Group items tagged

"A decade ago, electronics and cell phones in the classroom were considered little more than a distraction. Today, new devices such as tablet computers and smartphones are changing this perception. Educators are finding innovative ways to supplement their lectures with the newest technology, and students are beginning to see their devices as essential components of their college experience. Naturally, major device manufacturers are now battling for dominance in the field. Below, we explore how Apple is winning the battle for education technology and what gives them the edge over the sizable competition in the market."

"The infographic provides a definition of a solar eclipse as well as information on the Australia 2012 eclipse. It offers an insight into past solar eclipses, noting duration of totality and effects on local tourism."

... and it comes with its own embed code. (commercial content though!)

"Sound Infusion is a unique learning tool that incorporates music and culture from all over the world. It is a free, online, interactive learning experience that blends music making and cultural awareness. Students can create their own songs from hundreds of different samples, save, share and discuss their work online with their classmates as well as students from other schools"

"Using an artificial intelligence technique inspired by theories about how the brain recognizes patterns, technology companies are reporting startling gains in fields as diverse as computer vision, speech recognition and the identification of promising new molecules for designing drugs."

"Unlike similar tools, such as Skype and Go-To-Webinar that require a bunch of steps to get started, Google+ Hangouts is already part of our online social ecosystem. With little more than a Google account and a web cam, you can start a Hangout from within Gmail, Google+, or on your mobile device using the Google+ app.  Additionally, its purpose is to facilitate conversation among participants, rather than serve as merely a presentation platform. Oh, and it's free. If you're trying to determine if Google+ Hangouts can meet your own professional development needs, below are a few things to know based on Pacansky-Brock's experience."

"Western Australia's Department of Education will deploy BYO device management capabilities in the next release of its standard operating environment (SOE) for schools, another key milestone in its long-term vision for ICT use by teachers and students. Infrastructure and telecommunication director, Glenn Veen, told iTnews that SOEv4.2 consisted of nine upgrade elements, covering areas as diverse as security, disaster recovery and business continuity, and "BYO device, mobile device management, Apple integration and increased roaming capability"."

"Google is working on an online course solution. Same story with Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, and … you? If you run a website that uses WordPress, you can now easily (relatively) build your very own online school. The new WordPress plugin from WooThemes (a popular WordPress premium theme provider) lets you start up your own online school with ease. It's as simple as installing a WordPress plugin. The actual content and other school-y stuff is, of course, up to you. But the technical stuff is taken care of by this new plugin."

"Design Thinking is a great skill for students to acquire as part of their education.  But it is one process like the problem-solving model or the scientific method.   As a step-by-step process, it becomes type of box.  Sometimes we need to go beyond that box; step outside of the box.  This post provides an overview of design thinking, the problems with design thinking, and suggestions to hacking the world to go beyond design thinking."

The Hangouts Capture app will be available worldwide soon within the traditional Hangouts app, alongside YouTube and Effects. The new tool is not intended for taking secret shots. All Hangout attendees will be notified that the app is in use when they join a hangout, and will receive a notification when a photo is taken, as well as access to that photo."

"We have made an effort to find the most influential active Twitter users for cities around the world, as well as widely spoken languages. By selecting any of the cities or languages below you will be directed to a dedicated page with several lists and search capabilities. We have also created a number of twitter tools that can be used for any Twitter account. The menu above shows you the current selection of tools. We welcome any suggestions you may have."

The infographic looks at digital citizenship tips as well as some of the more common do's and dont's for good manners whilst using the internet

hile it may be easy to imagine how iPads can support classroom studies with reading, history, or science, some of the most groundbreaking - and creative - work with digital tools may be happening in arts classes. Schools using iPads are incorporating them in art and music classes, too - and not only as tools for measuring and remembering, but for creating as well.

"There is a myth, perpetuated for little more reason than it's sellable-fallacy, that kids are gravitating to Twitter and Facebook. From this point, numerous arguments have been made in the sub-culture Alan Lavine brilliantly described as "Edlandia" - a sharp and humurous hat-tip to Portlandia the TV show (relates to MOOCS). There is pervasive notion that the issues today are the same as those even three years ago. They might continue to sell this obsolete rhetoric to Edlandians, but kids are using very different networks - and here's why."

"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."

"For the teacher, leaving a comment on students work is as simple as playing the slides and clicking on the text, voice or web camera comment button at the bottom of the page."

"As of the Mountain Lion version, Apple's Mail is better than ever at helping you manage your email. And Google's Web-based Gmail is also pretty good-but how do you combine the two in just the right way so as to get the best of both? The answer is simple-follow my guide below, wherein I describe my favorite way to balance a few features and compromises to make Mail and OS X work best with the Gmail Way."

"Classrooms using GroupTweet are realizing this is the perfect tool to setup a Group Twitter Account. No more messing with hashtags and having to instruct each student to setup their own hashtag searches or follow every other student in order to follow the conversation. With GroupTweet, your classroom will now have a single Twitter account that can be updated by all the students as well as instructors. It's a great way to organize and archive your classroom discussion under a single Twitter timeline."

We make building Apps as simple as using PowerPoint. Anyone can easily build, test and distribute their apps

"An assistive technology: a technology used by an individual with a disability to perform a function that might otherwise be difficult or impossible." Samantha Thomas, a student, future librarian, and educator at Kutztown University, created this handy collection of assistive technologies that you may find helpful. Some are commonly used with special needs individuals, such as augmentative & alternative communication apps and others are general consumer apps. Listed alongside each app is her assessment of its value as an assistive technology."

Online Python Tutor is a free educational tool that helps students overcome a fundamental barrier to learning programming: understanding what happens as the computer executes each line of a program's source code. Using this tool, a teacher or student can write a Python program directly in the web browser and visualize what the computer is doing step-by-step as it executes the program."