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Updated : May 31, 2011 Tablet PCs Change Korea's Educational Environment Tablet PCs are taking the world's IT market by storm. Korea is no exception to the trend, with tablet PC users roaming its streets everywhere. Now, tablet PCs are transforming not just the way we live but also the way we learn. We're now at an elementary school in Incheon, where students are taking lessons at a whole new level. On their desks are tablet PCs and electronic pens instead of the usual paper and pencils. This is a classroom of the digital age. This school is currently conducting digital textbook lessons for 4th and 5th graders. [Interview : Han Gyeong-su, Vice Principal Incheon Samsan Elementary School] "The digital textbook is a technology combining reference books, exercise books and other resources into one device. It could totally change our educational paradigm." These lessons are conducted using digital textbooks, which are tablet PCs with a touch screen and keyboard.

Sept. 6, 2011 "Matt Richtel's panoramic essay, "In Classroom of the Future, Stagnant Scores." weighs in this morning on the topic of "Grading the Digital School." I found myself cheering and jeering alternately throughout this piece. Why? Because it so quickly confuses "standards" with "standardized test scores" and technology put into classrooms with "preparing kids for a Digital future (actually, the Digital present: it's here, it's now, like it or not). These confusions are so pervasive in our culture and so urgent that I want to take a moment to focus on them. "

"Uploaded by usedgov on Sep 13, 2011 Secretary Duncan introduces the Digital Promise" Shorter intro to the Digital Promise initiatie, with approximative subtitles and transcript.

Other YT URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX29kEumPZ4 Corrected captions and transcript can be downloaded from http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/qMGF63dNBJ9f/

Andreas Fuchs Aug. 18, 2011 "At CinemaCon 2011 in Las Vegas, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) hosted a special Accessibility Demonstration for Digital Cinema. Alongside legislative mandates across many states and numerous community commitment programs that North American theatre circuits have in place, NATO deserves special credit for calling attention to the opportunities afforded by Digital technologies in providing access to all guests."

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Cory Doctorow. Make. June 2011. "Consider the iPad for a moment. It's true that Apple's iTunes Store has inspired hundreds of thousands of apps, but every one of those apps is contingent on Apple's approval. If you want to make something for the iPad, you pay $99 to join the Developer Program, make it, then send it to Apple and pray. If Apple smiles on you, you can send your hack to the world. If Apple frowns on you, you cannot. What's more, Apple uses code signing to restrict which apps can run on the iPad (and iPhone): if your app isn't blessed by Apple, iPads will refuse to run it. Not that it's technically challenging to defeat this code signing, but doing so is illegal, thanks to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it a crime to circumvent a copyright-protection technology. So the only app store - or free repository - that can legally exist for Apple's devices is the one that Apple runs for itself. Some people say the iPad is a new kind of device: an appliance instead of a computer. But because Apple chose to add a thin veneer of DRM to the iPad, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act applies here, something that's not true of any "appliance" you've ever seen. It's as if Apple built a toaster that you can only use Apple's bread in (or face a lawsuit), or a dishwasher that will only load Apple's plates. Apple fans will tell you that this doesn't matter. Hackers can simply hack their iPads or shell out $99 to get the developer license. But without a means of distributing (and receiving) hacks from all parties, we're back in the forbidden-knowledge Dark Ages - the poverty-stricken era in which a mere handful of ideas was counted as a fortune."

We discussed this article in the forum of lascuolachefunziona.it. Someone objected that the iPad was a great tool and gave far more liberty to developers than traditional print publishers. I retorted that it was precisely because the iPad was such a great tool that its proprietariness about content for it was irritating. Then Elena Favaron made an illuminating comparison: "There are also people who make coffee machines that work only with dedicated coffee capsules, and there are folks who even buy them..."

"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."

"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.

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

"A new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn. Educators Empowering you with tools to help you reach every single student. Innovators Making it easier for you to turn a great idea into a product that delivers results for learners of all ages. Researchers Translating cutting-edge research on how we learn into cutting-edge technologies that can help us learn. Citizens Preparing Americans of all races, regions, and backgrounds to succeed in college and a career. ..."

Main site of the Digital Promise initiative

"Uploaded by whitehouse on Sep 16, 2011 Digital Promise is a new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn. September 16, 2011." With captions and interactive transcript.

Captions and transcript can be downloaded from http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/CkPFLh8Tp91i/en/169009/

"(...) May 20, 2010 Mark Wigfield, 202-418-0253 (...) Progress made, but rural communities across the nation continue to lack access to broadband More than 100 million Americans do not subscribe to broadband (...) approximately 26 million Americans, mostly in rural communities located in every region of the country, are denied access to the jobs and economic opportunity made possible by broadband. While the infrastructure of high-speed Internet is unavailable to those Americans, the FCC report also finds that approximately one-third of Americans do not subscribe to broadband, even when it's available. This suggests that barriers to adoption such as cost, low digital literacy, and concerns about privacy remain too high. The Report also notes limited broadband capacity for schools and libraries as a further indicator that broadband is not being reasonably and timely deployed and is not available to all Americans.(...) "

Collected by Danielle Nicole DeVoss on Mar 09 11 "What does it mean to be "visually" literate? How can we encourage students to be more deliberate and careful in how they look at the images that circulate in today's digital culture? (...) What I've included here are some historical examples and discussion points, some contemporary examples and discussion points, and some ways to educate ourselves and to engage students in critical visual literacy."

