Educational Technology

By HARRIET JONES, WNPR

A Milford-based entrepreneur is launching a training course designed to help with a shortage of web and mobile software developers — an issue that’s only expected to get worse in coming years. It’s estimated that nationwide, employers will need 1.4 million software developers over the next 10 years. The nation’s universities are only projected to produce 400,000 computer science graduates in that time. “So we’re going to have a deficit of about a million people who have the digital skills to work in web, mobile, marketing, and advertising — even TV, as TV becomes increasingly application oriented,” said Mark Lassoff. Those developers are going to have to come from somewhere.

http://wnpr.org/post/new-course-connecticut-targets-dearth-job-ready-software-developers

by Bluffton Today

Ten years ago, online degrees weren’t even in conversations. There were a number of universities with distance learning programs, but students generally went to brick-and-mortar universities to pursue a degree they wanted. In 2013, studies revealed that discussions about online programs were more dynamic, but 78% of students still preferred to attend classes to learn. In just four years since that study was published by USA Today, the education landscape has changed completely. Now, more students prefer to take online courses. This shift is also affecting students living in Bluffton and nearby areas.

http://www.blufftontoday.com/event/students-are-drawn-towards-online-programs

by Erik Fontanez, Crave

As fans of Game Of Thrones know, subtitles can be exceptionally useful when watching the hit HBO show. Understanding what these people are saying — especially when they’re in the middle of sword fights, drunken debauchery and secret sexcipades that may or may not include heavy incest — can be hard to translate. Luckily for you, the inventor of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages is here to help you make your own GoT dialect that you’ll fully understand and will potentially confuse your friends.

http://www.craveonline.com/mandatory/1255231-college-course-game-of-thrones-language

by Pat Donachie, Education Dive

Distance learning continues to grow, with more than six million higher ed students taking at least one distance education course in 2015, according to a report from Digital Learning Compass. The report found growth at non-profit institutions occurred at a rate of 11.4%, while private for-profit institutions, on the other hand, saw their distance enrollment numbers decline at a rate of 9.4%. Year-over-year, the number of students enrolled in a distance education class grew by 3.9%, and more than one in four students enrolled in higher ed took at least one distance education class.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/distance-learning-enrollment-ticks-up-though-for-profits-see-declines/441754/

http://www.cio.com/article/3164125/hiring/10-it-skills-that-employers-need-in-2017.html

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eSchool News

Expert discusses teachers’ successful techniques in helping students with literacy challenges—including dyslexia. As classrooms and teachers grow stronger in providing individualized and personalized instruction to every students, it’s never been more important to define and address the often-myriad literacy challenges within classrooms to ensure that all struggling students learn and improve—especially those students with dyslexia. In “Teaching Students with Literacy Problems—Including Dyslexia,” hosted by edWeb.net and sponsored by Brookes Publishing, Nickola Wolf Nelson, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Western Michigan University, reviewed techniques educators can use to teach their students with literacy problems.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/05/01/ew-teaching-literacy-challenges/

by TechTree

The past decade has seen big changes in educators’ approaches to using technology. High school students now communicate with their peers and teachers via online forums. An aspiring multilinguist can connect with an online Chinese tutor on Preply and start learning over Skype in mere minutes. Smartphone apps provide game-like learning environments for children learning the basics of coding. Technology has the potential to revolutionize how classrooms function, a fact that has not gone unnoticed over the years by teachers and legislators alike. Determining how schools should best capitalize on that potential has been a process of trial and error, with some approaches proving, ultimately, ineffective.

http://www.techtree.com/content/features/12798/how-teachers-students-benefit-technology.html

by Molly Born, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One of the major incentives for the creation of the Online Academy was saving money for the district. Nearly 700 city residents attend cyber charter schools, down about 90 from 2012. The district by law pays charter schools more than $14,400 for each resident who is a non-special education student and more than $30,500 for each special ed student. Like charter schools, cyber charters are public schools open to students from throughout the state. Until the district established the Online Academy, no full-time online program offered the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship, which grants eligible graduates up to $30,000 toward postsecondary education.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2017/05/01/Marking-achievement-a-challenge-at-growing-Pittsburgh-Online-Academy/stories/201704260186

