Group items tagged

"In case the quotes didn't clue you in, this post doesn't argue against massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as the ones offered by Udacity, Coursera, and edX. I think they are very worthy ventures and will serve to progress our system of higher education. I do however agree with some criticisms of these courses, and that there is room for much more progress."

It is commonly recognized that our nation's progress depends on improving learning, thereby creating healthier communities and a stronger workforce. In today's world, that requires us to take advantage of new learning tools to ensure that our children's learning is practical and prepares them for the challenges of the 21st century. The advantages of digital media now greatly outweigh the disadvantages and require that schools update their thinking and policies to provide guidance on the use of these tools to improve student learning and achievement.

"One of the greatest positives of the iPad as a learning tool in education are the many different apps that allow students to create amazing pieces of work which demonstrate their learning. Not only that, but the productivity tools that go with their day to day activities are vast. Whittling down recently our core apps for students, you'll see there are tools for taking notes, creating professional documents, presentations, making books, creating screencasts, the whole lot. One of the negatives with the iPad though has been the problems associated with workflow. How do you get the work off? How do you, as a teacher, receive work from the students? How are you going to check their progress? How are you going to assess their work? Some recent developments have really helped to alleviate many of these concerns."

"Education is a powerful driver of development and one of the strongest instruments for reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Although there has been great progress in recent decades in getting children into school, evidence shows that many children and youth leave school without having learned the basic skills needed for life and work. Check out this handy infographic from the World Bank that addresses what challenges we face in bringing education to everyone."

In some ways, the flipped model is an improvement. Research shows that tailored tutoring is more effective than lectures for understanding, mastery, and retention. But the flipped classroom doesn't come close to preparing students for the challenges of today's world and workforce. As progressive educational activist Alfie Kohn notes, great teaching isn't just about content but motivation and empowerment: Real learning gives you the mental habits, practice, and confidence to know that, in a crisis, you can count on yourself to learn something new. That's crucial in a world where, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, adults change careers (not just jobs) four to six times or where, as an Australian study predicts, 65% of today's teens will end up in careers that haven't even been invented yet. We don't need to flip the classroom. We need to make it do cartwheels.

"Current thinking (August 2012) around a web literacies framework by Doug Belshaw, Badges & Skills Lead for the Mozilla Foundation."

SCVNGR is a unique game app that lets you check-in at locations and participate in scavenger hunt treks and challenges for points. You can also create your own on SCVNGR's website. It is social in that you can track the progress of other Scvngr users who you are connected to through invitations, Facebook and Twitter.

Rubrics are almost always a work in progress and most have strengths and weaknesses. As a result, on this wiki, a rubric may be used to demonstrate a non-example of a trait of quality rubrics but could be a quality example for a different attribute. Conversely, some of the quality examples may be lacking in other areas. We are using the rubrics to explore how to attend to details so we can ensure that any one rubric is as clear, explicit, and effective as possible.

"Gamification is simply the application of "game" mechanics to non-game entities. The big idea here is to encourage a desired behavior. In this way, "gamification" amounts to installing mechanics or systems that recognize and reward behavior. Through increased visibility of nuance, documentation of progress, and rewarding of seemingly minor (but critical) behaviors, a specific outcome can be achieved. Since it encourages internal motivation through an outwardly-created set of circumstances, gamification sits at the awkward intersection of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation."

LayerWise applied Additive Manufacturing (AM) to produce an award-winning Titanium total lower jaw implant reconstruction. To treat a senior patient's progressive osteomyelitis of almost the entire bone, surgeons opted for such a complete implant the first time ever. LayerWise specialists printed the patient-specific implant design incorporating articulated joints and dedicated features. The complex reconstruction has been implanted successfully. It restored the patient's facial esthetics and allowed her to regain her speech within hours. www.layerwise.com

I'm still excited after the first meeting with the students at Melbourne City School back in April. Since I approached the school with an idea for using Augmented Reality (AR) and Games-based Learning they have been warm and welcoming and things have progressed ever so fast.  We had some initial discussions about how Curiosity Lab (ELN) and the students could work on something and they embraced the possibilities, so we just got straight into it. Using ARIS,  the novelty of AR and opportunities to attach rich media in the AR browser, we set produce something powerful that is learner driven, which attracts media attention and captures the hearts and imagination of the public. The fact that Layar is an app designed for mobile devices make it well suited to promoting the idea of recycling mobile phones to help protect and preserve the habitat of the Western Lowlands Gorilla.

"I was thinking today that I had to make it clear that competency with technology is not the first issue you should worry about if you want to make SAMR progress. The issue to tackle first is the teaching conventions and mindsets amongst the staff, and for this you need some pretty simple and effective arguments. So here are some I've used to move staff on a little:"

By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse. The belief that the world can't solve extreme poverty and disease isn't just mistaken. It is harmful. That's why in this year's letter we take apart some of the myths that slow down the work. The next time you hear these myths, we hope you will do the same. 

The Learning Record provides an architecture and process for documenting student progress and achievement, based on interviews, observations over time, samples of students' naturally-occurring work, and well-supported interpretations of learning across five dimensions.

"The progression of where online learning started and how it has grown is really quite staggering, especially since it has only become a discussion staple for most of us pretty recently. The handy infographic below gives us an interesting timeline of digital learning, shows some of the different categories that digital learning comprises, and offers up some interesting statistics on the number of people participating in online learning and the growth that it has seen over the years. Keep reading to learn more."

A fantastic post by Ian Guest looking at how we assess teachers capabilities in regards to technology so as to help them progress.

An article about coding in the Australian curriculum. Bec Spink lists here yhe content descriptions taken directly from the Australian 'Digital Technologies' curriculum that demonstrate the progression of SOME of the process and production skills students are expected to learn from their first year of school until Year 10.

Despite its other challenges and missteps, the Obama administration has made progress in pushing the U.S. government toward becoming more technically-savvy and at least considering technology as part of the solution to a number of the problems the U.S. is currently tackling. President Obama named the nation's first federal CIO as well as its first CTO, became the first president to carry a smartphone, and his IT team opened the government's first cloud computing app store (Apps.gov).

Their Youtube channel has some excellent videos *especially* the RSA Animate ones - incredible! "The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action."