Educational Technology

By Julie Baughman, The Baltimore Sun

Digital Harbor High School was teeming with IBM employees preparing to educate middle-school students Wednesday morning about the supercomputer known as “Watson,” made famous by its appearance on the TV show “Jeopardy!” IBM President and CEO Sam Palmisano, a Baltimore native and Johns Hopkins University graduate, sponsored and attended the event, which was part of a worldwide “Celebration of Service” day to promote math, science and technology throughout the world. Schools Students who attended the event were introduced to Watson through videos and activities in which they learned about ambiguity, or words that might confuse the computer. They even created their own sample “Jeopardy!” questions.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-watson-students-20110615,0,6206373.story

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

A Ball State history professor saw a serious issue with the way fourth-grade Indiana textbooks were explaining a Civil War event. A computer science professor was interested in gaming at the same time. And through a mutual colleague, Ronald Morris and Paul Gestwicki started addressing a serious education problem with a serious game. They led computer science students in creating an educational video game about Morgan’s Raid. And now, schools can start using the game.

http://www.convergemag.com/college-career/Ball-State-Students-Create-Historical-Video-Game.html?elq=1114ce435b92426fbe1a0c099c737251

by Mark Brown, the Guardian

An 18th century treatise on the Prince of Orange’s interest in a stuffed hippo will join one of the first modern constitutions and pamphlets on Marie Antoinette as part of an ambitious project to make 250,000 books in the British Library available online for the first time. The library and Google said they were linking up to digitise out-of-copyright books from the collection, making them available to both specialised researchers and the simply curious. The library’s chief executive Lynne Brindley called it a “significant partnership” which was part of the institution’s “proud tradition of giving access to anyone, anywhere and at any time.” The out-of-copyright books from around 1700 to 1870 will be digitised over three years, with the majority being books from continental Europe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/20/british-library-google-digitisation-hippos

By JAMES M. ODATO, Times-Union

IBM says it is giving Union College a supercomputer unmatched on any liberal arts campus nationwide, if not worldwide. IBM announced Saturday that it donated the “intelligent cluster” hardware to the 2,100-student college. The news was delivered amid celebrations of Union’s new $22 million Peter Irving Wold Center, a building opened this week for innovative research and exploration. IBM will install and train staff on use of the system this summer.

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/IBM-donates-supercomputer-to-Union-College-as-1389953.php

By Kevin Cole, Omaha WORLD-HERALD

Hollie O’Brien’s road from central Nebraska to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took her through five schools without leaving her Arcadia High School desk. Wanting to better her chances for admission to one of the nation’s premier science schools, O’Brien took courses in nuclear engineering and physics taught at Burke High in Omaha; government, pre-calculus, trigonometry and geometry from Ansley High; calculus from Burwell High; and English from Central Community College in Kearney. And just for fun, she added some computer science for advanced scholars from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “I was able to take the courses that I needed in schools all around Nebraska without leaving Arcadia,” O’Brien said. “I wanted more math, so I went for it.”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110522/NEWS01/705229910

by Daniel Boffey, the Guardian

A million children’s exam results will be on average a grade lower than their peers this year because they do not have internet access at home, according to a leading charity. The e-Learning Foundation says that children without access to a computer in the evening are being increasingly disadvantaged in the classroom. Research suggests that 1.2 million teenagers log on to revision pages every week and those using online resources were on average likely to attain a grade higher in exams.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/21/children-internet-access-exam-advantage

by Point eLearning

Can increased use of ICT and new media, self-regulated learning, and the intelligent use of open educational resources drive the creative learning experience? Roberto Carneiro of the Catholic University of Portugal offers his perspective on the Spotlight on Open Educational Practices.

http://www.point-elearning.com/article/8192.html

by AppModo

As schools across the country have closed their doors for summer, students and parents who now find a little extra time on their hands can turn their attention to The DumDumb Exam. Played by over 55,000 dumdumbs so far, the app is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. “wow!!! I think this is way better than the moron test!!! ” – iTunes user Wackobirdy While it’s a whole lot of fun, The DumDumb Exam is also sneakily educational. Players will be challenged on their spelling skills, nursery rhymes, flags of the world, idioms, sports knowledge, dog breeds, movie lines, historical facts, science terms, and much more. “I love this game! I play it all the time and I finally got through the whole thing. Believe it or not I even learned a few things! Definitely a fun use of time.” – iTunes user Charbo1221

http://appmodo.com/52249/school-is-out-dumdumb-is-in/

by NECN Boston

His design won him the state science fair and has given him international recognition. But for 17-year-old Harihar Subramanyam the tornado application he created for his smartphone is not about the award- it’s about security for for his family. Subu began working on the tool last year after tornado warnings ripped through the area. The Wachusett High School junior says the application has several tools including a storm tracker, shelter locator and action planner.

