Educational Technology

By Sara Friedman, THE Journal
When it comes to preparing students for the future, two-thirds of parents endorse the idea of digital tools in the classroom, but 51 percent of parents are concerned that technology varies too much from teacher to teacher, class to class or subject to subject, according to a new report. These findings come from the Project Tomorrow’s 2017 Speak Up Research Project for Digital Learning, which surveyed 340,927 students, 34,833 teachers and 23,159 parents. The report was released at a Sept. 12 Congressional briefing where students, teachers and administrators spoke about how they use technology in their classrooms. The survey was conducted between October 2017 and January 2018. “Our real objective is to be an engine of change in schools and districts. We want to stimulate new ideas in schools and districts. We want to have actionable knowledge that people can use,” said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow and lead researcher on Speak Up.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2018/09/13/equity-problems-with-technology-persist-despite-adoption-gains.aspx

By David Ramel, Campus Technology
Organizations are hard put to keep pace with new developments in the networking industry, according to a new report. “Between multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and software-defined networking (SDN), there were about 15 years where the networking world was pretty static,” said Avi Freedman, co-founder and CEO of network analytics firm Kentik, which conducted the survey. “Right now we’re in a world moving as fast as the ISP world did back in the 90s. Every few weeks there’s something new.” The firm polled 531 networking pros during the recent Cisco Live 2018 conference to determine current networking trends and how organizations are addressing industry challenges. One key finding from the resultant report is that the top trend in networking is automation, named by about 36 percent of respondents. It beat out other trends such as advanced analytics for network or security, hybrid/multi-cloud migration and Internet of Things (IoT).

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/09/12/organizations-hard-put-to-keep-pace-with-sdn.aspx

By Ellen Rosen, The New York Times

The partnership is one of 14 across the country focusing on emerging technologies and industries addressing an increasingly important and frequently vexing question: how to prepare workers at all levels — technicians as well as people with doctoral degrees — for new technologies, like integrated photonics, that are in development, but only at the very early stages of commercial use. “Because the jobs don’t exist yet, we need to train students in the skills that are relevant today so they can get a job, but at the same time, very selectively, begin to supplement the training relevant to new industries,” said Sajan Saini, the education director of the AIM Photonics Academy, which is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/business/training-tech-workers-for-future.html

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

Campus digital learning leaders–those who supervise online education or instructional technology–overwhelmingly support more technology use in classrooms. Data from various research projects shows 97 percent of digital learning leaders have high support for more ed-tech on campus. Sixty-two percent of faculty have high support more classroom ed-tech, with 30 percent displaying medium support.  The support for more campus ed-tech has two clearly-defined motivators: 80 percent of digital learning leaders and 68 percent of faculty say they like to experiment with new teaching methods or tools, while 85 percent of digital learning leaders and 66 percent of faculty say they have succeeded with ed tech before.

Campus faculty: Give us more classroom tech

by Stella Lee, Chief Learning Officer
In recent years, there has been a lot of focus on adaptive e-learning, fueled by the advances of machine learning and artificial intelligence. As the one-size-fits-all approach of e-learning loses its appeal and online course attrition rates continue to rise, there is a move toward more personalized and adaptive learning to engage learners and achieve better learning outcomes. Personalized and adaptive learning has the ability to change learning content or the mode of delivery on the fly and to provide real-time feedback to learners. The origin of adaptive learning came from the research of intelligent tutoring systems, recommender systems and adaptive hypermedia. The advent of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques have helped the plethora of platforms and tools that support adaptive learning flourish.

https://www.clomedia.com/2018/09/12/machine-learning-applications-in-e-learning-bias-risks-and-mitigation/

BY REGINA KUNKLE, eSchool News
With rising competitive pressures, digital transformation can mean the difference between losing and improving institutional reputation.  The modern, public university is arguably facing more strain than ever before—both from outside and inside its walls. Marked by new competitors and declining funding, the state of today’s higher-ed marketplace has driven more public universities to turn to technology as a holy grail for readying them to compete. Universities are complex systems, comprised of thousands of departments, specialty schools, and student groups. They’re facing competition from for-profit institutions and tech startups, and the state funding for public universities is declining year over year.

