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Chris McEnroe

Technology a Top Priority in District 196 Schools - Rosemount, MN Patch - 0 views

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  • y more engaged,” said Heier. “The engagement itself, hopefully, will increase student performance.” Funding for these undertakings comes from a variety of sources, said Jeff Solomon, director of finance and operations for the district. Until recently, one source was a financial pool provided to schools nationwide by the Microsoft corporation as the result of a lawsuit served as a revenue source. However, those funds are now drying up after several years of use. The district also receives $1.4 million per year from the capital projects levy, all of which is intended for technology-related purchases. The 10-year levy was voted into effect in 2004. Capital funds are another source of technology funding. These monies, which are issued annually, are provided by state aid and by local property taxes. The total capital funds budget is $10 million per year. However, only $140,000 is designated for administrative technology; another $1.2 million is also allocated to specific schools, where the revenue is often used to fund technology. Currently, the district’s primary technological priority is building a stronger, more consistent wireless connection, said Heier. This project is still in the early stages. The district is working with a consulting firm to design a network that will allow for further expansion. Heier said that in the future, the district would like to create an environment where students can bring their own devices to school, and where schools provide students with devices, such as laptops and tablets. The district will begin building the network in either summer or fall of 2012. Heier was unable to estimate an end date for the project, but said the district hopes to establish the network within two years. The wireless project is estimated to cost between $500,000 and $750,000, according to Heier. Funding for the network is currently being sourced from the capital project levy. At present, levy funds will not be available until after 2014-2015. However, the levy may be renewed through a community vote in 2014. Either way, it appears that high-tech efforts will continue to be a priority for District 196 in the foreseeable future. “It’s our world now,” said Berenz. “We don’t have the choice to not incorporate technology.” Related Topics: Capital Funds Project, Capital Revenue, District 196, Education, Jeff solomon, Rosemount-Apple Valley- Eagan School District, Superintendent Jane Berenz, Technology in classes, and classroom technology What do you think of technology in classrooms? Tell us in the comments. Email me updates about this story. [["validates_email_format_of",{"message":"Enter a valid email address e.g. janedoe@aol.com."}]] Website: Thanks. We'll email you the next time we update this story.  Email  Print Follow comments  Submit tip   Comment Leave a comment [["validates_presence_of",{"message":"Hey, you forgot to let us know how you feel \u2014 please enter a comment."}],["validates_length_of",{"too_long":"Easy there, Tolstoy. Your comment cannot exceed 1500 characters.","maximum":1500,"allow_blank":true}]]comm
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    Spending money with the hope that learning comes from assumed engagement.
Ryan Brown

What Makes a Top-Tier Online Education? A Dose of Hollywood - Technology - The Chronicl... - 1 views

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    Interjecting "Hollywood" into online courses to make them more engaging.
Parisa Rouhani

Virtually addicted: Weaning Koreans off their wired world - CNN.com - 1 views

  • Cheong is down to playing two or three hours on "Starcraft" and "World of Warcraft" three times a week,
  • The South Korean government estimates that the country has 2 million citizens addicted to the Internet
  • Earlier this month a three-month-old baby girl succumbed to malnutrition while her parents spent 12-hour stretches in an Internet café playing the role-playing game Prius Online
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  • 22-year-old man returned to an Internet cafe to continue playing immediately after he murdered his mother, who had complained about his gaming habits. Physical exhaustion after long computer sessions has also caused deaths.
  • Internet addicts will also be offered free software with a timer that shuts down their computers or a "fatigue system" that bores players by making games slower and more difficult
  • Some of the suggested new measures to curb Internet addiction could collide with a gaming market that is expected to be worth $5.5 billion this year with a 17 percent growth rate
  • The companies make their money selling add-ons such as weapons, outfits and special abilities for the online characters.
  • Another novel idea to curb addiction is to punish excessive playing by confiscating gamers' virtual wealth.
  • We are examining various technological directions to prevent excessively continuous game play even for adults, and we are also discussing a special system that will allow children and teenagers to learn a healthy gaming habit,
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    This is an interesting article that speaks to the result of over-engagement. I wonder if this problem is specific to Korea and less so in other countries (if so, what is it about that environment that makes video games so addictive) or if it's only been studied in Korea but could be a similar problem in other parts of the world.
Anushka Fernando

Apple's Chinese workers treated 'inhumanely, like machines' | Technology | The Observer - 1 views

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    As consumers of Apple's products we should be aware of what's going on in the lives of people who make them and also use it as a lesson not to make the same mistakes when we run our own companies
Hongge Ren

