Educational Technology

by Kristin Houser, Futurism

Elon Musk co-founded artificial intelligence non-profit OpenAI just announced it has created an AI system that can learn to complete a task in reality after watching just one demonstration of that task in a simulated environment. The research company co-founded and chaired by Elon Musk used two separate neural networks to develop its one-shot imitation learning system. The first, a vision network, analyzes an image from the robot’s camera to determine the location of objects in reality. The second, an imitation network, determines the intent of a task it observes a human demonstrating via a virtual simulation. It then imitates the task in the real-world setting. Again, this network was trained on thousands of virtual demonstrations, but none that took place in reality.

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-just-unveiled-breakthrough-ai-research-heres-what-your-need-to-know/

by EARL HORLYK, Sioux City Journal

On May 18, Cortney Nelson walked across the stage at the Tyson Events Center to accept her associate degree from Western Iowa Tech Community College. Just eight days later, the 18-year-old Sioux City girl will also be accepting her high school diploma after graduating from Siouxland Christian School. Wait, Cortney’s graduating from high school and community college at the same time? “Actually if you go by the order of commencement ceremonies, I’ll be graduating community college and, then, high school,” she explained, noting that Siouxland Christian School is set to take place on Friday. “It’s weird how that worked out.

http://siouxcityjournal.com/lifestyles/local/four-students-earn-college-associate-degrees-before-graduating-from-high/article_d18c3567-78ce-56c8-adec-2046fbc35fa4.html

by Steven Levy, Backchannel

Last year, I went to Nigeria with Mark Zuckerberg. One of the first stops on the trip was a program that taught kids how to code. “What are you making?” he’d ask. And they would proudly say, “A game!” or whatever it was, and begin showing him how it works. Zuckerberg would stop them. “Show me the code!” he’d say, because, well, he’s Zuckerberg, and any occasion is ripe for an ad hoc programming review. And that’s when the kid would click on a menu that toggled from the game to the LEGO-like building blocks of a Scratch program. As we headed up the stairs to leave the building, Zuckerberg called out to me, “Scratch! Have you heard of this?” Scratch (developed just a couple of T stops away) is quickly becoming the world’s most popular computer language for kids taking their first bite of programming. Last year, over 120 million people came to its site.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-computer-language-is-teaching-kids-to-code-2017-5

By Celeste Edenloff, Echo Press

With a tiny screwdriver in his hands, Dylan Nelson set out to put back together a Chromebook he was in the process of rebuilding. A couple of feet away, Shayna Steidl was in the process of ripping apart a Chromebook she had been given to try and fix. Nelson, an eighth-grader, and Steidl, a seventh-grader, share a love for computers. And just like most of their peers at Discovery Middle School in Alexandria, these two students use their computers for homework, as well as gaming and watching videos on YouTube. But for Nelson and Steidl, their interest in computers goes much deeper as these two students, along with six other middle school students, are part of the newly formed Genius Team.

http://www.echopress.com/news/4265039-young-geniuses-keep-computers-running-discovery-middle-school

by the Orange Leader

In an effort to provide learning opportunities to the busiest people, Lamar State College – Orange (LSC-O) is reaching out to another category of non-traditional students. Starting in the Fall 2017 semester, students have the chance to complete an Associate’s degree program by attending hybrid classes only one day a week. Cleverly dubbed ‘One day a Week for a Two-Year Degree’, the courses are for anyone with a demanding schedule but still desires to enhance their skills and earn a degree.

http://www.orangeleader.com/2017/05/20/lsc-o-offers-hybrid-classes/

by THE Journal

Digital Promise, a national nonprofit organization authorized by Congress, and Education Elements, an education company, yesterday released several free resources that are designed to help districts through competency-based education (CBE) implementation. First, the “Competency-based Education Toolkit” catalogs a year’s worth of actionable advice and lessons learned from district leaders within the League of Innovative Schools, a national network of K–12 district leaders. The toolkit also includes a video series that showcases the power of competency-based education, cross-district collaboration and open education resources from leaders in several school districts.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/05/19/competency-based-education-in-action-school-districts-share-advice.aspx

By Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology

Virtual reality is taking off in higher education. VR devices are expected to increase 85 percent by 2020, with gaming and educational applications driving most of that growth. But what areas of VR should educators specifically focus on and what tech can they look out for? “We can expect to see certain trends in VR to move forward, while others will disappear. As devices continue to shrink we will see the development of augmented and mixed reality experiences that will power compelling visualizations, immersive storytelling, gamified simulations and learning experiences,” said Maya Georgieva, an ed tech strategist, author and speaker with more than 15 years of experience in higher education and global education.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/05/16/6-vr-trends-to-watch-in-education.aspx