Not really a "breaking news" bookmark, but shared on the strength of Pound's "Culture is news that remains news".

by Kevin Carey on September 26, 2011 "Under the category of "policy stuff that doesn't involve grand controversy and/or vast sums of new spending, yet might actually make the world a better place," the other day I attended a White House event announcing the launch of Digital Promise, a "new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn." The rationale for the initiative is contained in a Council of Economic Advisers memo ..."

Council of Economic Advisers memo: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/unleashing_the_potential_of_educational_technology.pdf

[George Siemens] June 12th, 2007 "...It's the change underlying these tools that I'm trying to emphasize. Forget blogs…think open dialogue. Forget wikis…think collaboration. Forget podcasts…think democracy of voice. Forget RSS/aggregation…think personal networks. Forget any of the tools…and think instead of the fundamental restructuring of how knowledge is created, disseminated, shared, and validated. But to create real change, we need to move our conversation beyond simply the tools and our jargon. Parents understand the importance of preparing their children for tomorrow's world. They might not understand RSS, mashups, and blogs. Society understands the importance of a skilled workforce, of critical and creative thinkers. They may not understand wikis, podcasts, or user-created video or collaboratively written software. Unfortunately, where our aim should be about change, our sights are set on tools. And we wonder why we're not hitting the mark we desire. Perhaps our vision for change is still unsettled. What would success look like if we achieved it? What would classrooms look like? How would learning occur? We require a vision for change. It's reflected occasionally in classroom 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 projects. But the tool, not change centric, theme still arises. We may think we are talking about change, but our audience hears hype and complex jargon. What is your vision for change?"

NB: I am tagging this post by George Siemens "Digital Promise" though it was published in 2007, because what he wrote then is very pertinent to the 2011 Digital Promise initiative.

"This special report examines the growing e-learning opportunities for students with disabilities, English-language learners, gifted and talented students, and those at risk of failing in school. Download the digital edition. (Login or FREE registration required.) You can read the complete online version of the report here. "

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Catharine McNally - April 27, 2011 "...For those of you who are still on the fence about Twitter, let me assure you that it is not always full of self-promoters or useless babble. When Twitter is "done right" it is a powerful tool for people to tell you what's going on - in a "little d democratic" kind of way. These 140-character statements challenge one to be tactful in how they write, to be understood, interpreted, and actionable. Effectively, the character limit forces one to cut through the fluff to get to the point. For a deaf person like me, Twitter is really helpful. It's kind of a digital version of my friend who sat next to me at lunch in middle school, who I would (often) turn to and ask, "Hey, what's everyone laughing about?" That person-bless her heart-would re-iterate the joke for me concisely and quickly, and of course, I would then laugh when everyone else had stopped laughing. ..."

Not "Breaking News" (see date) but likely to lead to developments

"Bell, F 2010, Network theories for technology-enabled learning and social change: Connectivism and actor network theory , in: Networked Learning Conference 2010: Seventh International Conference on Networked Learning, 3-4 May 2010, Aalborg, Denmark. PDF - Published Version Download (236Kb) http://usir.salford.ac.uk/9270/1/Bell.pdf Official URL: http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/ Abstract Learning never was confined to classrooms. We all learn in, out of, before, during and after episodes of formal education. The changing sociotechnical context offers a promise of new opportunities, and the sense that somehow things may be different. Use of the Internet and other emerging technologies is spreading in frequency, time and space. People and organizations wish to use technology to support learning seek theories to frame their understanding and their innovations. In this article we explore Connectivism, that is positioned as a theory for the digital age, in use on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, in 2008. We then compare Connectivism with another network theory, Actor Network Theory, to explore possible synergies. We found that Connectivism enables educators and learners to legitimise their use of technology to support teaching and learning. Connectivism, a relatively new theory, can benefit from a richer empirical base as it develops. Since the scope of educational change can vary from a specific learning setting through organisational and societal settings, we can develop theories through empirical exploration of cases across the range of settings to support our understanding and actions."

"August 15, 2011. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has begun a rulemaking to strengthen and expand their current TV closed captioning standards for both English TV and French TV broadcasts. However, they will not be looking at standards for digital and new media platforms in this process. The CRTC seeks input on:"

"TITLE II - PUTTING WORKERS BACK ON THE JOB WHILE REBUILDING AND MODERNIZING AMERICA Subtitle A - Veterans Hiring Preferences Sec. 201. Returning Heroes and Wounded Warriors Work Opportunity Tax Credits Subtitle B - Teacher Stabilization Sec. 202. Purpose Sec. 203. Grants for the Outlying Areas and the Secretary of the Interior; Availability of Funds. Sec. 204. State Allocation Sec. 205. State Application Sec. 206. State Reservation and Responsibilities Sec. 207. Local Educational Agencies Sec. 208. Early Learning Sec. 209. Maintenance of Effort Sec. 210. Reporting Sec. 211. Definitions Sec. 212. Authorization of Appropriations Subtitle C - First Responder Stabilization Sec. 213. Purpose Sec. 214. Grant Program Sec. 215. Appropriations Subtitle D - School Modernization Part I - Elementary and Secondary Schools Sec. 221. Purpose Sec. 222. Authorization of Appropriations Sec. 223. Allocation of Funds Sec. 224. State Use of Funds Sec. 225. State and Local Applications Sec. 226. Use of Funds Sec. 227. Private Schools Sec. 228. Additional Provisions Part II - Community College Modernization Sec. 229. Federal assistance for Community College Modernization"

Tagged "Digital Promise" because of the important section on modernizing education.