Group items tagged

"Communication centers, computers, laptops, mobile phones and tablets have all been spoken about at one point or another as technologies with promising applications for education. But mobile phones stand apart in an important way. In United States high schools, 98% of students have access to some kind of smartphone, according to a report by Blackboard and Project Tomorrow. The United Nation's International Telecommunication Union estimated that there were 5.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide at the end of 2010 - and that a full 90% of the world population now has access to a mobile network. In contrast, only about 2 billion people have Internet access. Students around the world are increasingly bringing their own mini-computers (or some connected device) to class. Whether this creates a distraction or a boon to learning is debatable, but these four uses of mobile phones in education - and countless others - could one day help prove the latter."

"For those wondering what a game-based classroom looks like in a traditional school, take a peek into Ananth Pai's third-grade class in Parkview/Center Point Elementary school in Maplewood, Minnesota. Using his own money and grants that he applied for, Pai has managed to round up seven laptops, two desktops 11 Nintendo DS's, 18 games for math, reading, vocabulary, geography, and 21 digital voice recorders. "

"The last four months have been tumultuous ones for our university. With the end of educational discounts for our island in Second Life, we faced a tough decision. Second Life's steep learning curve and our local system of incentives and rewards for faculty had discouraged any use of virtual worlds in our curriculum."

"Companies who want to know more about prospective employees can learn a lot by checking their Facebook profiles, according to a new study. Jennifer Golbeck and colleagues at the University of Maryland surveyed the public profiles of nearly 300 Facebook users for information about their favourite activities, TV shows, movies, music, books, quotes, and membership in political or other organisations. They also looked at the "About Me" and "blurb" sections. The work did not include status updates or other data that is only available to users' online friends."

"Connect.ed is an innovative, self-paced cybersafety education program offered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) as part of Cybersmart. Connect.ed provides teachers with the flexibility of a self paced environment to learn about current online behaviours of students, potential risks involved in these activities, a teacher's and school's duty of care and the appropriate tools, resources and strategies to help students to have safe and positive experiences online."

"With support from the Governor 's Productivity Investment Fund and the Virginia Department of Education, Radford University and participating schools in southwestern Virginia are exploring how the iPod Touch can be used to enhance effective teaching and learning. As school systems struggle with how best to deal with this cultural and technological shift, it is highly likely that the technology will continue to progress towards more powerful, wireless handheld computers that can deliver high quality, multimedia, computer processing power. " This site has links to games that have been developed as well as videos of iPods in use in schools.

"This might appear as tools that are not for games. That's because you're not thinking hard enough about games based learning. All of these things can be used in GBL - it's all a matter of perspective and design."

"Collaborative schooling is a model where the school collaborates with, and provides direction and support for its homes and community. It recognizes the profound impact the home has upon education and that in most of the students' homes and communities there is a vast, largely untapped 'teaching' capacity. It therefore seeks to integrate the efforts of the home and the school. The school has already recognized the opportunities the network and digital technologies provide for the school to network and work collaboratively with their homes and desired parts of their school community. This is seen in the following:"

"We invite students, teachers, designers, parents, careres, architects, industrial designers, interactive designers, interior designers, gardeners to join in and ideate, design, prototype new possibilities and reinvent the school experience in Australia. This is another ideas@play project."

"We invite students, teachers, designers, parents, careres, architects, industrial designers, interactive designers, interior designers, gardeners to join in and ideate, design, prototype new possibilities and reinvent the school experience in Australia. This is another ideas@play project."

"So I'd like to get more specific about what I think is wrong about the Khan Academy approach by writing about things I see as wrong with the way we teach math in the US. No matter if we agree or not about Khan Academy, I'm fairly certain we can agree math learning is not going as well as we'd like (to say the least.) Too many people are convinced by the system that they "hate math", and even students who do well (meaning, can get decent test scores) are often just regurgitating stuff for the test, knowing they can safely forget it shortly afterward."

Physics to Go is a collection of websites where you can learn physics on your own, through games, webcasts, and online exhibits and activities. Also included are physics on the road programs, which bring demonstration shows, and in some cases hands-on activities, to you, the audience. To find the resources you want, you can browse the collection and search our database by content topic, resource type, and grade level. We encourage your involvement in Physics To Go. Once you have registered and signed in, which requires only a username and password, you can build a personal collection, share your comments about resources already in the comPADRE collection, and suggest resources for us to add. Physics To Go is produced by the American Physical Society (APS). It is a part of comPADRE, the online collection of resources in physics and astronomy education, which itself is a part of the National Science Foundation-funded National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

With its open-ended nature and robust creation tools, Minecraft has been used to create some amazing things. And as one teacher learned, those very same elements that make the game so compelling also make it a great educational tool. Around two months ago, Joel Levin, a computer teacher at Manhattan's Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, decided to start using the game to teach an entire unit to his first- and second-grade students. The lessons took place almost entirely in the world of Minecraft. And it was a huge hit

"MissionV is providing a highly creative, totally immersive, game based learning environment for primary and post primary students. We're putting the focus on 21st century skills, helping chidren to become original digital creators with 3D modeling and programming skills. MissionV allows high potential students from all backgrounds to connect, create and collaborate in a 3D world entirely of their own making."

"One of the hardest thing with using the iPad in the classroom is finding the time to go through all of the apps in the iTunes Store listed under the education banner. We have started to list some of the apps we've found under each of the Key Learning Areas." The blog associated with this site is also a great read.

Below is text from Rupert Murdoch's (Chairman and CEO of News Corporation) speech at the G8 Forum in Paris. Education: The Last Frontier

"Terry Moore found out he'd been tying his shoes the wrong way his whole life. In the spirit of TED, he takes the stage to share a better way. (Historical note: This was the very first 3-minute audience talk given from the TED stage, in 2005.)"

"As connection speeds increase and the ubiquity of the Internet pervades, digital content reigns. And in this era, free education has never been so accessible. The Web gives lifelong learners the tools to become autodidacts, eschewing exorbitant tuition and joining the ranks of other self-taught great thinkers in history such as Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Allen and Ernest Hemingway."

"Mobile devices are now found in the hands of most children, and school leaders are using that to their advantage by incorporating devices that students already own into classroom lessons and projects.Concerns remain about students who are unable to purchase or borrow a device for use in the classroom, but districts might find creative ways-such as asking local businesses or community organizations for help-to provide devices in such instances, advocates of the trend say."

A neat set of videos from the ABC looking at the Digital World, Mobile and portable devices, New ways to watch TV, Podcasting and Social Media.