By Richard Chang, THE Journal

I always start off with this question: “Have you ever felt inept, because you tried to open a door the wrong way?” There are these types of doors called Norman doors. You get confused about whether to pull instead of push, or vice versa. Don Norman was the author of The Design of Everyday Things. In the case of Norman doors, it’s poor design. If you’re opening a door the wrong way, that’s a fleeting moment. But if you start off a course on the wrong foot, because it’s poorly designed, that sets the tone for the whole rest of a student’s experience with the course. We look at a teacher-developed course. We look at that first walking through the door — when the student begins, is there stumbling around? That’s one of the first things we’ll do in that workshop.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/05/19/designing-your-online-course-learning-from-an-expert.aspx

by Matthew Lynch, tech Edvocate

Research shows that 75% to 80% of parents now use technology to placate or distract children, for example on a long car trip, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, when mum or dad is cooking dinner, or when it’s nap time. While this strategy works, it raises important questions about how children will develop all the social skills they need for our world. Screens may ward off kids’ complaints (or complaints from adults around us) but we’re doing children a disservice if our go-to strategy is always to use technology to keep them quiet.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/tablets-table-can-influence-child-development-not-always-good-way/

By Emma Brown, Valerie Strauss and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Washington Post

Funding for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, according to budget documents obtained by The Washington Post. The administration would channel part of the savings into its top priority: school choice. It seeks to spend about $400 million to expand charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools, and another $1 billion to push public schools to adopt choice-friendly policies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trumps-first-full-education-budget-deep-cuts-to-public-school-programs-in-pursuit-of-school-choice/2017/05/17/2a25a2cc-3a41-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

by Kaitlin Mulhere, Money

A first look at President Trump’s proposed 2018 education budget revealed massive changes to the federal financial aid system, including work study cuts, reshaping student loan payments, and eliminating a loan forgiveness program. The White House’s official 2018 draft budget proposal outline a more than $9 billion cut to the Education Department. The department’s spokeswoman Liz Hill said in an email that the department wasn’t commenting on the budget until it was released next week and that until then, negotiations are ongoing and numbers are preliminary. A president’s spending proposal has to go through Congress before becoming a budget, so it’s possible these cuts will be tweaked or removed from the final version altogether. Still, they reveal Trump’s and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s education priorities. Here’s what’s on the chopping block for college students and student loan borrowers.

http://time.com/money/4784214/trump-2018-budget-education-cuts-student-loans/

by Meredith Mitchell, KTHV

When it comes to K-12 education, Arkansas families have some options, but one in particular is becoming a fast favorite for students, parents, and teachers. Imagine if your child’s school was just a mouse click away. It’s a concept that’s growing across the state of Arkansas. “I was looking for an alternative to challenge my son,” said Kathryn Roset. Roset found that through the Arkansas Virtual Academy. “He learned everything, he would just soak it up,” she said. The online charter school serves grades K-12. On Wednesday, the state charter school board approved an enrollment increase for the virtual academy. Which will allow them to take a thousand more students over the course of the next few years. “The interest exceeds the number of seats available in high school,” said Scott Sides, head of Arkansas Virtual Academy.

http://www.thv11.com/news/local/popularity-of-online-charter-schools-increasing-across-arkansas-1/440606188

by Mario Koran, Voice of San Diego

Googling answers in real time as you take a test. Letting online lectures play on mute while you watch a movie instead. Typing in random letters and numbers as answers and receiving credit. Those are all moves students and educators told me happen regularly in San Diego Unified’s online credit recovery courses. On a recent visit to East Village High School, I even watched some of them do it. There, I saw students Google quiz questions from their online courses and pull up websites where other students have uploaded answers. I saw one student type gobbledygook where short answers were supposed to go – and watched as the computer marked the answer as complete. And I talked with students who said everybody is doing it – whether it’s an online course offered by San Diego Unified or a charter school that offers similar online classes.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/cheat-on-online-courses-san-diego/

BY Rich Baxter, EdNews Daily

Authentic personalized learning requires that 21st century schools are filled with students and families who are provided the opportunity to take on more responsibility for their learning, in response to the exponential increase in resources provided by the Internet. Excellent teaching and AI will guide this upward innovation movement, but ‘a shared leadership’ will facilitate more and more partnerships within communities and between them. Education is merging with neuroscience, quantum computing, and AI, redefining what it means to be human and thus what it means to learn and to teach. Where does that put education as a human endeavor and what other factors do we need to consider in order to take full advantage of the present knowledge revolution?