Will Wright: Spore, birth of a game - 1 views

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    "the reason why I make toys like this is because I think if there's one difference I could possibly make in the world, that I would choose to make, it's that I would like to somehow give people just a little bit better calibration on long-term thinking. Because I think most of the problems that our world is facing right now is the result of short-term thinking, and the fact that it is so hard for us to think 50, 100, or 1,000 years out. And I think by giving kids toys like this and letting them replay dynamics, very long-term dynamics over the short term, and getting some sense of what we're doing now, what it's going to be like in 100 years, I think probably is the most effective thing I can be doing to help the world. And so that's why I think, personally, that toys can change the world." - Will Wright
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    Thank you for sharing this! I completely agree...I think besides short-term thinking, another dangerous tendency is severe risk-aversion...
Kim Frumin

Hardware makes a comeback - 0 views

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    This article provides a great overview of the new technologies profiled at SXSW and makes the case that it's now cheaper than ever before to bring prototypes to market. The author notes, "The dropping costs of designing and building inventive new hardware products has prompted a wave of creativity and innovation that echoes the software boom a decade or two ago in Silicon Valley." Makes me wonder... what's next?
Kasthuri Gopalaratnam

Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work? | Video on TED.com - 2 views

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    Wonderful Talk. Very interesting notion of 'meaningful work' that makes us value our work more.
Kasthuri Gopalaratnam

Berkeley Group Tries to Make Sense of Big Data - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    The most difficult aspect to analyzing Big Data or even programming software to analyze Big Data is to resist the temptation to take our current understanding of data analysis and push it into a new platform. WHAT is the information we need and HOW can we present it in order help educators make decisions that truly impact student achievement? Holy Grail!
Chris Dede

Digital | Social media and video games in classrooms can yield valuable data for teachers - 2 views

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    Brookings report on games and learning
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    It's interesting that so many products have a teacher focused data output model but if the software isn't making recommendations, the student must wait for the teacher to analyze the data to make changes. I wonder when software will empower students to make their own curricular choices based on their data. I don't believe I've seen this.
Jing Jing Tan

Welcome to Flow in Games - 0 views

  • In order to design a game for broader audiences, the in-game experience can’t be linear and static. Instead, it needs to offer a wide coverage of potential experiences to fit in different players’ Flow Zones
  • To expand a game's Flow Zone coverage, the design needs to offer a wide variety of gameplay experiences. From extremely simple tasks to complex problem solving, different players should always be able to find the right amount of challenges to engage during the Flow experience.
  • Once a network of choices is applied, the Flow experience is very much customizable by the players. If they start feeling bored, they can choose to play harder, vice versa.
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  • Expand your game’s Flow coverage by including a wide spectrum of gameplay with different difficulties and flavors Create an Player-oriented Active DDA system to allow different players to play in their own paces Embed DDA choices into the core gameplay mechanics and let player make their choices through play
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    This article examines how to best create flow experiences in video games. The author argues for 1) including a variety of gameplay activities, 2) allowing players to play at their own paces, and 3) letting players make choices.
Tom Keffer

Making Good Citizenship Fun - NYTimes.com - 2 views

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    Using lotteries and other devices to motivate people to do things they might otherwise find unattractive.
Tom Keffer

E-Books on Tablets Fight Digital Distractions - NYTimes.com - 3 views

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    Good summary of the dilemma with iPads and tablets: are they good readers or do that make distractions too available?
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    Great article. Since readers require a higher degree of motivation when reading any given book on a tablet (to actively ignore distractions), this puts more pressure on publishers/authors to make their content meaningful and engaging. Perhaps this might result in higher standards for books/fewer books being published?
Brandon Pousley

Winter Bells - 0 views

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    On a study break, I rediscovered this quite addictive, simple game that I think captures the ideas of flow quite nicely. I think the simple design, exponential scoring, soothing music, great art, and realistic physics make it quite immersive (for better or for worse!)
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    The music, the challenge of hitting the bells, the fact that the bells actually add some 'harmony' to the music, the high score at the end of the game. Simply brilliant. Thanks for sharing it!
Chris Dede

The growing culture of impatience, where instant gratification makes us crave more inst... - 7 views

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    What happens when everything can be made engaging, instantly?
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    I read the UMass study that it references (average time to wait for a page to load is ~2 sec) when it came out and initially found it surprising, but after paying closer attention to my internet habits, I realized that I, too, am quite impatient!!
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    I do feel media can be viewed as a reward because of the high levels of enjoyment and engagement when one consumes media. That is why it is so 'gratifying' and we end up constantly yearning for it unless we train ourselves to observe our media consumption patterns. It is important to monitor these patterns.
Lisa Schnoll

Market for Ed. Games Remains Difficult to Crack, Report Says - Marketplace K-12 - Educa... - 0 views

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    This is a brief summary of the Games for a Digital Age report released by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (Sesame Workshop related) on the challenges facing Digital Educational Games market. I recommend linking through to the full report. I am curious to know what the class thinks of the recommendations the report makes. One thing they emphasize is situating games as supplementary material - do you think this is a good thing/bad thing?
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