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Bonnie Sutton

Overhauling Computer Science Education - 1 views

Overhauling Computer Science Education http://thejournal.com/Articles/2011/12/05/Overhauling-Computer-Science-Education.aspx?Page=1 Students from elementary school through college are learnin...

problem solving computational thinking and abstract reasoning computer science education

started by Bonnie Sutton on 22 Dec 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

A Brief Future of Computing - 0 views

Dr Francis Wray looks back over the history of HPC and gives his insight into what can be said about systems in the future. Introduction Over the past 30 years, computing has come to play a signi...

University of Edinborough Dr. Francis Wray HPC History computing supercomputing

started by Bonnie Sutton on 22 Feb 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Steve Jobs on Technology and School Reform - 1 views

by larrycuban The untimely loss of 56 year-old Steve Jobs and the obituaries that followed reminded me of what he told interviewers about technology and school reform. Jobs recorded these inter...

technology education curriculum Larry Cuban's blog problems in feeding curiousity

started by Bonnie Sutton on 10 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Computer Science Education Week - 2 views

About CSEdWeek http://www.csedweek.org/about KEY FACTS | NEWSROOM | PARTNERS CSEdWeek 2011, December 4 to 10, 2011, is a highly distributed celebration of the impact of computing and the ...

CSED computer education information technology systems

started by Bonnie Sutton on 06 Dec 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Why Johnny Can't Program - 1 views

Why Johnny can't program -- and how that can change Today's schools are actually turning kids away from computer science, and it will take innovative programs to reverse the trend By Neil McAll...

middle school children's programming agent sheets computer science computing

started by Bonnie Sutton on 05 Aug 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Action in a Shared World - 1 views

Action in a Shared World http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15739 by Geoffrey Hinchliffe - 2010 Background/Context: The background of the article is the continued interest in ...

Education as a part of the shared world should extend capabiliry for action

started by Bonnie Sutton on 21 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Are You Ready for Common Core Math? 2014 will be here sooner than you think. - 0 views

http://www.districtadministration.com/article/are-you-ready-common-core-math By: Alan Dessoff District Administration, March 2012 An elementary student in the San Francisco Unified School District ...

common core math new assessment k12 PARCC

started by Bonnie Sutton on 16 Mar 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Digital Divide, Mobile Divide, Knoeledge Divide, Access Divide, are we a nation of oppo... - 1 views

http://thepowerofus.org/2012/01/06/digital-divide-mobile-divide-knowledge-divide-access-divide-are-we-a-nation-of-opportunity/ We Still Have a Digital Divide and it is growing!!'We Still Have a Di...

digital divide access knowledge vint cerf Bob Kahn nation of opportunity

started by Bonnie Sutton on 06 Jan 12 no follow-up yet
Jim Shimabukuro

Rupert Murdoch uses eG8 to talk up net's power to transform education | Media | guardia... - 6 views

