While reading OECD’s publication Education Today, I noticed a StatLink option under each of the tables/charts. StatLink is part of OECD’s ongoing initiative to make data available in original form. A simple click and data is downloaded into a spreadsheet for happy manipulation by the user. A simple, but important idea. OECD also offers a tool to visualize data. The data is somewhat limited (employment, productivity, educational attainment, GDP, etc) in scope, but the willingness to share not only original data but also software to assist in making sense of data is a welcomed gesture!
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Pattie Maes demos the Sixth Sense | Video on TED.com - 0 views
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Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement - 0 views
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Technologies available in classrooms today range from simple tool-based applications (such as word processors) to online repositories of scientific data and primary historical documents, to handheld computers, closed-circuit television channels, and two-way distance learning classrooms. Even the cell phones that many students now carry with them can be used to learn (Prensky, 2005).
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Bruce and Levin (1997), for example, look at ways in which the tools, techniques, and applications of technology can support integrated, inquiry-based learning to "engage children in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world." They developed the idea of technology as media with four different focuses: media for inquiry (such as data modeling, spreadsheets, access to online databases, access to online observatories and microscopes, and hypertext), media for communication (such as word processing, e-mail, synchronous conferencing, graphics software, simulations, and tutorials), media for construction (such as robotics, computer-aided design, and control systems), and media for expression (such as interactive video, animation software, and music composition). In a review of existing evidence of technology's impact on learning, Marshall (2002) found strong evidence that educational technology "complements what a great teacher does naturally," extending their reach and broadening their students' experience beyond the classroom. "With ever-expanding content and technology choices, from video to multimedia to the Internet," Marshall suggests "there's an unprecedented need to understand the recipe for success, which involves the learner, the teacher, the content, and the environment in which technology is used."
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In examining large-scale state and national studies, as well as some innovative smaller studies on newer educational technologies, Schacter (1999) found that students with access to any of a number of technologies (such as computer assisted instruction, integrated learning systems, simulations and software that teaches higher order thinking, collaborative networked technologies, or design and programming technologies) show positive gains in achievement on researcher constructed tests, standardized tests, and national tests.
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Boster, Meyer, Roberto, & Inge (2002) examined the integration of standards-based video clips into lessons developed by classroom teachers and found increases student achievement. The study of more than 1,400 elementary and middle school students in three Virginia school districts showed an average increase in learning for students exposed to the video clip application compared to students who received traditional instruction alone.
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Wenglinsky (1998) noted that for fourth- and eighth-graders technology has "positive benefits" on achievement as measured in NAEP's mathematics test. Interestingly, Wenglinsky found that using computers to teach low order thinking skills, such as drill and practice, had a negative impact on academic achievement, while using computers to solve simulations saw their students' math scores increase significantly. Hiebert (1999) raised a similar point. When students over-practice procedures before they understand them, they have more difficulty making sense of them later; however, they can learn new concepts and skills while they are solving problems. In a study that examined relationship between computer use and students' science achievement based on data from a standardized assessment, Papanastasiou, Zemblyas, & Vrasidas (2003) found it is not the computer use itself that has a positive or negative effect on achievement of students, but the way in which computers are used.
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Another factor influencing the impact of technology on student achievement is that changes in classroom technologies correlate to changes in other educational factors as well. Originally the determination of student achievement was based on traditional methods of social scientific investigation: it asked whether there was a specific, causal relationship between one thing—technology—and another—student achievement. Because schools are complex social environments, however, it is impossible to change just one thing at a time (Glennan & Melmed, 1996; Hawkins, Panush, & Spielvogel, 1996; Newman, 1990). If a new technology is introduced into a classroom, other things also change. For example, teachers' perceptions of their students' capabilities can shift dramatically when technology is integrated into the classroom (Honey, Chang, Light, Moeller, in press). Also, teachers frequently find themselves acting more as coaches and less as lecturers (Henriquez & Riconscente, 1998). Another example is that use of technology tends to foster collaboration among students, which in turn may have a positive effect on student achievement (Tinzmann, 1998). Because the technology becomes part of a complex network of changes, its impact cannot be reduced to a simple cause-and-effect model that would provide a definitive answer to how it has improved student achievement.
