Group items tagged

"School of One uses technology to develop a unique learning path for each student and to provide a significant portion of the instruction that is both individualized and differentiated." I liked the definitions of individualized (pacing), differentiated (learning preferences/methods), and personalized (pacing, preferences, and content/objectives).

Excellent talks

What 100 Experts Think About The Future Of Learning

An interesting infographic on the future of learning.

Looks like its not too far away...Educators really need to start thinking about how their role will evolve in this scenario.

While we are debating e-learning, developing countries are forging ahead, including engaging private sector, setting up long term strategy and policy, and starting Asia e University. "Think of it this way. We are preparing them for jobs that don't yet exist and for technologies that haven't been invented," Policarpio, Philippine Education Dept. official, says. He also compares what we do at Harvard stating that there is a big difference in accessing resources vs. e-learning., "For example, Harvard and Yale have an online portal for learning-a place where they can share their lectures and reports online. But those are just resources anyone can access. e-learning goes beyond that. It melds all kinds of academic activities with ICT (Information and Communication Technology)."

Jerry Brown, Governor of California, speaks out about the ineptitude of standardized tests as a comprehensive, accurate way of measuring student learning. This idea is germane to most of what we are learning about the virtues of performance-based assessments, constructivist approach to learning, and the future of education. Does anybody think that there will ever be a time when standardized testing is replaced by something more effective? Emerging technologies like augmented reality simulations and multi-user virtual environments could be candidates for the replacement of standardized paper-based tests. Interesting to think about...

Ed Murphy, vice president of business development at Learn360. "The recent adoption of both sets of new Standards affords Learn360 boundless opportunities to provide even more resources and tools to help students think critically, make informed decisions and ultimately make larger social contributions in a heavily wired world." Additionally, the 21st Century Learning Skills focus on helping students master the multi-dimensional abilities required of them in the future by blending specific skills, content-knowledge, expertise and literacy with innovative support systems"

Envisioning and exploring classroom and education in the future - the video of a panel session at the end of this article is quite interesting. "Learning communities are growing beyond the walls of classrooms. But before we move too fast into that realm, it is critical that students get the support they need to navigate this frontier. They need to learn to think critically, synthesize information, and communicate their ideas effectively and clearly."

This paper presents the first experimental evidence on the effects of live versus internet media of instruction. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an internet setting, where all other factors (e.g., instruction, supplemental materials) were the same. Counter to the conclusions drawn by a recent U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis of non-experimental analyses of internet instruction in higher education, we find modest evidence that live-only instruction dominates internet instruction. These results are particularly strong for Hispanic students, male students, and lower-achieving students. We also provide suggestions for future experimentation in other settings.

The authors are very misleading in their claim that this study is the first on live versus internet. There is a huge literature on this topic stretching back decades. The claims about the generalizability of the study are also very suspect.

Chris, I think the authors are claiming it is the first experimental trial where participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition. They contrast their study with the DOE meta-analysis, which I don't think includes experimental studies--at least as experiments are defined within econometrics. My problem with the study is that they are aren't really comparing live vs. internet so much as live vs. recorded video. They are very careful to not take advantage of any of the potential affordances of internet mediated instruction, except broadcasting a lecture, to preserve the "purity" of their experiment. Of course, that's not a terribly interesting experiment. The more interesting experiments, which they deride as "not apples-to-apples," is to compare a traditional lecture format with an online course that takes full advantage of the affordances of the internet. These studies would confound the carefully balanced design of an apples-to-apples comparison, but no serious education technologist thinks we should just record all the lectures and post them...

This recaps an event on digital learning. Professor Dede is mentioned in this article.

The author makes a case for mobile learning for professionals with the Android App - Google Goggles... are there other uses that people see of the app in the k-12 sector?

Program in Estonia designed to have all students age 7 to 16 learn to write code in a drive to turn children from consumers to developers of technology.