Get on board with data integration

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Personalized learning refers to the effort to teach each individual student. Historically, most teachers have had little choice save to teach to the average. Of course, no one student is perfectly average. This means that teaching was often not appropriate for many students, who struggled as a result. But personalized learning reframes instruction by using the most appropriate tools, approaches, and content for each individual student. Of course, this is extremely difficult to accomplish without edtech tools. And one of the keys to implementing a quality personalized learning approach—one that is more likely to result in improved student learning outcomes—is a focus on data analytics. In other words, you need to understand learning analytics in order to personalize learning.

You Need to Understand Learning Analytics to Personalize Learning

by Kate Bueckert, CBC

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) has relaunched it’s #TextbookBroke campaign to highlight the high cost of textbooks and urge professors to choose free alternatives. The group initially launched the campaign in January, and during it, students shared stories about how not being able to afford textbooks impacted their education. “We saw students were spending about an average of $500 on textbooks,” said Shannon Kelly, vice president of student affairs for the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union and vice president of finance for OUSA. “Some students had to pick and choose between what textbooks they felt that they actually needed and could afford.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/university-waterloo-wilfrid-laurier-textbook-broke-free-1.4817656

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

College professors account for a sizeable portion of educators who, though they appreciate the value of digital tools and materials, do not use them to teach. All too often, faculty members see digital tools and materials as the ‘second best’ options when compared to traditional ones. Why is there such apathy or resistance toward edtech in the higher education classroom? I believe the answer lies in the deep-seated misconceptions and outright fears that some higher education professionals have towards technology.

3 Myths of Using Digital Tools in the Higher Education Classroom

by Kevin Bauman and Cody Christensen, American Enterprise Institute

If the goal is to increase the number of job seekers that participate in high-quality training programs, more can be done to improve the coordination between the Department of Labor and these groups. This report offers recommendations for enhancing the federal workforce development system by reviewing and identifying inefficiencies in the current system. It concludes by forwarding several policy suggestions
aimed at improving the way that Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding is used by job seekers and training providers.

http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Improving-Skills-Through-Americas-Workforce-Development-System.pdf

BY MONICA ANDERSON, PEW Research
Roughly one-in-four rural residents say access to high-speed internet is a major problem in their areaFast, reliable internet service has become essential for everything from getting news to finding a job. But 24% of rural adults say access to high-speed internet is a major problem in their local community, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year. An additional 34% of rural residents see this as a minor problem, meaning that roughly six-in-ten rural Americans (58%) believe access to high speed internet is a problem in their area.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/10/about-a-quarter-of-rural-americans-say-access-to-high-speed-internet-is-a-major-problem/

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

OER also makes it possible to keep resource-poor and underserved schools on a more equitable playing field. Complaints about out-of-date textbooks are a perennial problem for poorer schools, but OER helps to bridge that gap. Especially in STEM subjects, this is an important aspect of democratization. Groups such as CK12 mean that no student will need to rely on out-of-date texts. While there are still challenges, OER presents opportunities to democratize education that simply have no historical parallel.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-power-and-promise-of-oer-is-the-democratization-of-education/

BY BILL SHIELDS, eSchool News

For the past decade, personalization has been a hot topic in education. You may have wondered if it’s a real and attainable goal for your school system or if it’s some holy grail that many seek but few achieve. Community Consolidated School District 93 (CCSD93) in Illinois has been working to shift our instructional delivery system to a more personalized approach since the 2012-13 school year. While many believe that personalized learning is an instructional strategy directly tied to a laptop or tablet, for CCSD93, it goes well beyond that. Classroom instruction, curriculum, student grading, conferences, design thinking, and even learning spaces are components of our plan to personalize teaching and learning. Here are six steps that have been essential in our efforts to transform education in our nine schools.

