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John Evans

Data Was Supposed to Fix the U.S. Education System. Here's Why It Hasn't. - 2 views

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    "For too long, the American education system failed too many kids, including far too many poor kids and kids of color, without enough public notice or accountability. To combat this, leaders of all political persuasions championed the use of testing to measure progress and drive better results. Measurement has become so common that in school districts from coast to coast you can now find calendars marked "Data Days," when teachers are expected to spend time not on teaching, but on analyzing data like end-of-year and mid-year exams, interim assessments, science and social studies and teacher-created and computer-adaptive tests, surveys, attendance and behavior notes. It's been this way for more than 30 years, and it's time to try a different approach. The big numbers are necessary, but the more they proliferate, the less value they add. Data-based answers lead to further data-based questions, testing, and analysis; and the psychology of leaders and policymakers means that the hunt for data gets in the way of actual learning. The drive for data responded to a real problem in education, but bad thinking about testing and data use has made the data cure worse than the disease."
John Evans

The Data Workout: How It's Impacting Teaching and Learning | EdSurge Guides - 2 views

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    "If you think data-in education, or any field-is cut and dry, think again. Working with data in the classroom, especially, can be either exhausting or exhilarating-depending on your fitness level. Data can be big, but also quite small. It's often quantitative, but is increasingly qualitative. It's predictive, but not always inclusive. It's private, but not always protected. But one thing's for certain: data has enormous power to impact teaching and learning."
John Evans

N.S. making plans to teach coding to students in every grade | The Chronicle Herald - 1 views

  • The province is drafting plans to make coding a part of the curriculum in every grade. Education Minister Karen Casey told a room of more than 600 students at the Big Data Productivity Congress in Halifax on Wednesday that learning coding will help prepare them for future careers. “We know that coding promotes problem-solving, teamwork, critical thinking, innovation and creativity,” Casey said. “And we also know that those skills are directly related to industries like computer programming, manufacturing, communications and more. And those are the industries that you will be going to.” The Education Department will finalize its plans over the course of the 2015-16 school year, and will introduce formal coding instruction in some grades in September.
  • Casey said the department has already laid the groundwork by teaching students in grades Primary to 3 about the basics of computer safety and problem-solving.
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    "The province is drafting plans to make coding a part of the curriculum in every grade. Education Minister Karen Casey told a room of more than 600 students at the Big Data Productivity Congress in Halifax on Wednesday that learning coding will help prepare them for future careers. "We know that coding promotes problem-solving, teamwork, critical thinking, innovation and creativity," Casey said. "And we also know that those skills are directly related to industries like computer programming, manufacturing, communications and more. And those are the industries that you will be going to." The Education Department will finalize its plans over the course of the 2015-16 school year, and will introduce formal coding instruction in some grades in September."
John Evans

What a School District Designed for Computational Thinking Looks Like | MindShift | KQE... - 0 views

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    "Computational thinking is intimately related to computer coding, which every kid in South Fayette starts learning in first grade. But they are not one and the same. At its core, computational thinking means breaking complex challenges into smaller questions that can be solved with a computer's number crunching, data compiling and sorting capabilities. Proponents say it's a problem-solving approach that works in any field, noting that computer modeling, big data and simulations are used in everything from textual analysis to medical research and environmental protection."
John Evans

What is the Python programming language? Everything you need to know | InfoWorld - 0 views

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    "Dating from 1991, the Python programming language was considered a gap-filler, a way to write scripts that "automate the boring stuff" (as one popular book on learning Python put it) or to rapidly prototype applications that will be implemented in other languages. However, over the past few years, Python has emerged as a first-class citizen in modern software development, infrastructure management, and data analysis. It is no longer a back-room utility language, but a major force in web application creation and systems management, and a key driver of the explosion in big data analytics and machine intelligence."
John Evans

Personalized Learning, Big Data and Schools | Edutopia - 4 views

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    "Simply put, we live in an age of personalization and customization -- and companies know it and are gearing their efforts to serve our needs in the way they think we want to be served. "
John Evans

3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time - Finding Common Ground - Education ... - 2 views

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    "3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim
John Evans

Coding for Kids | Betchablog - 9 views

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    "While not every student might want to write their own software, understanding the big ideas of coding is a skill that all students would benefit from, even the very young ones. Understanding the key ideas of computational thinking - identifying patterns, thinking algorithmically, manipulating data, solving real problems, etc - is an important step in helping our students build mastery over their world. This presentation aims to take you on a guided tour through some of the resources available to your students to help them learn the principles of creating code. It starts by looking at a range of desktop and mobile apps suitable for teaching very young students to program, right through to tools and websites that can help your older students learn to hack code, and much more."
John Evans

