Educational Technology Ray Schroeder, editor, OTEL - University of Illinois at Springfield |
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News, Techniques and Theories of Effective Use of Technology in Education 
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Saturday, July 15, 2006
From Boardroom to Classroom - Christopher Heun, School CIO
Talk long enough about bringing technology into the classroom and the conversation will typically turn into a discussion of video games that combine dazzling graphics with an educational component. But there are plenty of other tools to work with beyond the arcade. Applications that businesses have designed to improve their operations—simulations, voice recognition programs, and user-modeling software, to name a few—could also find a place inside schools. All that’s missing, according to some experts, is for the federal government to step in and help pay for them to be adapted for new uses. (0) comments
FREE Resources -- Health and Safety - TechLearning
More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE web site. FREE stands for Federal Resources for Educational Excellence. The web sites listed below are excerpted with permission from the FREE web site. This month, we highlight web sites about health and safety; in other months, we feature other subject areas. (0) comments
Video sharing creates challenges for schools - eSchool News
Video sharing, which allows internet users to share personal video clips with other users by posting them to popular web sites such as YouTube.com and others, is one of the hottest new trends online. But it's also creating new challenges for educators and parents who struggle to guard children against exposure to lewd and inappropriate content online. (0) comments Friday, July 14, 2006
Colonial Williamsburg turns to podcasting to tell its story - Mercury News
Thomas Jefferson isn't about to start listening to an iPod, with telltale earbud wires dangling from under his three-cornered hat as he walks the streets of Colonial Williamsburg. But people far from the restored 18th-century capital of Virginia can use their portable audio players to hear costumed interpreter Bill Barker talk about portraying Jefferson or, in honor of the Fourth of July holiday, read the Declaration of Independence. The world's largest living history museum long has used modern media to share its stories with audiences far beyond its 301-acre Historic Area, dating back to before World War II when it produced an educational film for schools (0) comments
Teaching goes high tech - Andrea Falkenhagen, Tribune
Traditional teaching tools are biting the chalk dust in East Valley schools, as chalkboards, white boards and slide projectors are being replaced with new computerized, digitalized versions. Schools in Chandler, Tempe and Mesa are piloting high-tech classrooms where nearly everything is done on computers. The Scottsdale Unified School District is even asking voters to approve an $89 million override to pay for laptops for every high school freshman, interactive white boards, document cameras and wireless Internet connections in every school. (0) comments
Will E-Rate Be Revived? - Scott Wallask, VARBusiness
Getting software cycles aligned is just one of the technology-purchasing issues facing the nation's schools and libraries. These agencies are also on the hook to provide telecommunications and Internet service, two tech areas that can be difficult to navigate and susceptible to waste and abuse. But within a new telecommunications reform bill is language that could breathe new life into what's known as the E-rate program, a $2.25 billion fund for schools serving low-income areas that can help educational organizations acquire telecom and online services. The changes could put E-rate back on track by expanding the number of agencies it serves and improving accountability. (0) comments Thursday, July 13, 2006
ZD Soft Screen Recorder 1.5
It’s important to be able to record any number of computer activities, whether it be the use of a word processor, websites visited, and so on. With ZD Soft Screen Recorder, users can record screen activities to a video file that can be replayed at their convenience. Visitors might consider using this application to create teaching videos, animated tutorials, or screen demonstrations. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and XP. From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006. http://scout.wisc.edu/ (0) comments
Educate
Many budding academics are seeking to get a first publication over the proverbial transom, and a number of journals actively recruit their work and findings. One such journal is Educate, which is published twice a year by the Institute of Education at the University of London. The journal was first published in 2001, and has recently been made available online here. Interested parties can browse by issue, author, or title. The range of material published within the journal’s pages includes pieces on the creation of educational policy creation in the United Kingdom to funding higher education in Rwanda. Finally, visitors can also read about how to submit their own work to the journal for consideration. From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006. (0) comments
MathDL: Digital Classroom Resources
With an increased focus on the importance of teaching mathematics throughout the education system in the United States, the discovery of this fine online collection of resources is most welcome. Developed by the Mathematical Association of America (with substantial support from the National Science Foundation), the site contains hundreds of classroom materials that have been extensively tested and reviewed by peers in the field. On the site’s homepage visitors can look through some of their “Featured Items”, which range from interactive linear algebra exercises to open source components that can be added to course websites. Visitors who know what they are looking for should use the search engine to move through the materials by subject or category. Additionally, users can also submit their own mathematical teaching tools to the site’s editor for consideration. From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006. http://scout.wisc.edu/ (0) comments Wednesday, July 12, 2006
College Student Tracking Assailed: Opponents Cite Survey Showing Private Schools Oppose Idea - Lois Romano, Washington Post
Private colleges yesterday fired a rather noisy shot across the bow of an education proposal aimed at keeping closer tabs on institutions of higher learning through a new national database of student records. "Is there some reason to reverse three decades of [privacy] policy and go down this Orwellian road?" asked Christopher B. Nelson, the president of St. John's College, during a conference call with reporters to call attention to a new survey on the subject. The controversial concept of a national student "unit" tracking system has been floating around for about two years. It was given a boost last month when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings's Commission on the Future of Higher Education released a draft report endorsing such a plan. (0) comments
Digg Expands Beyond Tech News - Reuters