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When new technologies are adopted, learning how to use the technology may take precedence over learning through the technology. "The technology learning curve tends to eclipse content learning temporarily; both kids and teachers seem to orient to technology until they become comfortable," note Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999). Effective content integration takes time, and new technologies may have glitches. As a result, "teachers' first technology projects generate excitement but often little content learning. Often it takes a few years until teachers can use technology effectively in core subject areas" (Goldman, Cole, & Syer, 1999). Educators may find impediments to evaluating the impact of technology. Such impediments include lack of measures to assess higher-order thinking skills, difficulty in separating technology from the entire instructional process, and the outdating of technologies used by the school. To address these impediments, educators may need to develop new strategies for student assessment, ensure that all aspects of the instructional process—including technology, instructional design, content, teaching strategies, and classroom environment—are conducive to student learning, and conduct ongoing evaluation studies to determine the effectiveness of learning with technology (Kosakowski, 1998).
Innovative Ideas That Make Sense for Those Hungry for Math Instruction - 34 views
theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/...tive-educators-math-dream.html
innovative_educator ideas math teaching
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Parent Advice - Rules of the Road for Parents in a Digital Age - Common Sense Media - 22 views
Typing chef game | improve your typing - 42 views
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shared by Tom Daccord on 27 May 10
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Expert Article: Making the Case for Teaching with New Media - Common Sense Media - 21 views
www.commonsensemedia.org/making-case-teaching-new-media
commonsensemedia reich edtechteacher harvard article learning teaching
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The Twitter Trap - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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my inner worrywart wonders whether the new technologies overtaking us may be eroding characteristics that are essentially human: our ability to reflect, our pursuit of meaning, genuine empathy, a sense of community connected by something deeper than snark or political affinity.
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“The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing.”
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before we succumb to digital idolatry, we should consider that innovation often comes at a price. And sometimes I wonder if the price is a piece of ourselves.
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I discovered a third use for the iPad | TechRepublic - 0 views
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the iPad makes a terrific notebook — in the traditional sense. For me , the iPad has completely replaced the need for a pen and a pad of paper in meetings. I now take all my notes electronically with the iPad and can quickly and easily do several different things with the notes afterward
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note taking is now one of the leading business functions of the iPad. It’s one of the reasons why the iPad has become a preferred tool for many people who spend a large chunk of their time in meetings
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Sum Sense - division game - 0 views
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A good whiteboard maths resource for practising short division. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths
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Cyberbullying Toolkit | Common Sense Media - 47 views
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shared by Steve Ransom on 04 Sep 11
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Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com - 9 views
www.nytimes.com/...-faces-questions-on-value.html
technology schools change critique measurement effectiveness integration
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Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.
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how the district was innovating.
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there is no good way to quantify those achievements — putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again
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“We’ve jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we’re doing. This might just be the new bandwagon,” he said. “I hope not.”
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$46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.
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If we know something works
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The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.
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Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.
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“Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”
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“There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page,” she said. “It’s intimate.”
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“They’re inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it,”
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The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered “True,” 70 percent “False,” and 6 percent didn’t know.
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engagement is a “fluffy
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rofessor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.
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that computers can distract and not instruct.
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guide on the side.
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Professor Cuban at Stanford
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But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint
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Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.
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This is big business.
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“Do we really need technology to learn?” she said. “It’s a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot.”
Cyberbullying Toolkit | Common Sense Media - 0 views
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cyberbullying onlinesafety internet safety Internet_Safety
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Musical sensibility can help shape teaching, research education - 10 views
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Liora Bresler, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the U. of I. College of Education, says that the inherently performative and improvisatory aspects of teaching, along with the temporal, polyphonic aspects of scholarly research, compares favorably with musicianship.