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

Despite gloomier predictions, the mobile phone market grew 4.3 percent worldwide in the first quarter of 2017, with No. 1 Samsung and No. 2 Apple declining slightly in their overall share of the market as Chinese manufacturers surged upward. According to a new report from market research firm IDC, Samsung saw no year over year growth from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017. It shipped 79.2 million units in each of those two quarters and lost a point of market share — from a 23.8 percent share of the worldwide market in Q1 2016 to 22.8 percent in Q1 2017.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/05/01/apple-samsung-flat-as-mobile-market-grows-beyond-expectations.aspx

by Aditya Malik, Financial Express

The evolution of digital education is nothing short of a revolution. We have seen educational efficacy changing digitally with each passing day. It has not only provided teachers and students unlimited teaching and learning opportunities, respectively, but also improved students’ erudition, participation in the learning process and innovation. From chalk-and-talk lessons and assisted learning methods to advanced educational tools, digital education continues to be the new wave of learning. A recent report stated that over 5.8 million students enrolled for online courses in 2016, which is a 263% increase over the last 12 years. The proliferation of digital tools, including apps, tablets and laptops, has transformed learners’ communication, engagement, opportunity for collaboration and feedback, as also delivery procedures.

http://www.financialexpress.com/education-2/a-peek-into-the-digital-future-of-education/648423/

By Campus Technology

Apple today released its first full-year course to teach college students how to design mobile apps using the Swift programming language. According to the company’s announcement, select high schools and six community college (CC) systems will offer the “App Development with Swift” curriculum this fall, reaching an estimated 500,000 students nationwide: Alabama Community College System, Columbus State Community College, Harrisburg Area Community College, Houston Community College, Mesa Community College and San Mateo Community College District. Students at these CCs will also have the opportunity to intern at Apple and receive mentorship from company employees.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/05/25/apples-app-development-curriculum-for-community-college-high-school-students-now-on-ibooks.aspx

by Michelle Li, KING

The Seattle Public Library system is now arming patrons with the tools they need to weed out fake news by launching a class called the Fake News Survival Guide. It’s already sparked a lot of interest from the public, other city libraries, and even libraries across the country. Many used the Seattle Public Library system as a real-life, human Google during the last election cycle. Last year Seattle public libraries answered roughly 850,000 phone calls, emails, and chats. Librarians around the country have been fielding reference questions in person and online for months. “We had a lot of questions regarding fact checking,” said Di Zhang, reference librarian. “So we put our library hats on and did the digging and found resources for people.”

http://www.king5.com/news/local/seattle-librarians-start-fake-news-class/435509535

by Matthew Lynch, tech Edvocate

Reading has always been an invaluable skill. Not only does it influence how we interact with the world but it is still the medium by which many students learn. And yet, statistics show that between 46 and 51% of American adults have an income well below the poverty level because of their inability to read. This is a scary fact, and with reading becoming more digital, it is important that educators start looking into how they can teach this important skill in a new digital age. With the explosion of Facebook, Instagram, and other social media applications, students are actually engaging more with written language than ever before.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/teach-reading-digital-era/

BY JEFF RUBENSTEIN, eSchool News

Interestingly, closing the digital divide within classrooms may have more to do with digital citizenship than hardware. For a while now, there’s been a great deal of concern over the digital divide—the gap between students who have easy access to technology and those who don’t. Most debates center on choosing the best classroom hardware to bridge the gap: ‘Should we try to get a laptop on every desk? Tablets? Two-in-ones?’ However, the hardware debate obscures a deeper issue. It doesn’t matter what kind of technology a student uses, so much as what the student is encouraged to do with it. The subtler, but no less harmful, digital divide is between the students who are empowered to be creators and problem solvers with technology, and those who aren’t.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/04/27/digital-divide-different/