Digg.com, a tech-news phenomenon that has readers recommend online articles to others, is expanding to let users also vote for the most popular general news, entertainment stories or videos, the company said Thursday. Challenging a long-held journalistic assumption that editors know best what people want to read, the 18-month-old San Francisco start-up has surged to become one of the most widely read sources of technology news on the Web. (0) comments
An Education in Collaboration - Harold German, techLearning
Remember those bulky, expensive video conferencing systems you would see in well-equipped schools not too long ago? You know, the ones the district technology director never allowed you to touch? Every now and then, you would sit in on a video meeting and curiously await the pixel-laden face on the screen. By all accounts, this no-longer fuzzy, unreliable and inaccessible technology – now called collaborative technology – is making a more pronounced and permanent impression on educational institutions of all sizes. Whether you’re in an Ivy-league university, or an inner-city grade school, conferencing is quickly becoming a smart and efficient way for students to improve the way they learn. (0) comments Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Online, in class - JUSTIN ENGEL, THE SAGINAW NEWS
This fall, the information superhighway is opening up to Saginaw Valley State University students looking for classes minus the classroom. The Kochville Township college -- which previously carried courses with only partial Internet components -- is offering 17 online courses for fall semester, primarily graduate school classes for education and business students. "It's an exciting development," said Donald J. Bachand, SVSU's new vice president of Academic Affairs. "We decided the need to be competitive in business and education (demanded offering completely online courses)." (0) comments
Are You Ready to Go Hybrid? Hybrid Education Across the Nation - James N. Eastham, Jr., EMS Responder
The word "hybrid" is rapidly becoming part of the American vocabulary and is synonymous with a number of benefits, including lower transportation costs and increased fuel efficiency. These benefits are accomplished by blending electric motors and gasoline engines to power an automobile. Hybrid education is also a blending process that combines classroom-based education with technologically distributed teaching methods. Just like the automotive application of the term, hybrid education can lower the costs and increase the efficiency of the educational programs we offer. (0) comments
Florida Virtual School (FLVS) launches Virtual School Administrator
At the 2006 National Educating Computing Conference held in San Diego, California, July 5 – 7, Florida Virtual School (FLVS) launched Virtual School Administrator (VSA), an innovative Performance Management System. Designed specifically to meet the unique needs of organizations providing online learning opportunities to students, VSA is a dynamic, performance-based system developed to provide program administrators with the tools they need to effectively manage the successful operations of an online learning program. In creating VSA, FLVS has built a comprehensive solution for tracking overall performance through monitoring activities in four areas: student performance and data management; student registration and enrollment management; role-based reporting; and communications. (0) comments Monday, July 10, 2006
HP Technology for Teaching Grant Initiative - Technology News Update
HP today awarded 25 schools in the United States and Canada a total of more than $2 million in mobile technology, cash and professional development. Part of the company’s 2006 HP Technology for Teaching grant program, these “leadership” grants were presented to 15 K-12 public schools and 10 two- and four-year colleges and universities. These schools received grants in 2004-2005 and were invited to apply for additional investment support. Recipients were selected for reinvestment based on their success integrating HP technology into their classroom curriculum, demonstration of positive results on student achievement, and innovative plans to expand their programs to have a broader impact on student success. (0) comments
Linux school lab 'expelled' - Shawn Lunn, P2P net
The Center for Research in Educational Policy at the University of Memphis issued the report after evaluating Michigan’s “Freedom to Learn” one-to-one teaching and learning program (Michigan FTL) for 2004-2005. The report gauged the program’s impact through a comprehensive process that included classroom observations and thousands of surveys from students, teachers and administrators. HP and Microsoft Corp. collaborated with the Michigan FTL to design and implement the program, which currently has the participation of some 23,000 students and 1,500 teachers across 100 Michigan school districts. By providing students and teachers their own wireless HP notebook PCs, combined with comprehensive training and curriculum, the students are able to learn at their own level and pace. (0) comments
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/kgFiM156jr9H73/Its-Official-To-Google-Is-Grammatically-Correct.xhtml
Everyone seems to be content with making "google" a generic term except the search company that invented the name. "To google" has caught on to such a degree that Merriam-Webster decided to include it as a transitive verb in the upcoming new edition of its dictionary. However, Google is concerned that its name will lose specificity, with people using it to describe any search process. (0) comments Sunday, July 09, 2006
Maine extends laptop program with Apple - eSchool News
The first state to equip students statewide with laptops, Maine has just signed a new contract with Apple Computer to continue the program four more years. Under the $41 million contract, Apple will equip 32,000 students and 4,000 teachers with new iBooks and upgraded wireless networks. The old computers will be refurbished and deployed elsewhere in Maine school systems--further extending the program's reach. (0) comments
Good news for Linux users in court battle - eSchool News
U.S. Magistrate Brooke Wells has struck down many of the SCO Group Inc.'s claims against IBM Corp. SCO has filed a $5 billion lawsuit against IBM, in which it accuses IBM of giving SCO's Unix code to Linux developers. However, Wells ruled that SCO has virtually no proof of this allegation. Of SCO's 294 claims, Wells struck down 182. This is good news for educators, whom may have been responsible to pay licensing fees should SCO eventually have a decision in its favor. (0) comments
Education Dept. Warns of Inaccurate NCLB E-Mails - Alyson Klein, EdWeek
The U.S. Department of Education is seeking to debunk widely circulated e-mails that erroneously say the No Child Left Behind Act mandates that students who fail their 10th grade reading and math tests must accept an inferior high school completion certificate that would prohibit them from attending college or vocational school. “These e-mails are inaccurate, could lead to misunderstanding, and need to be corrected,” Chad Colby, an Education Department spokesman, said in a May 24 statement. (0) comments Educational Technology News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
