classroom tech resources

Schools interested in participating in the pilot program can sign up at YouTube.com/t/education.

YouTube plans to add hundreds of thousands of more educational videos onto the /edu site (which was launched two years ago), including videos from the Museum of Modern Art, BBC Earth, the Smithsonian, Big Think, and many more

Newly added content will be focused more on K-12 curriculum, as well as post-college content — what’s referred to as “lifelong learning.”

Without adjusting classroom instruction to take full advantage of a one-to-one classroom, many of these schools are just doing the “same old thing” but using more expensive tools to do so. And the operative word here may be “expensive” too.

Despite the rush to adopt Apple devices, it’s still not easy to sync them simultaneously to one administrative account, nor is it possible to blend a school’s iTunes account with a student’s school account with her or his personal account.

The promise of a personalized device was the “big reveal” at the end of today’s Apple event, when the company unveiled its plans to integrate the Siri personal assistant technology into its iPhones. Siri allows users to now control many aspects of their iPhones with their voices, including asking research questions (among its resources are Wikipedia and WolframAlpha) and listening to, dictating and transcribing messages.

Since they couldn't afford new textbooks, Byron High's math and science teachers offered to donate time to sift through the best free resources and create virtual textbooks. The kids would have access to the lessons 24/7 and the department would have lessons that met the new state standards.

In addition to virtual textbooks, why not add on YouTube videos of individual lessons? Kids would still have normal classroom instruction, but now they'd be able to rewind and fast-forward their teacher. No matter what time they did their homework, the teacher would be there to help them brush up on the day's lesson.

With this award, Byron Senior High School made a 180-degree turn from being so desperate they couldn't afford textbooks to having a wealth of high tech resources they can share with the entire Byron school system