Skip to main content

Home/ Educational Technology and Change Journal/ Group items matching "thinking" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Bonnie Sutton

A Perfect Storm Hits Public Schools - 1 views

By Anthony Cody on February 22, 2012 11:35 AM http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/02/a_perfect_storm_hits_public_sc.html Guest post by Steven Sellers Lapham. Note: Steven Sel...

Department of Duncan ESEA NCLB education reform standardized tests teacher evaluation

started by Bonnie Sutton on 23 Feb 12 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

The Digital Divide - 1 views

Posted by Drew Hendricks on Feb 8th, 2012 // The current Internet revolution provides amazing opportunities for entry-level professionals, college students, and entrepreneurs, but as the Infograp...

infographic digital divide technology spread costs Internet access

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

Momentum Growing for State-Level Telecom Deregulation - 1 views

Telecompetitor.com By Joan Engebretson New Hampshire last week became the latest state to adopt telecom legislation that gives incumbent local exchange carriers more flexibility in making changes...

Telecom state regulation deregulation

started by Bonnie Sutton on 19 Jun 12 no follow-up yet
Jim Shimabukuro

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

  •  
    "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...
  •  
    From Harry Keller
  •  
    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?
  •  
    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.
  •  
    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?
  •  
    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.
  •  
    "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
Bonnie Sutton

Star Wars: The Old Republic's lead writer on good Sith, evil Jedi - 1 views

By Ben Kuchera http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/the-old-republic-interview.ars It's hard to show off an MMO title within the constraints of a trade show, so I rarely feel like I walk aw...

games gaming technology

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

Plan Would Force U. of Wisconsin to Return $39-Million in U.S. Broadband Grants - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

  •  
    "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/
janschwartz4

Shift Happens v5 - Iowa, Did You Know? [VIDEO] | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think - 0 views

  •  
    Excellent video--what state couldn't use this? The Did You Know? (Shift Happens) videos have been seen by at least 40 million people online and perhaps that many again during face-to-face conferences, workshops, etc. This week saw the release of the latest version, this one focused on the state of Iowa.
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

Save Our Schools Conference and Clippings - 0 views

A few clippings. The Save Our Schools March http://www.washingtonpost.com/local By Valerie Strauss "I don't know where I would be today if my teachers' job security was based on how I performed o...

Paul Gorski Save Schools Rally Diane Ravitz Alfie Kohn teachers Tired Teacher Blog Answersheet White House Invitation to our Leaders

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

Don't Show,Don't Tell The too-smart-for-its-own-good grid - 1 views

Don't show, don't tell? http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/teaching-children-0630.html Cognitive scientists find that when teaching young children, there is a trade-off between direct instructi...

direct instruction independent exploration grid MIT double edged sword to pedagogy

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

Social Justice and Equity - 1 views

http://blog.fedcan.ca/2011/05/20/equity-and-social-justice-from-the-inside-out-ten-commitments-of-a-multicultural-educ Equity and social justice from the inside-out: Ten commitments of a multicultu...

Muticultural Pavillion pluralism social justice strategies for equity

started by Bonnie Sutton on 12 Aug 11 no follow-up yet
Claude Almansi

Teaching in "Culture of Fear, Intimidation and Retaliation" - 6 views

URLs: quoted article: http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/159157.html originally published in http://npe.educationnews.org/Review/Essays/v7n7.htm (with appendices containing many further links)

School cheating culture of fear leadership abusive administrative behavior

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

Twitter Hashtags for Educators http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/... - 2 views

Electronic Teaming for Singletons in a PLC One of the questions that I'm asked all the time as an advocate for both professional learning communities and teaching with technology is, "How can ...

Twitter Hastags for Educators professional development using social networking

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

Don't show, don't tell? - 2 views

Suppose someone showed you a novel gadget and told you, "Here's how it works," while demonstrating a single function, such as pushing a button. What would you do when they handed it to you? You'd ...

engineeringsciencemanagementarchitecture + planninghumanities arts and social sciencescampusmultimediapress

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

NCTQ Teacher Education Study an 'Outrage,' AACTE Says | Main | Different Meas... - 1 views

Stephen Sawchuk Stephen Sawchuk, a former federal education beat writer, turns his inner policy geek to digging around in the weeds of the teaching profession. Join him as he explicates the polic...

teacher Training at a meta level new project highly qualified teachers

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

Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference - 1 views

http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=16561 Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference reviewed by Sherick Hughes - October 14, 2011 Title: Just Schools: Pursuing Equality...

pursuing equality societies of difference critical race theory CRT ethnicity

started by Bonnie Sutton on 18 Oct 11 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
Bonnie Sutton

ITIF to Privacy Chicken Little's: "The Sky Is Not Falling" - 0 views

For Immediate Release For More Information: Steve Norton (202) 626-5758 snorton@itif.org WASHINGTON (October 11, 2011)-In response to the report released today at a forum sponsored by various pr...

Data Privacy Principles for Spurring Innovation. ITIF online tools

started by Bonnie Sutton on 12 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
Bonnie Sutton

Silicon Valley's Dark Secret: It's All About Age - 1 views

http://wadhwa.com/2010/08/28/silicon-valley%E2%80%99s-dark-secret-it%E2%80%99s-all-about-age/ An interesting paradox in the technology world is that there is both a shortage and a surplus of engin...

shortage of engineers technology surplus chips and change

started by Bonnie Sutton on 28 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
« First ‹ Previous 81 - 100 of 100
Showing 20 items per page