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News, Techniques and Theories of Effective Use of Technology in Education Times and Dates Coordinated Universal Time
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Interactive gadgets latest classroom innovations - Sarah Nagem, Salisbury Post
Long gone are the days of students being called to the chalkboard during class. Now they're called to the high-tech interactive computer system. Just ask 10-year-old Taeya Teasley, a fifth-grader at North Rowan Elementary School. During a recent science lesson about machines, Taeya used an electronic pen to identify pictures of levers, gears, pulleys and other devices. (0) comments
Path to advancement includes required online class in high school - Joseph B. Morton, Alabama School Superintendent
Today is the right time for FIRST CHOICE: Online Course requirements will mean that every high school graduate beginning with the senior class of 2013 will earn at least one credit through some form of online learning. That is the format today's students will use for the rest of their lives on their jobs, so getting them ready in high school only makes sense. (0) comments
WiMax could be successor to Wi-Fi - Queenie Wong, McClatchy Newspapers
A wireless technology that Sprint Nextel plans to launch within a year makes high-speed and secure Internet access possible from almost anywhere. Called WiMax, it's the heart of a huge telecommunications industry effort to supplant Wi-Fi, the service that most users rely on for wireless Internet connections at broadband speeds. If it succeeds, WiMax technology could be as big a change as the mobile phone revolution. An independent technology consulting firm, Boston-based Yankee Group, estimates that 58 million people worldwide will use WiMax by 2012.... WiMax's faster Internet access also would make long-distance learning more interactive, and its stronger signal would reach more students. (0) comments Tuesday, May 13, 2008
U.S. Census Bureau: History
While the U.S. Census Bureau has only been in existence since 1903, the first population census was taken in 1790, per the requirements stated in the United States Constitution. This rather engaging website traces the history of the census through statistics, historic photographs, and other documents. On the homepage, visitors can browse through the "This Month in Census History" feature and learn some quick facts in the "Did You Know?" section. Moving along, the "Census-Then & Now" area should not be missed. Here visitors can learn about past directors of the census (such as Thomas Jefferson), read up on relevant legislation, and even look over biographies of notable census alumni. Next up is the "Geography & Mapping" section which contains an overview of how the Census maps data, coupled with a few famous maps from censuses past. One item that shouldn't be missed is the "Centers of Population" map, which shows the mean center of the population of the United States following each census. The site is rounded out by a "Through The Decades" feature, which brings visitors up to speed with the various changes made for each census.From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu (0) comments
Introduction to Psychology
Psychology is a vast and complex area of inquiry, and students entering the field may be confounded by the number of subfields within the discipline. Professor Russell A. Dewey of Georgia Southern University has created this fine online introductory textbook that covers everything from states of consciousness to social psychology. The online text includes sixteen chapters, and each chapter contains a number of parts that break each topic into smaller subtopics. The text is well-written and it draws on a number of examples and well-known experiments that will keep readers engaged. The site is rounded out by the inclusion of Professor Dewey's contact information and links to additional resources.From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu (0) comments
JourneyNorth: A Global Study of Wildlife Migration
Not many websites bring together whooping cranes, gray whales, and bald eagles, but this educational resource from Annenberg Media manages to do just that. The site is designed to help students learn more about the global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change by drawing on their own observations. On the homepage, visitors can click on a diverse set of animals to learn more about their migratory patterns. Moving on down the site, visitors can also contribute their own recent sightings and take a look at data that's been submitted by other users. The "Maps" section is a great way to get a visual overview of the most recent sightings and there's a great area for teachers that includes instructional activities and classroom lessons.From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2008. http://scout.wisc.edu (0) comments Monday, May 12, 2008
Redefining Data-Driven Decision Making - Keith Waters, School CIO
Throughout the country, district superintendents expect their chief information officers and IT staff to play an instrumental role in helping educators increase the quality of education. But the processes and steps to improving performance are often not so clear. In 2003-2004, educators from 12 districts in the St. Louis metropolitan area decided to tackle this complicated issue head on. They participated in a series of workshops in which they identified and analyzed factors that strongly influence student learning. After exploring numerous barriers to achievement, it became clear that any solution would have to be systemic in nature and could not rely solely on information technology. The concept that emerged was referred to as Educational Performance Management (EPM): “Educators using data and decision support tools to continuously improve educational practice for the purpose of increasing student learning.” (0) comments
Getting Started with Data Warehousing - Lane Mills, School CIO
The first in a series on managing data efficiently in your district. These days, "data-driven decision making" is on every school district's buzzword bingo game board. Accountability pressures and lean budgets make translating data into information is a major focus of school systems trying to improve district outcomes in all areas. As such, data warehousing has become an essential district tool. Historically available only to large corporations due to price and complexity, data warehousing is now an affordable and manageable option for gathering, manipulating and incorporating district data. While the inclusion of a data warehouse can be a boon for districts, the process of its development and support needs careful planning and management. (0) comments
Business Intelligence Basics - Lane Mills, School CIO
Multi-modal means of analyzing data can produce actionable results. School systems face many decisions in developing and maintaining learning environments that create success for all students. From district operations to the classroom, we implement solutions and take action based on the information we have at hand. While there is no shortage of data, turning that data into useful information is as much an art as it is a science. Sophisticated and useful business intelligence tools that can aid in decision-making and change are now accessible to district leaders to help with this process. (0) comments Sunday, May 11, 2008
Digital Age Assessment: Part 2 - Harry Grover Tuttle, techLearning
A look at how technology use in formative assessments improves feedback and reporting opportunities. Once teachers have identified and shared the standards with students, instructed them via meaningful learning experiences, monitored their progress, and diagnosed learning strengths and gaps, they are ready to give feedback and report on student growth. This formative feedback directly helps students improve their performance. (0) comments
