Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

"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

Liz B. Davis 5:22 "Titled, In Classroom of the Future, Stagnant Scores , the article describes a school In Arizona where, despite a huge Investment In technology, there hasn't been an Increase In test scores. The article is based on one school In one town In Arizona, hardly a statistically significant sample. Larry Cuban, an outspoken critic of technology In schools sInce the early 1990s, is quoted multiple times. Not one of the many experts In the field of educational technology, whom we know and love, was Interviewed (or at least quoted) In the article. The only reason given for the failure of technology is a lack of Increase In test scores In a district that already had high test scores. FInally, there was no test comparIng the technology skills of students In this school to any other school In the state. "

This post is about the same http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html article by Matt Richtel, of which Jim Shimabukuro reviewed a shorter version http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20110905/NEWS0107/109050315/ in http://etcjournal.com/2011/09/05/a-lesson-from-the-kyrene-school-district-technology-alone-is-not-the-answer/

About the same NYT article by Matt Richtel, a shorter and later version of which Jim Shimabukuro reviewed in http://etcjournal.com/2011/09/05/a-lesson-from-the-kyrene-school-district-technology-alone-is-not-the-answer/

"August 1, 2011, 5:51 pm By Rachel Wiseman College students with very poor vision have had to struggle to see a blackboard and take notes-basic tasks that can hold some back. Now a team of four students from Arizona State University has designed a system, called Note-Taker, that couples a tablet PC and a video camera, and could be a major advance over the small eyeglass-mounted telescopes that many students have had to rely on. It recently won second place in Microsoft's Imagine Cup technology competition. (...) The result was Note-Taker, which connects a tablet PC (a laptop with a screen you can write on) to a high-resolution video camera. Screen commands get the camera to pan and zoom. The video footage, along with audio, can be played in real time on the tablet and are also saved for later reference. Alongside the video is a space for typed or handwritten notes, which students can jot down using a stylus. That should be helpful in math and science courses, says Mr. Hayden, where students need to copy down graphs, charts, and symbols not readily available on a keyboard. (...) But no tool can replace institutional support, says Chris S. Danielsen, director of public relations for the [NFB]. "The university is always going to have to make sure that whatever technology it uses is accessible to blind and low-vision students," he says. (Arizona State U. has gotten in hot water in the past in just this area.) (...) This entry was posted in Gadgets."

In "(Arizona State U. has gotten In hot water In the past In just this area.)" the words "In the past" are lInked to http://chronicle.com/article/BlInd-Students-Demand-Access/125695/ , about a Spanish work book Inaccessible to blInd students, with a reference to the lawsuit agaInst Arizona State U over the adoption of the KIndle. So classifyIng this post In "Gadgets" is particularly paradoxical: In fact one reason why Arizona State U. was sued over the adoption of the KIndle was that Amazon presented its text-to-speech as a gadget.

Letters from Walton to his sister, opening the book, frontispiece or front bookend framing the story. 

"New world report shows more than 1 billion people with disabilities face substantial barriers in their daily lives Governments should step up efforts to enable access to mainstream services and to invest in specialized programmes to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities News release 9 June 2011 | New York - WHO and the World Bank today revealed new global estimates that more than one billion people experience some form of disability. They urged governments to step up efforts to enable access to mainstream services and to invest in specialized programmes to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities. World report on disability provides global estimates The first-ever World report on disability provides the first global estimates of persons with disabilities in 40 years and an overview of the status of disability in the world. New research shows that almost one-fifth of the estimated global total of persons living with disabilities, or between 110-190 million, encounter significant difficulties. The report stresses that few countries have adequate mechanisms in place to respond to the needs of people with disabilities. Barriers include stigma and discrimination, lack of adequate health care and rehabilitation services; and inaccessible transport, buildings and information and communication technologies. As a result, people with disabilities experience poorer health, lower educational achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. "Disability is part of the human condition," says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. "Almost every one of us will be permanently or temporarily disabled at some point in life. We must do more to break the barriers which segregate people with disabilities, in many cases forcing them to the margins of society.""

Direct link to the report download page: http://www.who.int/entity/disabilities/world_report/2011/en/index.html

"June 8, 2011, 7:01 pm By Marc Parry A budget approved by a legislative committee last week would force the University of Wisconsin to return $39-million in federal grants awarded to expand high-speed internet access across the state, state education officials said. The plan would also require all University of Wisconsin institutions to withdraw from WiscNet, a nonprofit network cooperative that services the public universities, most of the technical and private colleges in Wisconsin, about 75 percent of the state's elementary and high schools, and 95 percent of its public libraries, according to David F. Giroux, a spokesman for the university system. (...) Another provision in the plan would bar any University of Wisconsin campus from participating in advanced networks connecting research institutions worldwide, according to Mr. Evers's memo. For example, the Madison campus would have to withdraw from internet2, a high-speed networking consortium, said Mr. Giroux."