Memorizers are the lowest achievers and other Common Core math surprises - The Hechinge... - 1 views

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    "t's time to debunk the myths about who is good in math, and Common Core state standards move us toward this worthy goal. Mathematics and technology leaders support the standards because they are rooted in the new brain and learning sciences. All children are different in their thinking, strength and interests. Mathematics classes of the past decade have valued one type of math learner, one who can memorize well and calculate fast. Yet data from the 13 million students who took PISA tests showed that the lowest achieving students worldwide were those who used a memorization strategy - those who thought of math as a set of methods to remember and who approached math by trying to memorize steps. The highest achieving students were those who thought of math as a set of connected, big ideas."
John Evans

Wikisend: free file sharing service - 0 views

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    Upload and download lots of files, big files, small files, data files, media files, archives or backups - any files. With Wikisend it`s simple and free.
John Evans

20 Tricks That Can Make Anyone An Excel Expert - 8 views

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    "After Microsoft developed Excel to the 2010 version, it offered more surprises than ever. In order to deal with tons of big data, you can't ignore the important role Excel plays in daily work. However, both for beginners and advanced users, there are still many useful tips and tricks that are inevitably overlooked. Here are 20 useful Excel spreadsheet secrets you may not know. Please note that all these functions are based on Microsoft Excel 2010"
John Evans

How to send large email attachments from your iPhone or iPad with Dropbox | iMore - 0 views

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    "The iPhone and iPad make great email companions, thanks to the built-in Mail app. Unfortunately, large attachments can eat lots of data, or worse, not send at all. Luckily services like Dropbox are making it easier than ever to share files via email, no matter how big they are. Once you've got the file in Dropbox, you can send it via the Mail app in just a few taps!"
John Evans

Ikea finds practical use for its cardboard box waste in helping kids create toys | The ... - 1 views

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    "Finding new and human ways to connect and empower the next generation to play is one of the ways that Ikea says it hopes to change the world, and bringing extra life to cardboard that would otherwise end up in the recycling bins is part of that push. It's an idea that came about quickly, and was revealed at a panel at Cannes today (20 June). Wunderman, Kantar Consulting and Mini Mad Things decided to put the pedal to the metal and workshop an idea in just five weeks. The catch? The idea had to be 'prototypeable' as the final would be presented on stage at Cannes Lions, alongside Ikea's chief marketing officer. Ultimately, the brief was to come up with an idea that shows how Ikea inspires and facilitates child's play, all while helping to improve home life for parents, whole families and even communities. After evaluating 17 years-worth of online conversation with parents and analyzing 15m rows of dialogue data, the team realized that behavior and development is the most talked about topic within childcare, second only to pregnancy. Pressing further in the research, the team learned that 50% of parents surveyed struggle to find ideas to encourage creative play amongst their children. Ikea, which has been one of the largest distributors of cardboard packaging, and team were able to flip their script so the brand could see the world through a child's eyes and create an interactive mobile app that brings cardboard waste to life. By following simple instructions any piece of cardboard can be transformed into something new. The Ikea Toybox app gives cardboard waste a new lease on life and, as play doesn't require a price tag, families will see big results with small means."
John Evans

32 Ways AI is Improving Education | Getting Smart - 2 views

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    "In the last few years, machine learning applications have quietly entered every aspect of life: social media to speech recognition, radiology to retail, warfare to writing articles, coding to customer service, robotics to route optimization. During the 40 year information age, we told computers what to do. With advances in artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning, and faster processing chips we can feed computers giant data sets and they can (in narrow slivers) draw some inferences on their own. As we reported in Ask About AI, the rise of code that learns marks the beginning of a new era of augmented intelligence. It's a great opportunity for us to expand access to a great education and for young people to make a big contribution. Given the importance of relationships in human development, AI will augment rather than replace the work of educators in many ways. We'll all have to get better at collaborating with teams that include smart machines. In other professions, augmentation will lead to automation with the potential for significant dislocation. Amazon's workforce, for example, is about 20% robots."
John Evans

Jeff Kirschner: This app makes it fun to pick up litter | TED Talk | TED.com - 1 views