http://www.necn.com/06/13/11/High-school-student-creates-tornado-app/landing.html?blockID=534652&feedID=4213

by the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service, University of Illinois Springfield

Join your colleagues for an open look at online learning trends, techniques, technologies and some great discussion panels with leaders in our field. All open! No charge. Great discussion. Links to hundreds of useful resources about online learning. Simply register with an email address at the site below and join in this worldwide collaborative event!

https://sites.google.com/site/edumooc/

by Lewiston Tribune, Idaho

“This isn’t about debating the legislation that passed, but it’s not about the minutia either. Your role is to think bigger and set policy,” facilitator Lauren Rhim told the group. “We’re talking about revolutionary transformation, versus evolutionary tinkering. … We need to step back and think completely differently about technology in the classroom.” Lisa Dawley and Chris Haskell with Boise State University’s Department of Educational Technology offered a glimpse at just how different the future of education might be. They discussed their 3D GameLab platform, which allows teachers to design a “quest-based curriculum” that mimics online games like “World of Warcraft,” or social media like Facebook. Rather than tests and due dates, they said, the games let students choose the activities that interest them. They earn “experience points” for completing various quests, which in turn are tied to the formal curriculum and teach students about a given subject. Grades are based on the number of experience points they earn.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2011/06/14/5571390.htm

by Beth Dalbey, Iowa Independent

When Alice, Lewis Carroll’s classic childhood literary heroine, stepped through the looking glass, she entered a world where she questioned her assumptions and jettisoned familiar rules. It’s no wonder, then, that Van Meter Community School Superintendent John Carver says the 630-student school district has “stepped through the looking glass” with a one-to-one initiative that trades textbooks for laptops in grades 6-12, connecting students to an infinite collection of human knowledge and for collaborations with peers around the country, and potentially changing the role of teachers from lecturers to facilitators and resource guides. Behind Van Meter’s looking glass, students – or learners, as they’re known in the lexicon of 21st-century education – are more likely to browse the World Wide Web than traditional library shelves when researching papers and presentations.

http://iowaindependent.com/57295/one-to-one-schools-%E2%80%98step-through-the-looking-glass%E2%80%99

By David Nagel, Technology Review

Kno Textbooks for iPad supports highlighting and note-taking. Ed tech developer Kno has formally released a version of its electronic textbook app on Apple’s iOS platform. Textbooks for iPad, currently in beta (though listed as version 1.3 in the App Store as of this writing), offers access to a catalog of 70,000 college- and university-level electronic textbooks from major textbook publishers, including Cengage Learning and McGraw-Hill Higher Education, among others. Kno reported it will offer books at 30 percent to 50 percent off list prices through the Kno Store.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/06/06/kno-brings-textbook-app-to-ipad.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

After trying out the Apple iPad for a short period–about three weeks–three out of four college freshmen said they’d be willing to purchase an Apple iPad personally if at least half of the textbooks they used during their college career were available digitally, according to the results of a classroom poll at Abilene Christian University. According to Scott Perkins, coordinator of mobile learning research in the Adams Center for Teaching and Learning at the Texas university, a similar willingness to purchase the devices was borne out among participants in semester-long pilots, which included both graduate and undergraduate students.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/06/15/is-the-ipad-ready-to-replace-the-printed-textbook.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

A Canadian university recently performed a simulation to see how well its network would hold up under the collective congestion of 100 Apple iPads running a multitude of common, bandwidth-hungry institutional applications. The University of Ottawa tested an Aruba Networks wireless network in its 250-seat auditorium in order to understand how real-world network performance would perform in a dense environment. “The devices that students use and the way that they use them has shifted dramatically in the last two years,” said CIO Sylvain Chalut. “Where we used to see about 75 percent laptops and 25 percent desktops, we now see maybe 50 percent laptops and the rest using other mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/06/13/u-ottawa-tests-put-high-concentration-of-ipads-through-paces.aspx

