Flat Connections Global Project

This blog post speaks mainly about a specific area in the educational world that can be greatly improved through use of mobile technology. It talks about the advancements it can make in student engagement, as well as areas of learning that require listening and speaking. While the listening and speaking seems to only be relevant to things such as language classes, any improvement to student engagement in the classroom is easily applicable to any field of education.

This is a more basic explanation by Educase of how mobile learning can be used, as well as the direction it seems to be heading. Along with this, it also mentions some of the downsides that come along with this revolutionary idea of mobile learning.

This is a synthesis of a conference discussing mobile learning by a community known as ELI. This conference discusses a lot of key points that go along with the integration of mobile technology into the learning environment.

This article delves into an interesting idea that reminds the reader that we must not treat mobile learning as anything we have seen before. To get the most out of this technology, we must see it as something completely new. We will probably end up changing the way we do things, but, in the end, it will be much more useful and helpful for the students.

This is an older document on mobile learning discussing the potential of technology in the classroom. While there is no date pertaining to the publication of this document, I do not see any citations which date beyond 2003. This can be an interesting reference to look at while we ourselves are in the heart of the mobile learning age, while the authors of this are only looking at how it might be used.

I founded very interesting because it helps you know which schools and people were the founders of the open content alliance.

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."

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

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 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 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 is an article that states how 3D printing can help in a classroom. It details how a 3D model can provide hands on learning for students, and is a great way to get students interested in the subject matter.

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.

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.

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.

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.