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Bonnie Sutton

Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms? - 2 views

****************************** From The Los Angeles Times, Saturday, February 4, 2012. See http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120205,0,639053.column .. Our appreciation to Monty Neil, ...

Julius Genachowski digital playbook learning ecosystems textbooks

started by Bonnie Sutton on 07 Feb 12 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

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

Welcoming Mobile: More Districts Are Rewriting Acceptable Use Policies - 1 views

Hotmail Active View Innovation in ISD 199 ( at the Site_ Play video Inver Grove Heights Community Schools has been nationally recognized for the innovative use of technology in the classroom thro...

CoSn Mobile Learning Internet access technology

started by Bonnie Sutton on 07 Apr 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Ignore the Potential of Mobile Learning, Risk Widening the Digital Divide - 2 views

July 22, 2011 | 11:48 AM | By Tina Barseghian DIGITAL DIVIDE FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, digital media, digital-divide, mobile-learning http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/07/ignore-the-...

Learning Methods digital media digital-divide mobile-learning

started by Bonnie Sutton on 23 Jul 11 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

Pew study: E-readers have caught on quickly - 1 views

By Jeff Gelles Inquirer Staff Writer More than one in five Americans now say they have read a book electronically in the last year. Here's what's happening on the plugged-in side of the digital di...

electronic books Plugged in side of the digital Divide Pew Study reading device.

started by Bonnie Sutton on 05 Apr 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Information and Communication Technology Geographies: Strategies for Bridging the Digit... - 3 views

Home http://www.praxis-epress.org/availablebooks/ictgeographies.html Download the Complete Book (3mb): Information and Communication Technology Geographies: Strategies for ...

digital divide marginalized populations needy communication technology geographies.

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

THE LIBRARY: FREE, DIGITALLY HIP & COOL - 0 views

what you're sayingTHE LIBRARY: FREE, DIGITALLY HIP & COOL Ed Weiner A recent opinion piece called into question the Free Library's place in our digital world. A quick stop on freelibrary.org - ou...

E books free philadelphia digital library cool

started by Bonnie Sutton on 17 May 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

How teachers Facebook & tweet for students - 2 views

Net Family News Anne Collier Facebook and Twitter are very different but social utilities just the same, so there are about as many ways teachers use them as there are teachers. And their creativi...

twitter social media use utilities groups individualizing the of Facebook

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

Digital Differences - 1 views

Digital differences http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Digital-differences/Overview.aspx?utm_source=Mailing+List&utm_campaign=ff253f2b2e-Newsletter_04262012&utm_medium=email When t...

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started by Bonnie Sutton on 26 Apr 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Young kids spend more time with screens than pages - 2 views

By Hayley Tsukayama Young children are using digital media frequently, and a new study from Common Sense Media shows that infants and toddlers spend twice as much time with screen media as they do ...

screens digita media

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