Flat Connections Global Project

I hope you can find this video useful

I hope people interested on the Learning Analytics topic find this useful, it includes images and I found it helpful to understand more clearly this topic.

It shows the countries in Europe and all around the world that want to have open content. And what are they offering.

This is a link to the OpenEssayist project page. It is a project currently under development in the UK that assists students in writing essays. It examines their paragraphs and gives suggestions for how to write the rest of it. It is currently in use by Open University UK.

In development by Perdue University, the program entitled Signals allows students and teachers to monitor areas of difficulty. It uses a color system that informs the student of how he or she is doing in a subject, and even in a specific topic of a subject. This allows students to realize what they need to focus more on, or where they need help.

This article is about figuring out what is the most environmentally friendly way to present something to a group of people. It is comparing a big projector, small projector, laptop, tablet/iPad, or hanging out sheets of paper. In the end which method you use depends on how many people you are presenting to. In some cases tablets are more energy efficient than a large projector or paper. It all depends on the audience size.

iPad sales are surpassing computer sales, and the demand continues to increase. Transition from paper to tablets. There is more emission when producing an iPad than when producing paper but it is balanced from consuming on the same device rather than buying new books over and over again. The disposal of tablets is a little more tricky. E-waste is often sent to other countries.

These virtual labs are prepared to "create a new point of view and bring about a new dimension to the lesson." After doing research they have found that these virtual labs are just as effective as doing the real thing and not as rough on the environment. Students reported that they enjoyed this new way of learning and helps in different ways.

This article discuses many of the advantages to using a virtual lab rather than going through the motions of a traditional lab. Virtual labs are generally less expensive, allowing more schools to benefit their students. The labs have also been shown to help explain the process and science behind the lab in a understandable way to students trying to learn. Although it does mention that virtual labs should not be completely take over. The article says that these labs should really be used to "enforce" the information.

I found it interesting to read about the two being compared. Of course there are always going to be benefits to participating in the traditional lab, new advances in technology have made it easy to replicate doing the same thing without some extra costs. In a virtual lab there is no set up or cleaning up after, students can repeat the experiment more than one time, and it is a lot more cost effective. These are just a few topics that the site focusses on that I found useful.

In reading this article I discovered some of the negative traits of virtual labs. Obviously it is not as hands on as a traditional lab. This may be an issue for some of the more visual learners. There can also be time and place restrictions when it comes to the virtual labs.

This article details about how 3D printing will soon transform the classroom. It talks about how different museums now have "fossils" that you can download, and print a replica for a class. It goes on to state that in 3-5 years 3D printing will become much more prominent in all classes.

This article focuses on a teacher who recently integrated 3D printing in her own class. It talked about how much of a learning experience it was for her children, and at some points they learned together to find out how a 3D printer works.

This is about MakerBot Academy, a crowds sourced effort to get 3D printers into schools. Motivated by president Obama who said that "3D printing has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. The next industrial revolution in manufacturing will happen in America. We can get that done." MakerBot is trying to promote the next "industrial revolution" with 3D printers.

This is another article wrapping up students learning from 3D Printing. It has detailed experiences of students learning.

This article talks about the basic foundation of a virtual lab. They use "Virtual labs use the power of computerized models and simula- tions and a variety of other instructional technologies to replace face- to-face lab activities."