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    "The earth is a big place to keep clean. With Litterati - an app for users to identify, collect and geotag the world's litter - TED Resident Jeff Kirschner has created a community that's crowdsource-cleaning the planet. After tracking trash in more than 100 countries, Kirschner hopes to use the data he's collected to work with brands and organizations to stop litter before it reaches the ground."
John Evans

Mobile devices transform classroom experiences and student/instructor relationships to ... - 3 views

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    "Two years ago, four instructional designers in the University of California System decided to undertake a research project on "mobile learning." Their first order of business: figure out what that is. "It's just so new that the researchers who have been trying to define it have found it so dynamic," said Mindy Colin, an instructional consultant at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Enjoying this article from Inside Digital Learning? Sign up for the free weekly newsletter. Continue Popular Today From Inside Digital Learning U.S. settlements with two Christian universities test limits of incentive compensation rules New data: Online enrollments grow, and share of overall enrollment grows faster The 4 Things Every Digital Learning Leader Should Know Investors bet big on the companies formerly known as MOOC providers They eventually settled on a definition from Educause: "Using portable computing devices (such as iPads, laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs and smartphones) with wireless networks enables mobility and mobile variation related to instructional approaches, disciplines, learning goals and technological tools." But they still struggled to define for themselves the parameters of their investigation."
John Evans

The power of content curation: Are you doing it right? - Get In Front Communications - 4 views

  • Content curation is so much more than compiling lists and dropping articles, blog posts, and images into pretty templates. Platforms like Paper.li may work for amateurs, but content curation is big time business.
  • Content curators — or editors — find, sort, categorize, and distill the big data and vast amount of content that’s accessible to us.
  • Curators are editors — typically people with hard-core newsroom experience — who are liked and trusted by readers. Curators use their brains; they tap into emotions.
John Evans

eLearn: Feature Article - 0 views

  • Every year at this time we turn to the experts in our field to share their predictions on what lies ahead for the e-learning community. While our colleagues here unanimously agree the global economic downturn is the overwhelming factor coloring their forecasts, they do see a great array of opportunities and challenges in the coming 12 months. Their insights never fail to inspire further discussion and hope. Here's what our experts have to say this year:
  • 2009 is the year when the cellphone—not the laptop—will emerge as the learning infrastructure for the developing world. Initially, those educational applications linked most closely to local economic development will predominate. Also parents will have high interest in ways these devices can foster their children's literacy. Countries will begin to see the value of subsidizing this type of e-learning, as opposed to more traditional schooling. The initial business strategy will be a disruptive technology competing with non-consumption, in keeping with Christensen's models. —Chris Dede, Harvard University, USA
  • During the coming slump the risk of relying on free tools and services in learning will become apparent as small start-ups offering such services fail, and as big suppliers switch off loss-making services or start charging for them. The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement will strengthen, and will face up to the "cultural" challenges of winning learning providers and teachers to use OER. Large learning providers and companies that host VLEs will make increasing and better use of the data they have about learner behavior, for example, which books they borrow, which online resources they access, how long they spend doing what. —Seb Schmoller, Chief Executive of the UK's Association for Learning Technology (ALT), UK
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  • Online learning tools and technologies are becoming less frustrating (for authoring, teaching, and learning) and more powerful. Instructional content development can increasingly be done by content experts, faculty, instructional designers, and trainers. As a result, online content is becoming easier to maintain. Social interaction and social presence tools such as discussion forums, social networking and resource sharing, IM, and Twitter are increasingly being used to provide formal and informal support that has been missing too long from self-paced instruction. I am extremely optimistic about the convergence of "traditional" instruction and support with technology-based instruction and support. —Patti Shank, Learning Peaks, USA
  • In 2009 learning professionals will start to move beyond using Web 2.0 only for "rogue," informal learning projects and start making proactive plans for how to apply emerging technologies as part of organization-wide learning strategy. In a recent Chapman Alliance survey, 39 percent of learning professionals say they don't use Web 2.0 tools at all; 41 percent say they use them for "rogue" projects (under the radar screen); and only 20 percent indicate they have a plan for using them on a regular basis for learning. Early adopters such as Sun Microsystems and the Peace Corp have made changes that move Web 2.0 tools to the front-end of the learning path, while still using structured learning (LMS and courseware) as critical components of their learning platforms. —Bryan Chapman, Chief Learning Strategist and Industry Analyst, Chapman Alliance, USA
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