6 steps to help your district systematically personalize education

By Joshua Bolkan, THE Journal
The makerspace isn’t just a fixed space where kids come and go to complete busywork. It’s an extension of a well-established approach to educating students that has applications and deep implications across disciplines. As makerspaces start to pop up in schools across the country, some educators, particularly those teaching non-STEM subjects, may be wondering what exactly they’re supposed to do with them. Policymakers and administrators, meanwhile, want to make sure the spaces and resources are well utilized and are providing as much educational bang for the buck as possible. Luckily, integrating makerspaces throughout the curriculum is fairly easy with the right frame of mind.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2018/09/04/integrating-makerspaces-throughout-the-curriculum.aspx

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

What will the school of tomorrow look like? The short answer is that it will look as much like the school of the past as a mainframe computer looks like a smartphone. In other words, everything will be different. Here are ten keys to designing tomorrow’s schools.

10 Keys to Designing Tomorrow’s Schools

BY JULIA FREELAND FISHER, eSchool News

Our free, searchable market map features all the tools we’ve come across (so far!) over the years and the types of relationships they are bringing within reach for students. The map is surely not a complete picture of tools that connect students. But as it’s grown over the years, our list of tools offers insights into how schools are starting to use technology in new ways beyond curriculum, assessment, and productivity.

Mapping the universe of edtech that connects

By David Nagel, THE Journal
The iOS version shares many features found in other versions of Minecraft EDU, including the Update Aquatic package for underwater STEM activities and the Chemistry Resource Pack. It includes a touch interface that is “functionally equivalent to the standard control scheme for the game,” according to Microsoft, which owns Minecraft. Licensing is being handled through the Microsoft Store, third-party resellers and volume licensing agreements. An Office 365 for Education account is required for deployment. A free trial version will also be available for teachers (maximum of 25 logins) and students (maximum of 10 logins).

https://thejournal.com/articles/2018/09/10/minecraft-edu-now-on-ipad.aspx

By Mary Grush, CampusTechnology
For years — since its beginnings back in 1997 — NJEdge has helped education institutions in New Jersey by providing networking services, consortial advantages with technology vendors, and above all, leadership in the use of networking and digital technologies. In a recent press release, the statewide networking and services organization announced the addition of seven new members to its board of directors — all distinguished higher education leaders in the state. The release explains that this move “signals an increased commitment to the digital transformation of education in New Jersey”. Here, Samuel Conn, president and CEO of NJEdge, talks about his organization’s ongoing priority of fostering “excellence in education through the effective use of technology”.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/09/10/supporting-digital-transformation-in-education.aspx

By Henry Kronk, eLearning Inside

While online learning excels in certain areas, it chronically suffers in others. Among the latter, student engagement, personal connection, and student-teacher interaction have been areas of focus for educators and researchers practically since the birth of the digital learning environment. Engagement in all learning environments, furthermore, is a topic of ongoing concern. A recent study conducted by Yueting Xu, a researcher at the School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guanghzhou, China, purports to have found a piece of the puzzle. An instructor of a university level English language course decided that, instead of providing written feedback, she would use a popular social media platform WeChat to record her comments on student assignments verbally.

How Audio Feedback Via Social Media Can Drive Engagement and Enhance Instruction

By Dr. Elaine Heffner, St. John News

You can often hear criticism voiced about pre-school groups as, “Oh, they just play there.” It is only when children are being taught letters, numbers or other academic material that they are seen as learning. Play has been called children’s work, and children are working at mastering many things through play. A colleague once said that you can’t learn the letter A without first experiencing an apple. What she meant was that letters are symbols and that a child needs to experience real things before confronting the symbols. It is that kind of experience that helps prepare children to learn to read and write. It is that kind of experience that children often are having when they play. Just as important, if not more, is the kind of emotional learning that grows out of play.

http://www.sjnewsonline.com/opinion/20180904/dr-elaine-heffner-learning-through-play

By Bill Hudson, WCCO

More than 850,000 Minnesota students return to their classrooms on Tuesday after summer break, and thousands of them will do so without ever leaving their homes. It’s possible thanks to virtual learning, where classes are taught by teachers at the other end of a home computer.  High school English teacher Kristen Rohloff is preparing for another school year. She’s doing so in the corner office of her home which also serves as her classroom. “The benefit is we can be teaching from anywhere in the state,” Rohloff said. The one-time public school teacher is now with Minnesota Virtual Academy. She is about to begin her fourth year teaching from the comforts of home. Since brick and mortar classrooms are not needed, MNVA’s students are enrolled from all parts of the state.

Virtual Learning Extends Public School Classroom