Plan and Deliver - Ken Brown, techLearning
You've worked diligently to gather support for that big tech initiative from the employees, public, and patrons of your district. You've secured the funding required for the technologies described within the local district technology plan. The tech has been bid upon, purchased, and is on its way. Now comes the hard part—actually getting staff and students to learn and to use it. The time has come to craft a technology professional development plan. Your district has no doubt performed school improvement processes before, but possibly not where technology was the primary focus. This sort of plan requires special aspects—assessing the technology literacy, usage, and attitudes of the faculty; designing individual educational technology plans for each faculty member; developing and delivering technology professional development programs; and assisting faculty in integrating it into the curricula. By using the next three steps as a guide, that technology will not only be in place but also will get put to good use. (0) comments
Picture This: Video Streaming To Your Classroom - Julia VanderMolen, techLeanring
With new technologies comes new ways of developing and delivering educational resources. The Internet has opened up an exciting new realm of useful content. However, with such a vast repository of information there comes the problem of deciphering what is quality and relevant content. Streaming Video can provide a very powerful tool that can enhance the learning environment both in and out of the classroom. It allows you as the teacher to enhance the classroom experience by playing media in the classroom with a simple click on a web link. Students can access the videos to study for exams, review information that they may have not clearly understood, or watch the video to build on what was presented in class. (0) comments Saturday, May 10, 2008
Blogging helps encourage teen writing - eSchool News
A new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project explores the intersection between teens, technology, and writing.For most media outlets that reported on an important new survey measuring the impact of technology on teens' writing skills, the big news from the survey was that emoticons and text-messaging abbreviations are creeping into students' formal writing assignments. :-( Buried beneath the alarm of writing "purists," however, was a promising finding with equally important implications for schools: Blogging is helping many teens become more prolific writers. (0) comments
Lawsuit challenges school system's web use - Dennis Carter, eSchool News
The Lexington 1 school district in South Carolina is being sued for refusing to post pro-voucher links on its web site.A South Carolina man is suing his local school system for refusing to post links to pro-voucher internet sites in a case that raises questions about what school districts can promote or exclude from their web sites. Randy Page, head of an activist group called South Carolinians for Responsible Government, filed a lawsuit last month after Columbia, South Carolina's Lexington County School District 1 did not post links to sites advocating school choice side-by-side with web links that school officials publicly support. (0) comments
Report: Give schools $20 billion upgrade - Dennis Carter, eSchool News
A newly released report shows that low-income, urban schools often lack access to the latest in classroom technology. To narrow the digital divide, funding for up-to-date video and voice technology in schools should be a focus of federal and state decision makers from coast to coast. The report, released by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI), calls for $20 billion in school infrastructure improvements. Much of that money would target long-deferred investments in schools located in low-income areas. The report found that high-income school districts have consistently received more federal and state support over the last decade—a trend that needs to change as low-income schools fall farther behind, said Mary Filardo, author of the report and executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, an organization that advocates on behalf of urban school systems. (0) comments Friday, May 09, 2008
Web 2.0 Event Draws the Bleeding-Edge Cloud Crowd - John K. Waters, THE Journal
Tim O'Reilly woke up his end-of-the-day audience when he took the stage at last week's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The publisher declared that the Internet is fast becoming "a global platform for everything," and an "amazing tool for harnessing collective intelligence." "Up until now, a lot of the Web 2.0 activity has been on the consumer Internet," O'Reilly said, "but I think enterprises really are starting to understand that Web 2.0 is about turning themselves inside out, about becoming network citizens, opening themselves to the world in new ways. If the number of enterprise-oriented announcements at the event is any indication, O'Reilly might be right. Eight notable commercial releases stood out in the bleeding-edge cloud crowd at this year's show. (0) comments
Study: Teens See Disconnect Between Personal and School Writing - Dave Nagel, THE Journal
Students see a distinction between the writing they do for school and the writing they do in their personal lives. While the vast majority of 12- to 17-year-olds (85 percent) engage in some form of electronic writing--IM, e-mail, blog posts, text messages, etc.--most (60 percent) don't consider this actual writing. That's one of the findings from a study released last week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools and Colleges. (1) comments
Chicago Public Schools Taking Grades Online - Dave Nagel, THE Journal
Beginning this summer, Chicago Public Schools will implement a Web-based gradebook system, piloting GradeSpeed.NET from Campusware at select campuses. GradeSpeed.NET is a customizable online tool that provides grade, assignment, and attendance tracking, as well as reporting capabilities and tools for students and parents to follow along. (0) comments Thursday, May 08, 2008
Characteristics of excellent ICT lessons - Terry Freed, TechLearning
Here in the UK we use the term "ICT" -- Information and Communications Technology -- rather than "educational technology", and in many schools it is taught as a discrete subject. So what is it that makes an ICT lesson excellent? In this list, I have tried to suggest some of the characteristics that may be present -- although I hasten to add that one would not expect to see all of them in the same lesson! (0) comments
Sibelius Student - Chad Criswell, Technology & Learning
Sibelius Student is the latest in a long line of music education software products from the UK-based company. Basically a scaled-down version of the flagship Sibelius music notation software, Student sells for hundreds of dollars less than the full version without stripping away the most useful features. (0) comments
Exhibit 2.0 - MIT
Create interactive data-rich web pages without ever touching a database or a web server, or doing any programming: If you just want to show a few hundred records of data on maps, timelines, scatter plots, interactive tables, etc., why bother learning SQL, ASP, PHP, CGI, or whatever when you can just use Exhibit? To use Exhibit, you write: a simple data file, and an HTML file in which you specify how the data should be shown. Data + Presentation. That's all there is to publishing, as it should be. (0) comments Educational Technology News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
