Educational Technology

by the Guardian

We find ourselves locked into interminable text chats with breezy automated bank tellers and offer our mother’s maiden name to a variety of robotic speakers that sound plausibly alive. I’ve resisted the domestic spies of Apple and Amazon, but one or two friends jokingly describe the rapport they and their kids have built up with Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Home Hub – and they are right about that: the more you tell your virtual valet, the more you disclose of wants and desires, the more speedily it can learn and commit to memory those last few fragments of your inner life you had kept to yourself. As the line between human and digital voices blurs, our suspicions are raised: who exactly are we talking to?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/how-can-you-tell-who-is-human-online-chatbots

MATT MCKINNEY, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Some educators embrace phones in class as a way to boost learning, allowing access to endless information and incorporating devices in school in a world that now relies on them. Others view phones as a distraction and show of disrespect, banning them with a vise-tight grip. Should students be able to use their phones in class? Well, it depends on whom you ask.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2018/11/18/Should-students-be-allowed-to-use-cellphones-in-class-Depends-whom-you-ask/stories/201811150209

by Martha Ross & Nicole Bateman, Brookings

Linked below are six key findings from our recent report, in which we focused on employment and job quality at age 29. Although there is no one age that signifies “adulthood,” by age 29 people have had sufficient time to finish high school, enroll in and complete college or training, perhaps have a few detours along the way, and settle into a job that provides financial security.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/11/14/six-takeaways-on-how-young-adults-find-good-jobs/

According to “Online and Distance Capacity of Canadian Universities,” a 2015 study commissioned by Global Affairs Canada, 361,000 members—nearly 30 per cent of the student population in Canada —took online courses in 2015. Currently, in Canada, there are around 10 major institutions that are widely recognized either as online universities or universities that offer well-recognized online degree programs. Some, such as Athabasca University and Thompson Rivers University, are predominantly online, whereas other schools such as Laurentian University and McGill University are more traditional universities but offer online degrees.

http://charlatan.ca/2018/11/the-internet-of-learning/

SIPHELELE DLUDLA, South Africa Business Report

Even when he failed his school-leaving exam for the third consecutive time in his native Ghana during the early 2000s, Cecil Nutakor remained convinced this was through no fault of his, but rather a rigid education system not geared to deal with inquisitive and creative students. “Everybody blamed me for not studying hard. But I felt that the system was too rigid and wasn’t designed to make learning interesting and fun,” Nutakor says. “The system was designed in a way that some of us who did not like cramming would keep failing.”

https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/international/entrepreneur-runs-thriving-e-learning-platform-despite-failing-high-school-18160233

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Digital IQ is a relatively new term that signifies how well an organization is utilizing their technological resources. A school system might use a digital IQ to measure their proficiency with the tablets, laptops, and software used in the blended classroom. Just as we strive to make advancements in other areas of our schools, educators should be working to raise their digital IQ. Setting a higher standard for teacher development in this area could have a major benefit to the students they serve.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/how-educators-can-raise-their-digital-iq/

By ANDREW J. CAMPA, Burbank Leader

While the college preparatory services offered by Providence High School are generally geared toward the classroom, the co-educational Catholic school offered its students a different type of university feel recently. On Nov. 6, Providence took part in the second of four scheduled online learning days, in which students were given assignments to complete from the comfort of their homes on their own schedules.

http://www.latimes.com/socal/burbank-leader/news/tn-blr-me-providence-online-day-20181116-story.html

by TRISTAN GREENE, the Next Web

Welcome to TNW’s beginner’s guide to AI. This (currently) five part feature should provide you with a very basic understanding of what AI is, what it can do, and how it works. The guide contains articles on (in order published) neural networks, computer vision, natural language processing, algorithms, and artificial general intelligence. There are few technologies that inspire the imagination like artificial intelligence. And, in the field of AI, the Holy Grail is living machines. The quest to imbue machines with the spark of life is an ancient one.

https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2018/11/16/a-beginners-guide-to-ai-human-level-machine-intelligence/

By Nancy Coleman, Columbia Missourian

The UM System is partnering with textbook company Cengage to make textbooks cheaper for students, President Mun Choi announced at a UM Board of Curators meeting Friday. Based on current enrollment numbers, students across the four campuses will save an estimated $3 million a year, Cengage Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Kevin Stone told the board. The project is the system’s third recent textbook affordability initiative, after an e-book agreement with McGraw-Hill Education and a plan to adopt open educational resources.

http://www.houstonherald.com/news/state/columbia/um-system-rolling-out-textbook-initiative-to-save-students-million/article_b768a429-87f6-5500-8c55-a43a6aa57ecd.html