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    "Rupert Murdoch uses eG8 to talk up net's power to transform education News Corp chairman claims 'Victorian' schools are 'last holdout from digital revolution' Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 May 2011 18.10 BST Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation founder and chairman, used his address to the eG8 Forum in Paris on Tuesday to call for more investment in education and "unlocking the potential" of the world's children. Murdoch said it was not a question of putting a computer in every school, but concentrating on opening up opportunities for youngsters to flourish by using targeted and tailored software. News Corp moved into the $500bn (£310bn) US education sector in late 2010, paying about $360m in cash for 90% of technology company Wireless Generation, which provides mobile and web software to enable teachers to use data to assess student progress and deliver personalised learning."
  • ...5 more comments...
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    From Harry Keller
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    Interesting contrast with Murdoch's attitude in 2009 - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google - but is it really a contrast?
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    We've had Ely Broad, Bill Gates, and a host of other billionaires (even George Lucas) attempting to "fix" our education system. They're not doing so well. What is so interesting to me about Murdoch, despite his pirate-like business practices, is that he sees what I think is the real direction for the future of education. Oddly unlike his right-wing colleagues, he's not pushing for vouchers or more school privatization. Unlike the technocrats, he's not pushing for more and more computers in schools. He sees the solution to our schooling problems as "targeted and tailored software." Many (maybe most) countries, including the U.S., lack the political will as societies to fix education the way that Finland did. Software is the other path. Much discussion today centers around the platform. Will we use smart phones or e-tablets or netbooks? Will we see $1 apiece apps as the learning modules or cloud-based solutions? Will our new learning software run on iOS or Android? All of that is window dressing and barely worthy of discussion. For me, Murdoch hit the nail on the head. We have too little software "targeted and tailored" to education or, at least, too little highly professional quality software.
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    Errh yes about Murdoch pushing "targeted and tailored software" , Harry. But see also: "News Corp moved into the $500bn (£310bn) US education sector in late 2010, paying about $360m in cash for 90% of technology company Wireless Generation, which provides mobile and web software to enable teachers to use data to assess student progress and deliver personalised learning." So he is doing at software level what Microsoft etc were doing at hardware - and at times software - level: promoting his wares in a very juicy market. We've had "targeted and tailored to education" software for decades, now: LMSs, addons to office suites, etc. Some good, some bad. The problem with software that is targeted and tailored to education is that it is a) often boring; b) perforce based on an abstract general idea of education; c) often remote from what gets used outside school. Would it not be better to train teachers in adapting whatever software is generally available, be it desktop or on the cloud, to fit their and their specific students' needs?
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    My point is simply that Murdoch gets it. His motives don't have to be pure for us all to benefit from the light he's shining on educational technology. Regarding the software, your points are well-taken. However, one extra qualification must be added. The software must be "good." That means it must avoid the problems you list.
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    "Would it not be better to train teachers in adapting whatever software is generally available, be it desktop or on the cloud, to fit their and their specific students' needs?' I disagree with this analysis. Software not created for educational purposes will only adapt so far. It is, for example, word processing substituting for paper and pencil. That's worthy of doing but really makes no difference in instruction. When software is created specifically for learning, it can reach much more deeply into the learning processes. It's not just peripheral but central to learning. You can adapt lots of software to education in lots of ways, and I've read of many very clever adaptations. Almost all could be done without the use of a computer, albeit somewhat less efficiently but nonetheless effectively. I read Murdoch's call, which echoes something I've been saying for many years, as meaning that we have to build software that answers the necessities of learning. We don't have much today.
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    Taking up your example of word processing as substitute for pen and pencil , Harry: true, and that's what I retorted in the late 1990's to a digitalophobe academic, when we met about the Italian translation of one of his books, and he boasted of having got a letter from a publisher saying he was their last author to deliver typescripts on paper and not as a digital file. I pointed out that cut and paste, copy and paste (the things he particularly hated the ease of in digital media) existed in the real world looooooong before computers, let alone PCs, let alone the Web. And yet... in 2007 I was asked to set up at very short notice an intensive preliminary French workshop for participants in a master course in intercultural studies: though in Lugano, the course was to be in French and English. I asked for access to the Moodle for the course, to store course materials there etc. The organizers refused: "The Moodle will only be explained to the students in the first week of the course proper". The idea that graduate students needed to have a Moodle explained to them in 2007 seemed peregrine, but rather than arguing, I set up a for-free wiki instead. At our first meeting, the students asked why we weren't using the Moodle, I repeated the official explanation, they laughed and got the hang of the wiki immediately. Then, for reading comprehension, they chose one of the assigned texts for the course: a longish book chapter they had received by e-mail as a grayish PDF based on a low-resolution scan, based on a reduced photocopy to make 2 pages fit on an A4 sheet: i.e. with no margin to take notes on. So we printed the PDF, separated the pages with scissors, pasted the separate pages with glue sticks on new A4 sheets, to get wider margins to write in. And then we made a wiki page for it, copied in it the subheadings, between which the students, added the notes they were taking, working in groups on the new paper version. Result: http://micusif.wikispaces.com/Vinsonneau
Bonnie Sutton

The New Digital Divide - 2 views

December 3, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html The New Digital Divide By SUSAN P. CRAWFORD FOR the second year in a row, the Monday...

technology broadband video on demand powerful cable companies high speed wired second class wirless

started by Bonnie Sutton on 04 Dec 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Making Progress: Rethinking State and School District Policies Concerning Mobile Techno... - 1 views

Making Progress: Rethinking State and School District Policies Concerning Mobile Technologies and Social Media pdf http://www.cosn.org/Default.aspx?TabId=12543 BACKGROUND It is...