http://www.ednewsdaily.com/10-notables-changing-the-future-of-learning-and-teaching/

By Kara McWilliams and Marcy Baughman, EdSurge

If we really want to understand how effective educational technology tools are for improving learner outcomes, we need to stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As instructors consider technology tools for their courses, they are increasingly looking for evidence of effectiveness. However, researchers evaluating the impact of these technology tools on learner outcomes often ignore a critical component: the user’s local educational setting and how they choose to use the product. This is where implementation science can help.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-05-17-if-edtech-efficacy-research-ignores-implementation-how-does-it-help-improve-education

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eSchool News

School districts are routinely being overcharged by at least $3 billion on ed-tech products, including hardware and software, each year–the equivalent of 54,000 first-year teacher salaries, according to a new study from the Technology for Education Consortium (TEC). The study on ed-tech purchasing reveals schools spend an estimated $13.2 billion on ed-tech products each year. This includes $4.9 billion on hardware such as tablets, laptops and desktops, along with $8.38 billion on instructional and non-instructional software and content. The authors note that a lack of price transparency makes it difficult for districts to find cost-efficient options to fund their technology initiatives, resulting in over-spending.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/05/17/save-district-billion-ed-tech/

BY TIM WEBB, eSchool News

On the academic side, we incorporated new approaches such as blended learning, problem-based learning, and personalized literacy solutions like myON. With those pieces in place, we believe that every student can achieve proficiency in reading and mathematics in every year of their educational experience. We also believed that by accurately assessing and monitoring our students’ growth with our Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Rubric, we could help each student achieve proficiency in the “soft skills” they need. To this end, we implemented The Leader in Me program to provide a common focus, language, and platform for change. We also focused our efforts on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens to help our students grow in the SEL tier.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/05/18/principal-middle-school-triangle/

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Most parents have profound concerns about their children reading digital books on tablets. In a new survey of 1,500 parents of under-eights in the UK about their attitudes to children’s use of technology and digital books at home, we found that only 8% have no concerns about them using tablets to read. For using digital media in general, only 16% of parents had no concerns. By comparing the results with data from a similar survey conducted by the US-based Joan Ganz Cooney Center in 2014, the research also found that parents in the UK and US had different reasons for using or not using digital devices with their children. For example, more American than UK parents said that they use digital media together with their child to ensure they are not exposed to inappropriate content.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/tablet-computers/

by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, EDUCAUSE Review

The blockchain provides a rich, secure, and transparent platform on which to create a global network for higher learning. This Internet of value can help to reinvent higher education in a way the Internet of information alone could not.What will be the most important technology to change higher education? In our view, it’s not big data, the social web, MOOCs, virtual reality, or even artificial intelligence. We see these as components of something new, all enabled and transformed by an emerging technology called the blockchain. OK, it’s not the most sonorous word ever, sounding more like a college football strategy than a transformative technology. Yet, sonorous or not, the blockchain represents nothing less than the second generation of the Internet, and it holds the potential to disrupt money, business, government, and yes, higher education. The opportunities for innovators in higher education fall into four categories.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/3/the-blockchain-revolution-and-higher-education

By Jean Dimeo, Inside Higher Ed

Although tuition certainly matters to students, what matters more is “total cost of attendance.” That includes fees, books, transportation, and the opportunity cost of taking classes, among other things. (Reduced work hours to make time for classes leads to reduced income in the short term, which is a cost. Over time, if they graduate, they more than make it back, but in the here and now, it’s a cost.) Opportunity cost is lowest in recessions and highest during expansions, which is why our enrollments are counter-cyclical. So here’s the plan. If we get critical mass of sections using OER, and we can quantify the typical savings to students in some sort of credible way, I’d like to go to the Board with the following argument: If we raise tuition $5 a credit, a student taking 30 credits pays an extra $150 a year. But if we’re using OER in enough places that the student is saving $500 a year on books, she’s still coming out ahead.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/insights/2017/05/17/oer-could-boost-revenues

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eSchool News

Google’s Chromebooks are now the most used devices in K-12 classrooms across the U.S.  The use of Google in the classroom is true Googlification, or modeling learning off of Google’s own employee skillset, in that the use of Google and Chromebooks in the classroom aims to turn today’s students into creative and collaborative problem-solvers that know how to intuitively harness online and in-hand technologies. “Google is helping to drive a philosophical change in public education—prioritizing training children in skills like teamwork and problem-solving while de-emphasizing the teaching of traditional academic knowledge, like math formulas,” writes the New York Times.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/05/17/google-shift-education/