgers course is proactively moving in this direction, business librarian Mei Ling Lo said. “Students taking the course Aggregate Economics are using our e-books this semester and the savings are substantial,” Lo said.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/news/rutgers-open-textbook/