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

four Virginia school divisions, a four month pilot of e-books and iPads sheds light on the potential benefits and challenges these digital tools offer. The Beyond Textbooks Year One Report paints a qualitative case study that gives more insight into issues like cost. But it doesn’t draw definitive conclusions, said Tammy McGraw, the director of educational technology at the Virginia Education Department. Instead, this case study provides a snapshot of class experiences with e-books and mobile devices and raises questions that school districts should ponder.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/Virginia-iPad-ebook-Pilot.html?elq=d09acfb8be6d445894ea6d3bdcb4fd5d

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge Magazine

Both the 2010 and 2011 Horizon Report from the New Media Consortium suggest that cloud computing will become mainstream in the next year in K-12 school districts. A number of states, including Oregon, have already signed agreements with Google so that any district in the state can choose to move to Google Apps. On the higher education side, members of the California State University system have adopted both Microsoft Live@edu and Google Apps. But other universities have halted Gmail pilots because they’re concerned that research information being stored outside of the United States could become public.

http://www.convergemag.com/policy/Cloud-Computing-Survey-2011.html?elq=d09acfb8be6d445894ea6d3bdcb4fd5d

By Tanya Roscorla, Classroom Technology

Across the country, schools announce iPad pilots, bring the mobile devices into the classroom and rave about their new tools. “It’s really the first version of the iPad, and there’s a lot of bluster and a lot of sort of enthusiasm about iPads without a lot of concrete statistics and case studies to go by,” said Sam Gliksman, educational technology director at New Community Jewish High School in West Hills, Calif. “People are jumping in left, right and center,” he continued, “and what I’m finding is they’re great for some things, they’re a little limited in others, and it’s a different paradigm from using laptops. You can’t use them the same way, and I think that’s where a lot of people are jumping in and making a mistake.” To figure out how this device impacts schools, we’ll take a look at pilot programs in two California schools and one Oregon school district. Keep reading to find out the technical and instructional implications of the iPad in the classroom.

http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/Impact-iPad-K12-Schools.html?elq=d09acfb8be6d445894ea6d3bdcb4fd5d

Digital Textbooks Slow to Catch On

By NATALIA RACHLIN, New York Times

While autobiographies and murder mysteries, romance novels and self-help books have enjoyed a smooth transition from print to pixels, the college textbook has met resistance in its digital form. Although sites like CourseSmart , a collective effort among the five biggest American academic publishers to offer digital content, have made e-textbooks widely available at prices that are as much as 60 percent lower than the print editions, sales have yet to catch up; e-textbooks made up only 2.8 percent of total U.S. textbook sales in 2010, according to the National Association of College Stores.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/business/media/06iht-EDUCSIDE06.html?_r=1

by BURT LIKKO, the League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Back when I taught at the University that’s Online for Profit (which I shall decline to name here despite its high public profile but you may refer to it by its acronym UOP) there would be names that would show up in the class roster but the people involved would do little more than check in and then kind of go away. They wouldn’t turn in any work, they didn’t participate in anything the class did, and, not suprisingly, they failed the class. UOP has a mechanised policy that students who didn’t at least log in to the class were eventually automatically disenrolled from it, one of the things that UOP did that I liked. This doesn’t happen in live classes, and apparently it doesn’t happen in all online classes either.

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/burtlikko/2011/06/07/the-doomed-cyber-f/

by Heather Ford, the Berkeley Blog

Interviewing students, staff and faculty and observing social interactions in the student lounge, the classroom, the co-lab and corridors, I concluded that the ﾓspaces betweenﾔ class play an important role in the learning experience because it is here where students can construct knowledge with their peers and practice the performance of their new identities. The fact that these spaces are located outside the purview of those in authority and that they enable students to choose who they can be intimate with is critical to the success of these spaces for enabling peer learning. In contrast, private digital spaces are unavailable to students, with the result that students attempted to use spaces like Facebook to engage with one another resulting in harms including exclusion, identity crises and self-censorship. I noticed that the architecture of online-only educational spaces (looking at learning management systems, social media learning systems and open educational learning environments) seemed to replicate only the classroom space during class but without the protective walls available in conventional learning environments.

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/06/07/the-spaces-between-towards-private-spaces-for-peer-learning/