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"When you teach, you have a lesson plan, but you're not bound to follow it. You play, follow up, improvise and adapt, as the situation dictates. It's intellectual engagement, and you want to be engaging. So having a real, live audience makes a difference." Bresler said that the commitment to a third-party audience helps the teacher "see, perceive and make sense of what they're trying to communicate on a very different level."
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Mobile Teaching Versus Mobile Learning (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE - 0 views
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lot of digital books floating around, being hailed as amazing advancements in teaching and learning. Although I know the majority of materials currently available to students on their portable multimedia consumption devices are still primarily text-based, maybe including a static image or two (see Figure 3, a color, static digital page with a Venn diagram that is no different from the same page in the printed book5),
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it's not enough for CourseSmart to make PDF-like copies of textbooks available for students to purchase; instead, we need the type of interactivity we're starting to see from the textbooks available in Inkling.
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We need to provide materials or applications that allow students to practice identifying parts of the body on their mobile multimedia devices before taking the high-stakes midterm or final exam.
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At minimum we could be asking our students to capture raw material from the real world and engage with it based on the concepts we are teaching them.
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It's one thing to learn about different architectural styles in a Western Civ or Construction textbook or lecture; it's another to apply what you've learned by going out into the community and taking pictures of buildings and then identifying the architectural influences
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In both cases the activity of capturing "raw" digital material can lead to further learning or assessment activities where students might develop multimedia projects.
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a Citrix server with the ability for students to check out laptops and iPads with Citrix running on them gives faculty outside of the art and business departments the ability to require students to manipulate images. For example, Scottsdale Community College in Arizona has a Citrix environment that allows students to access applications like Photoshop on an iPad (Figure 6).
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away from how instructors teach to how students learn. Research now shows that successful learning needs to be act
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To achieve the promise of mobile learning, we have to stop thinking about these powerful mobile multimedia devices as only consumption devices and get students using them as production devices.
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mobile devices not only makes the content more accessible, it also helps students engage the content using multiple senses
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Website Survey: 'Mac vs PC' stereotypes broadly true | MacNN - 25 views
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Mac owners broadly knew: that they see themselves as hip, liberal, verbally-oriented, more adventurous and more creative, while PC people see themselves as very mainstream, conservative (in the general sense of the term, not just politically), math-oriented and less comfortable overall with computers and technology.
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Mac users can seem trendy, shallow, arrogant or pretentious -- the favourite soft drink picked by Mac users was San Pellegrino Limonata, while the PC users chose Pepsi -- and from a Mac person's view, PC users tend to be rigid, close-minded, conformist and boring.
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Mac users are 80 percent more likely to be vegetarian; PC users prefer Harleys to Vespas by 70 percent; PC users love the cute captioned cats of I Can Haz Cheezburger, while Mac users get their smiles from Boing Boing
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Mac users are better educated (67 percent of Mac users completed a four-year degree, while only 54 percent of PC users did so), more liberal (58 versus 36 percent), more urban (52 percent said they live in a city while PC users tended to live in rural or suburban areas) and younger (18-34 demographic) than their PC counterparts (who tended to be more in the 35-49 demographic).
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PC users, the survey found, like fitting in over "making their own mark" (twice as often as Mac users); prefer staying at home to "partying"; enjoy mainstream TV shows (such as "The Tonight Show") and TV channels (The History Channel, Syfy, USA) much more than Mac users (who tend towards edgier shows like "Parks and Recreation" and channels like Bravo, Showtime and HBO); they prefer to be "later adopters" of technology and are twice as likely to find it a "struggle" that's akin to learning a foreign language, and PC users tend to stick with well-established brands in everything from restaurants to painters, while Mac users bent towards the newer, more fashionable trends.