Making Progre Rethinking State and School District POLICIES COSN Mobile Technologies Social Media

started by Bonnie Sutton on 15 Apr 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Jamming the System: Standardized Tests, Automated Grading and the Future of Writing - 2 views

View slide show on original site. | View on Flickr on original site. Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning http://spotlight.macfound.org/blog/entry/jamming-the-system-standardized-t...

Ja the System: Standardized Tests Automated Grading Future of Writing robotic evaluation

started by Bonnie Sutton on 29 Apr 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Globaloria Creator Idit Harel Caperton Discusses Her Recent Visit To East Austin Colleg... - 1 views

Globaloria Creator Idit Harel Caperton Discusses Her Recent Visit To East Austin College Prep http://blog.swkey.org/2012/03/12/idit-harel-caperton-interview/ Posted by Southwest Key on Mar 12, 201...

sITE cONFERENCE sXS bROADENING eNGAGEMENT MULTICULTURALISM

started by Bonnie Sutton on 13 Mar 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

-The hardest thing about imagining the future of public education is that the present i... - 1 views

San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Mike Cassidy column [San Jose Mercury News, Calif.] July 23--The hardest thing about imagining the future of public education is that the present is so terribly b...

public education terribly bleak out of the box teach relevant skills experiment preparing students for future

started by Bonnie Sutton on 24 Jul 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

SmartPhone - Dumb School - 1 views

SmartPhone - Dumb School Peter Pappas » 26 May 2011 » In Commentary, Social Web, Web 2.0 » http://www.peterpappas.com/2011/05/smartphone-dumb-school-education-web-mobile-context.html This w...

social web smart phones challenges opportunities learning environment

started by Bonnie Sutton on 07 Jul 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

U.S. Report Sees Perils to America's Tech Future - 1 views

U.S. Report Sees Perils to America's Tech Future In report, Commerce Department looks at competitive threats and internal weaknesses in new report http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/92231...

America's tech future innovation advanced technology produces STEM

started by Bonnie Sutton on 09 Jan 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Struggling with information overload - 1 views

Struggling with information overload Monday, August 1st, 2011 | Article http://www.larrysworld.com/2011/08/01/struggling-with-information-overload/ by Larry Magid This arti...

Larry Magid Informaiton overload social media brain function

started by Bonnie Sutton on 01 Aug 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Education Technology Is An Enabler, Not A Magic Wand - 1 views

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2011/09/education-technology-is-an-enabler-not-a-magic-wand/ Education Technology Is An Enabler, Not A Magic Wand by K. WALSH on SEPTEMBER 7, 2011 NY Times Article Cal...

enabling education value of tools in technology

started by Bonnie Sutton on 08 Sep 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

GOOGLE PRIVACY CHANGES - 0 views

Written by Stephen K. Peeples Thursday, 01 March 2012 13:30 KHTS News Brought To You By: After warning users for weeks that changes to its privacy policy were coming, today is the day Google ...

GOOGLE PRIVACY INTUITIVE LINKING OF RESOURCES

started by Bonnie Sutton on 12 Mar 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Cell Phones - Time to Lift the Ban on Mobiles in the School Setting? by Thomas - 5 views

Cell Phones - Time to Lift the Ban on Mobiles in the School Setting? by Thomas Needless to say, the general consensus regarding cell phones and schools is that the two simply do not mix. However, ...

use of cell phones in school

started by Bonnie Sutton on 25 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
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