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eSchool News

Expert recommends simple updates to regular classroom lessons to better prepare students for an uncertain future. Change is inevitable, and while it’s important to design lessons with an end result in mind, it’s difficult to prepare students for a future that doesn’t exist yet. In the recent edWebinar, “The Future Ready Challenge: Improve Student Outcomes in 18 Weeks,” hosted by edWeb.net, Dr. L. Robert Furman, Elementary Principal and author of The Future Ready Challenge, discussed some painless ways to help educators prepare students for an unknown future. “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist…using technologies that haven’t been invented…in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet,” noted Furman’s presentation.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/04/28/ew-easy-ways-future-ready/

By David Nagel, THE Journal

A controlled study involving 73 schools and more than 37,000 students found that early warning systems can have a statistically significant positive impact on student outcomes in K–12 schools, even when those systems are not used to their full potential. The report, “Getting students on track for graduation: Impacts of the Early Warning Intervention and Monitoring System after one year,” was prepared by the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest for the United States Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. The study was administered by the American Institutes for Research.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/04/25/study-tech-enabled-early-warning-systems.aspx

by Matthew Lynch, tech Edvocate

Many schools support a Bring Your Device (BYOD) policy for teachers. Other schools provide products like iPads and iPhones for teachers to use in their classes. Either way, there are plenty of apps that can be used in the classroom on an iPhone or an iPad. Some apps work well for different things, but they all are designed to do one thing: make the teaching process easier and more productive at the same time. Here are some apps that are essential to use on an iPhone in the classroom to gain that easy productivity to meet all needs and desires a teacher may have.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/teach-iphone-apps-use-classroom/

by Tim Williams, the Advertiser

University students are graduating with the “attention span of a tweet” and tertiary institutions will likely ban smartphones and laptops from classes so they learn to focus, outgoing Adelaide University boss Warren Bebbington says. Prof Bebbington has warned universities against responding to cost pressures by shifting courses entirely online, because technology-obsessed students are losing the capacity to concentrate and absorb complex arguments. “Tangibly, our tweeting, blogging, app-loving students are in danger of losing the capacity to listen at length, absorb a complex argument and summarise, dissect and evaluate what they hear as they hear it.”

by the Intelligencer Editorial

West Virginia students in grades 6-12 soon may be able to get at least some of their educations without leaving the comfort of home. A new state law permits public school systems to offer “virtual schools” online. They can begin July 1. Students in online classes also may participate in traditional classroom learning, as well as schools’ extracurricular activities. It requires little imagination to understand the boon that may be for many Mountain State students and their families. But with the wonderful opportunity goes an enormous responsibility — ensuring online students are not shortchanged in their educations.

http://www.theintelligencer.net/opinion/editorials/2017/04/proceed-cautiously-with-online-school/

by Pat Donachie, Education Dive

The use of artificial intelligence in U.S. education stands to increase by nearly 50% in the next five years according to a new report analyzed by eCampus News. The analysis found that AI-powered educational games are an increasing trend in educational institutions, as they can be utilized to teach students difficult subjects, and many of the AI additions are done in such a way that students can interact directly with the game without human intervention. Supporters think AI can be utilized to offer each student a personalized educational experience, and that it can help students as they start their college careers by addressing specific needs and questions with the time that staff may not have.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/report-next-4-years-will-see-ai-in-education-grow-by-nearly-50/441210/

By Richard Chang, Campus Technology

Everyone these days seems to be using Twitter, from the President of the United States to your neighbor to your classmates from way back when. For educators, Twitter can be a distraction or a gold mine of resources. You can send direct messages to other teachers or experts, join in on #edchat, which takes place Tuesdays from noon to 1 p.m. and from 8-9 p.m., or add plugins like Grammarly and check your writing or grammar. The school management software company Fedena has put together a handy, helpful graphic that offers 26 effective ways to use Twitter for teachers and educators. The items are listed from A to Z. At least a few of these should prove helpful for teachers looking for inspiration, resources or just a sounding board.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/04/26/26-effective-ways-to-use-twitter-for-teachers-and-educators.aspx