That's what Lessig had in mind when he said: "Think about the question of broadband policy. (…) The US has been a dismal failure in this respect. As we watch the US going from number 1 in broadband penetration, now to, depending on the scale, number 18, 19, or 28. And that change is because of policies that effectively block competition for broadband providers. Their answer, these broadband providers brought to our government, and got our government to impose actually benefited them and destroyed the incentives for them to compete in a way that would drive broadband penetration. (…)" From Lessig's Keynote Address at g8 7:48 - 8:42 - http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/C6wmjKWrZwlP/

How Google Dominates Us August 18, 2011 James Gleick "This much is clear: We need to decide what we want from Google. If only we can make up our collective minds. Then we still might not get it. The company always says users can "opt out" of many of its forms of data collection, which is true, up to a point, for savvy computer users; and the company speaks of privacy in terms of "trade-offs," to which Vaidhyanathan objects: Privacy is not something that can be counted, divided, or "traded." It is not a substance or collection of data points. It's just a word that we clumsily use to stand in for a wide array of values and practices that influence how we manage our reputations in various contexts. There is no formula for assessing it: I can't give Google three of my privacy points in exchange for 10 percent better service. This seems right to me, if we add that privacy involves not just managing our reputation but protecting the inner life we may not want to share. in any case, we continue to make precisely the kinds of trades that Vaidhyanathan says are impossible. Do we want to be addressed as individuals or as neurons in the world brain? We get better search results and we see more appropriate advertising when we let Google know who we are. And we save a few keystrokes."

"Ahmed ElAmin Published Jul 20, 2011 at 9:18 am (Updated Jul 20, 2011 at 8:01 am) Belgians have invented Smurfs, make some of the best beer in the world, and know how to fry a potato chip. However, one must say the country's leading newspapers scored an own goal when they took Google to court last year for listing their content in the search engine's news section and won on copyright. I guess they didn't look at how people arrive at a typical online newspaper site, which derives up to 50 percent or more of their visitors from Google. in addition to taking the group of papers out of its news section, Google also stopped indexing them in its search engine. Now the newspapers are complaining that they are being discriminated against unfairly! (...) Google has big power and the danger is how the company wields it in pursuit of profit. It brings traffic to websites, but the company that claims to "do no evil" can also taketh away ostracising those for good and bad reasons. The company is also stepping up its aggregation news service by trying to attract more volume through the "gamification" of Google News. Google is following a trend among news sites to bring readers in. With their consent, readers will be rewarded with "news badges" based on their reading habits. Badges of varying levels will be given out depending on the amount and types of articles you read. About 500 badges are available to suit a wide range of topics. Google News indexes about 50,000 sources. Keep reading and get those badges! Maybe."

"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."

"June 26, 2011, 6:16 pm by dotSUB This is a guest post by Kirti Vashee, VP Enterprise Translation Sales at Asia Online and member of dotSUB's Board of Advisors. You can also read Kirti's blog eMpTy Pages, where he writes about translation technology, localization and collaboration. The phenomena of a crowd or community stepping forward and doing real translation work, often for no direct financial compensation is something that troubles many in the professional translation world. Mostly because they see this activity as work being taken away from legitimate professionals or they see it as a ploy to reduce prices. While in some cases their fears may actually be justified, in the most successful uses of this approach I think it is clear that this is not true.If we look at some of the most successful examples of crowdsourced translation in practice, we can see that they have many if not all of the following elements in common."

June 21, 2011, 8:00 am By Prof. Hacker Lewis Carroll's logic game[This is a guest post by Anastasia Salter, Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore in the school of information Arts and Technologies. Her academic work focuses on storytelling in new media; she also writes the Future Fragments column for CinCity. Follow her on Twitter at AnaSalter.--@jbj] "...With that said, perhaps the most important takeaway from LEEF is that it's not all about expensive toys. Learning games don't have to be hi-tech to be effective. There's a lot to be learned from Space Vikings, the conference's ARG-that's alternate reality game, not its augmented reality cousin. Unlike augmented reality, which requires technology to mediate an environment, alternate reality is a playful imposition of story onto a physical space. in Space Vikings, a number of us dedicated conference attendees were drawn into a mission to save our tribes from a "pedagogical wasteland." How did we accomplish this feat? By hunting down "anomalies"-read masking tape clues, QR codes and posters-with answers to questions to submit in a digital educational games theory scavenger hunt. This is just one example of a conference ARG, and designers were at LEEF to report on lessons learned from others like DevLearn's Zombie Apocalypse. (For more ideas on educational uses of Alternate Reality, check out Think Transmedia.) These same ideas can scale and transform to a number of settings. For example, Melissa Peterson's Elmwood Park Zoo ARG is currently a project conducted with paper (though imagined for smartphones), and it's already doubling the engagement time of visitors to the local zoo. And on the other side, games like the Giskin Anomaly in Balboa Park are adding new layers of narrative to a popular and culturally rich tourist destination. And these games don't have to be location dependent. Case studies like the Radford Outdoor ARG Outbreak, a social inquiry game that puts st

Submitted by thiru on 23. June 2011 - 3:07 "Back in 2009, Brazil decided to table in this Committee a draft treaty on exceptions and limitations on copyrights for the print disabled guided by two assumptions: (1) The international treaty we are seeking to conclude must be a useful instrument for persons with print disabilities. This is why we tabled a text originally elaborated by the World Blind Union, by people who know best the reality on the ground; (2) The international copyright regime is a mature system, with more than 120 years of implementation experience in many countries. It is feasible to craft precise and effective E&L norms without depriving the rights of authors to reap the benefits of their creativity. We all recognize those rights and are fully committed to defend them. Let there be no doubt about it. Those two assumptions remain the guiding principles underlying Brazil's position. We are committed to helping bring this negotiating process to a successful outcome. For Brazil, a successful outcome is an international instrument which will be an useful and effective one. An effective instrument which makes clear the firm commitment "on the ground" of all Member States to mitigating the book famine of more than 150 million people world-wide. At the end of the process there must be a treaty. Why shouldn't we aim for a treaty? This question should be answered against the broader background of all the themes under discussion in this Committee."

Add link in http://etcjournal.com/2011/06/21/copyright-and-disability-wipo-consensus-document/ ?

"August 25, 2011 In the U.S., as recently as last Summer, tablet and eReader owners tended to be male and on the younger side. But accordIng to Nielsen's latest, quarterly survey of mobile connected device owners, this is no longer the case. Back In Q3 2010, for example, 62 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and only 10 percent were over the age of 55. By Q2 2011, only 46 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and the percentage of those over 55 had Increased to 19 percent. LookIng at the data by gender underlInes key changes In the eReader category. Sixty-one percent of all eReader owners are now female, compared to a mere 46 percent In Q3 2010. (Smartphone owners are now evenly split between male and female and tablets remaIn primarily male.)"

" * By David Nagel * 05/23/11 The National Association of Secondary School Principals is looking to change the conversation about mobile computing and social media in schools. The group's board of directors recently released a position statement advocating greater access to and acceptance of technologies like smart phones and social networking sites in educational institutions. The statement characterized mobile and social technologies as both crises and opportunities for leaders, saying confusion among many principals has to date led many school leaders to knee-jerk policy decisions, such as outright bans on specific technologies. But these bans, in addition to being misguided, have been ineffective."

James Love 2011-06-14 Huffington Post "in 2008, the Bush administration opposed a treaty for the blind. in early 2009, the Obama administration also opposed a treaty for the blind. But by December 2009, the Obama administration seemed to have changed its mind, and announced it was "open" to a treaty. But since 2009, three key treaty supporters left the Obama administration -- Susan Crawford and Andrew McLaughlin in the White House and Arti Rai at USPTO. Since the departure of Crawford, McLaughlin and Rai, the USPTO has been aggressively but quietly trying to kill the treaty, and pressuring treaty supporters, including both NGOs and governments, to settle for a soft recommendation as a "first step" and to wait several more years before taking the treaty proposal up again. Europe is divided on the treaty. Some countries, such as the UK and a few northern European countries support the treaty, and the European Parliament recently voted to support the treaty. But France and Germany oppose the treaty, and so has the European Commission. At this point, the fate of the treaty is largely in the hands of David Kappos, the former IBM executive now running the USPTO. If Kappos supports the treaty, opposition will fade, and the treaty will move ahead to a diplomatic conference. For a detailed history and background on the negotiation, see: Background and update on negotiations for a WIPO copyright treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities."

"July 31, 2011 By David Glenn Cambridge, Mass. This past April in Switzerland, Lawrence Lessig gave an impassioned lecture denouncing publishers' paywalls, which charge fees to read scholarly research, thus blocking most people from access. It was a familiar theme for Mr. Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who is one of the world's most outspoken critics of intellectual-property laws. But in this speech he gave special attention to JSTOR, a not-for-profit journal archive. He cited a tweet from a scholar who called JSTOR "morally offensive" for charging $20 for a six-page 1932 article from the California Historical Society Quarterly. The JSTOR archive is not usually cast as a leading villain by open-access advocates. But Mr. Lessig surely knew in April something that his Swiss audience did not: Aaron Swartz-a friend and former Harvard colleague of Mr. Lessig's-was under investigation for misappropriating more than 4.8 million scholarly papers and other files from JSTOR. On July 19, exactly three months after Mr. Lessig's speech, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging that Mr. Swartz had abused computer networks at the Massachusetts institute of Technology and disrupted JSTOR's servers. If convicted on all counts, Mr. Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison."

"Chloe Albanesius July 18, 2011 "We are delighted that Copiepresse has given us assurances that we can re-include their sites in our Google search index without court-ordered penalties," Google said in a Monday statement. "We never wanted to take their sites out of our index, but we needed to respect a court order until Copiepresse acted. We remain open to working in collaboration with Copiepresse members in the future.""