Group items tagged

The signs leverage what’s called a feedback loop, a profoundly effective tool for changing behavior. The basic premise is simple. Provide people with information about their actions in real time (or something close to it), then give them an opportunity to change those actions, pushing them toward better behaviors. Action, information, reaction. It’s the operating principle behind a home thermostat, which fires the furnace to maintain a specific temperature, or the consumption display in a Toyota Prius, which tends to turn drivers into so-called hypermilers trying to wring every last mile from the gas tank. But the simplicity of feedback loops is deceptive. They are in fact powerful tools that can help people change bad behavior patterns, even those that seem intractable. Just as important, they can be used to encourage good habits, turning progress itself into a reward. In other words, feedback loops change human behavior. And thanks to an explosion of new technology, the opportunity to put them into action in nearly every part of our lives is quickly becoming a reality.

Apple Configurator makes it easy for anyone to mass configure and deploy iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in a school, business, or institution.

Embed short graded or self-assessments either in the video itself, or at the end of each video. Including one or two multiple-choice questions or requests to post to a forum—either between scenes (using a post-production editing tool such as Camtasia or Captivate) or after the video—alerts students to the “take homes” they should be getting from the material. It also helps teachers assess, at point of contact, whether students understand the major concepts.

Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere.

Explain Everything has been a top paid education app since its release in Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Finland.

Import PDF, PPT, DOC, XLS, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and RTF files from Evernote, Dropbox, Box, GDrive, WebDAV, Email, iTunes, and any app that allows you to open these files types using "Open In…". Export MP4 movies, PDF documents, PNG images, or XPL project files directly from your iPad.

As MOOCs cast their eye to the developing world, very minor tweaks matter a great deal, such as the ability to allow students to download, rather than only stream course videos. But even more major ones are coming, including edX’s plans to start open-sourcing its platform in the next few months, which could allow even more universities to post online courses, and software programmers around the world to experiment with customized interfaces.

“We need to make sure we are making tools that make it easy to create new content, so it’s not only someone at MIT or Stanford who creates.” Relevance, as he notes, is one of the biggest motivators for students.

One of the major challenges for MOOCs—which so far mostly come from U.S. universities—is to tailor the content of courses to a diverse worldwide audience with any number of combinations of language, educational, motivational, and cultural backgrounds. Critics fear the rise of big box education from only a few elite institutions in Western nations, and worry these may not fit the different learning styles in different nations.

Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere