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

Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers Unleashing the Potential of Educational Technology September 16, 2011 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Educational technology holds the promise of substantially improving outcomes for K-12 students, but there are significant challenges in bringing new educational technology products for this population to market. It is difficult for producers of these technologies to demonstrate the effectiveness of their products to potential buyers and market fragmentation creates barriers to entry by all but the largest suppliers. The spread of broadband Internet and Common Core State Standards have improved the landscape for educational technologies, but these factors alone are likely insufficient for a "game changing" advance. Working together, stakeholders can form a plan of action to provide local school systems with easy access to good information about the effectiveness of various educational technology products and give prospective developers of these products access to customers on a scale sufficient to make it worthwhile for them to enter the market. The payoff - in the form of more effective and more widely utilized educational technologies, leading to better outcomes for students - could be enormous.

"June 21, 2011, 6:52 pm By Marc Parry "What happens when you invite the whole world to join an online class? As The Chronicle reported last year, a growing number of educators are giving that idea a try by offering free "massive open online courses," or MOOC's, to anyone who wants to learn. Today, that experimental idea gained some more traction in mainstream higher education. The University of Illinois at Springfield announced a new not-for-credit MOOC devoted to examining the state of online education and where e-learning is heading. Nearly 500 people from two dozen countries have registered so far, with 1,000 expected to sign up by the time the course begins next Monday. (...) Not enough MOOC for you? Stay tuned. Starting in September, another group will organize what the MOOC pioneer George Siemens calls the "Mother of all MOOCs." In a blog post Monday, Mr. Siemens welcomed the growing interest from traditional universities. And he countered the more skeptical take offered by another open-education leader, David Wiley, who wrote recently that "MOOCs and their like are not the answer to higher-education's problems." (...)"

"The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release September 24, 2011 WEEKLY ADDRESS: Strengthening the American Education System WASHINGTON-In this week's address, President Obama told the American people that it is time to raise the standards of our education system so that every classroom is a place of high expectations and high performance. On Friday, the President announced that states will have greater flexibility to find innovative ways of improving the quality of learning and teaching, so that we can strengthen performance in our classrooms and ensure that teachers are helping students learn rather than teaching to the test. By modernizing our schools and improving the education system, the United States can continue building an economy that lasts into the future and prepare the next generation to succeed in the global economy."

For the video of this address, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAdWbOtJYX4 or http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/ncTYQHe4jvy4/

Joy Resmovits Aug. 5, 2011 ""We have become increasingly concerned with the proposed contract," Michael Mulgrew and Richard Iannuzzi, who respectively head New York City's and the state's teachers' unions, wrote in the note. The letter is addressed to New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, state Commissioner of Education John King, Jr., and copied to State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. "It is especially troubling that Wireless Generation will be tasked with creating a centralized student database for personal information even as its parent company, News Corporation, stands accused of engaging in illegal news gathering tactics, including the hacking of private voicemail accounts," the letter reads. Murdoch acquired 90 percent of Wireless Generation for about $360 million last November. At the time of the acquisition, Murdoch said he saw K-12 education as a "$500 billion sector." Murdoch's first general move in the education sector had come just a few weeks earlier, when he tapped Joel Klein, then the chancellor of New York City's schools, to lead his education ventures. The Wireless Generation contracts were approved while Klein still ran the district, leading to speculation about the chancellor's intentions."

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

By David Nagel 05/26/11 "...The United States Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights Thursday issued a "dear colleague letter" to public K-12 institutions (as well as a separate letter to higher education institutions) and a set of answers to frequently asked questions that expands on a letter sent out exclusively to college and university presidents last June (DCL). In the FAQ, OCR makes explicit some legal obligations of all education institutions, including K-12 institutions, to "ensure equal access to the educational benefits and opportunities afforded by the technology and equal treatment in the use of the technology for all students, including students with disabilities." At the same time, the FAQ said the intent is not to stifle the use of new and emerging technologies, but to "remind everyone that equal access for students with disabilities is the law and must be considered as new technology is integrated into the educational environment. ..."

Complements http://etcjournal.com/2010/07/06/ebook-readers-attempting-to-bugger-the_blind-bad-for-business/ and perhaps http://etcjournal.com/2011/03/19/nyu-northwestern-schools-adopting-google-apps-discriminate-against-the-blind/

"As I have travelled across the country visiting schools and classrooms and talking with teachers and parents, I have heard many questions about our plans at the U.S. Department of Education to support children with disabilities, their families, and the teachers who educate them and fight for them daily. To hear more about the issues affecting students with disabilities and their teachers, I asked CEC to contact members through an e-mail blast. Your response was overwhelming. Though CEC received more questions than we could possibly answer here, I have worked with your leadership to identify some of the central questions for educators of children with disabilities, and I have worked with my staff at the Department so that we can address them in this document. I would like to thank CEC members and all teachers of children with disabilities for their outstanding compassion and commitment and for the range of complex skills and talents you bring to teaching your students every day."

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

"By Ian Quillen - July 20, 2011 When News Corp. announced last fall its entry into the education technology market, some observers said the media conglomerate led by Rupert Murdoch was a bad fit for education. Between the ownership of conservative-leaning outlets like Fox News and a reputation for identifying opportunities to generate lots of revenue very quickly, News Corp. had a business model, they suggested, that wouldn't mesh well with a world where public-employee unions hold influence and business development typically is gradual. Now, just as News Corp. had appeared set to expand its education holdings beyond its recently acquired subsidiary Wireless Generation, those concerns are joined by a deluge of legal and ethical issues surrounding the phone-hacking scandal in the conglomerate's United Kingdom division."

"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."

"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/

"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.

"Educators sharing bookmarks and best practice. We have a set of standard tags to help us share things that you may use in addition to your tags. (You may subscribe to these tags via RSS feed by subject area, which makes it very useful.) Group Info Members: 1989 Items: 9602 Visits: 22590 Owner: Vicki Davis Group type: Public, apply to join Group category: Schools & Education"

Educators and ETCJ groups are closely related.

"It's clear that the world is moving faster than it ever has before. This infographic below, produced by Knewton, an adaptive technology platform based in New York City, tells us that education is a 7 trillion dollar industry, 570 times the size of the online advertising market. In a time when 30% of students in the U.S. fail out of high school, our current education system is broken, from the bottom up. But the landscape is changing. The Internet is bringing us digital content, mass distribution and personalized learning. Check it out here and click the image to enlarge."

"In the summer of 2010, Peter Mosinskis from CSU Channel Islands assembled a team of approximately fifteen volunteers from seven different CSU campuses and one from the UC system to evaluate the accessibility of Google Apps. The team also recruited student volunteers and screen reader users to assist with the testing. Automated, manual, and screen reader testing began the first week of January 2011 and was completed February 4th. The report has been completed and posted here for your review. The CSU Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) Staff, ATI Leadership Council, and Google have reviewed the Google Apps Accessibility Evaluation report. We discovered a number of accessibility issues during our testing. These issues are outlined in the report as well as "workarounds" that can be used to improve the user experience for persons with disabilities. When campuses choose to use Google Apps, they are required to provide an equally effective service for people with disabilities and it is critical for campuses to ensure that the "workarounds" meet the educational needs of the student and/or faculty. The March 15, 2011 USA TODAY online news article "Complaint: Google programs hard for blind students" illustrates possible legal problems that may result from adopting the Google Apps for Education suite. Questions or Comments about this report may be directed to CSU ATI Staff"

Table of Contents Print Complete BookPrint This Chapter Next ATI Google Apps Accessibility Evaluation Section 1. Executive Summary Section 2. About the Project Section 3. Findings Section 4. Workarounds, Accommodations and Best Practices Summary and Conclusions Authors Note Appendices A - E

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/

"May 25th, 2011 As online education rules loom, a call for cooperation between states Web-based colleges will more easily comply with state rules if leaders seek 'uniformity,' online education experts say as-online-education-rules-loom-a-call-for-cooperation-between-states By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor Members of an influential online-learning task force said states should create uniform standards for online colleges and universities, making it easier for institutions to comply with a federal rule that will prove costly and confusing to web-based schools."

"Collection: C. Szwedzicki: The North American Indian Works Work Record ID: 219 Reproduction Record ID: 219 Work Class: depictions Work Type: print Title: Retreat of Reno's Commnand Title Type: constructed title Title: Sioux Indian painting Title Type: collective title Measurements: 11.40 x 19.05 in (28.96 x 48.39 cm) on sheet 15.30 x 19.50 in (38.86 x 49.53 cm) Measurement Type: dimensions Material: paper (fiber product) Material Type: support Inscription: Image Top Center: Custer Battle Field / June 25 and 26 1876 / Crazy Horse Inscription: Above Image Right: 8 [Plate Number] Creator: Bad Heart Bull, Amos, 1869-1913 Creator Dates: 1869-1913 Creator Nationality: Oglala Lakota Creator Name Variant: Bad Heart Buffalo (Tatanka Cante Sice) Creator Type: personal name Creator Role: painter Date: 1938 Location: Little Bighorn Battlefield (Mont.) Repository: Archives and Rare Books Library, University Libraries, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Repository Type: current repository ID Number: 8 ID Number Type: plate number ID Number: ARB RB Oversize E98.A7 S568 1938 Vol. 2 ID Number Type: call number Style Period: Plains Indian Style Period: Indian art--North America Culture: Native American Culture: Oglala Lakota Subject: Belts (Clothing) Subject: Breechcloths Subject: Face painting Subject: Feathers Subject: Fringe Subject: Leggings Subject: Moccasins Subject: Beadwork Subject: Body painting Subject: Shirts, Men's Subject: Breastplates Subject: Hair pipes Subject: Bridles Subject: Horseback riding Subject: Horses Subject: Chokers Subject: Arrows Subject: Metalwork Subject: Picture-writing Subject: Saddle blankets Subject: Indian warfare Subject: Rifles Subject: Military uniforms Subject: Sabers Subject: Bow lances Subject: Crazy Horse (Tashunca-Uitco), ca. 1842-1877 Subject: Fixed-stone-head clubs Subject: Hats Subject: Saddles Subject: Saddlebags Subject: War shirts Subject: Reno, Marcus A. (Marcus Albert), 1835-1889 Subject: Indians of North America--Wars Subj