Hmmm.... I read about Estonia being very plugged in as well. I wonder if there is research on whether the kids are actually learning better as a result. I think that you have a point Jeffrey. It depends what the cost is. If kids are missing some critical lesson because they are coding at such a young age, there may be a trade-off. On the other hand, maybe the skills they are obtaining from coding are more critical. I wonder...

Ideally, the tech skills would be used to enhance and deepen some of the other curriculum areas. But, yes, 7 years old may be young.

Must see webinar. >>Dr. Glenn Kleiman, Executive Director of the Friday Institute of Educational Innovation in the College of Education at North Carolina State University moderated this discussion with Chris Dede and David Rose held on November 15, 2012. The intersection of mobile computing, social software, and augmented realities enhances and increases opportunities for personalized learning. How do we capitalize on the rich array of technologies to not only engage students, but to provide multiple pathways for expression by all students? David and Chris, both members of the working group that developed the National Education Technology Plan in 2010, discussed future directions for digital learning, including universal design for learning, augmented realities, and social and mobile technologies.

Tying into discussions this week about bringing access to mobile devices to all via non-prohibitive costs, while still reaching a set of bare-minmum technical specs for actual use: India's "$35 tablet" has been a pipedream in the tech blog-o-sphere for awhile now, but it's finally available (though for a price of roughly $60). Still though, as an actual Android color touch tablet, with WiFi and cellular data capability - I'm curious to see how it's received and if it's adopted in any sort of large scale

I had heard months ago that India was creating this, but was not going to offer it commercially - rather, just for its own country. Just like the Little Professor (Prof Dede) calculator, when tablets get this affordable, educational systems can afford classroom sets of them and then use them regularly. But to Prof Dede's point - can they do everything that more expensive tablets can do? Or better yet - do they HAVE to?

I think this is what they're aiming to do - all classrooms/students across the country having this particular tablet. They won't be able to do everything today's expensive tablets can do, but I think they'll still be able too to do plenty. This $35 tablet's specs are comparable to the mobile devices we had here in the US in 2008/2009. Even back then, we were able to web browse, check email, use social networking (sharing pics and video too), watching streaming online video, and play basic 2D games. But even beyond those basic features, I think this tablet will be able to do more than we expect from something at this price point and basic hardware, for 2 reasons: 1. Wide-spread adoption of a single hardware. If this thing truly does become THE tablet for India's students, it will have such a massive userbase that software developers and designers who create educational software will have to cater to it. They will have to study this tablet and learn the ins-and-outs of its hardware in order to deliver content for it. "Underpowered" hardware is able to deliver experiences well beyond what would normally be expected from it when developers are able to optimize heavily for that particular set of components. This is why software for Apple's iPhone and iPad, and games for video game consoles (xbox, PS3, wii) are so polished. For the consoles especially, all the users have the same exact hardware, with the same features and components. Developers are able to create software that is very specialized for that hardware- opposed to spending their resources and time making sure the software works on a wide variety of hardware (like in the PC world). With this development style in mind, and with a fixed hardware model remaining widely used in the market for many years- the resultant software is very polished and goes beyond what users expect from it. This is why today's game consoles, which have been around since 2005/6, produce visuals that are still really impressive and sta

"65% of today's grade-school children will end up at jobs that haven't been invented yet." Infographic detailing some possible future directions for educational technology including gamification, digital classrooms and novel computing methods.

"Families, learners, educators, and decision-makers will need to become sophisticated at pattern recognition in order to create effective and differentiated learning experiences and environments... will redefine forms of knowledge, knowing, and assessment. "

Kind of like Professor Dede's post about McGraw-Hill's interest in e-learning, here is a blog post from Pearson about MOOCs. I think his take (Jeff Borden, one of their VPs) is pretty accurate, in that we need a version 2 where it's not as lecture-based as version 1. I would guess that they are working on their own "version 2" solution (perhaps with Knewton?).

Maria, do you know if this event is open to the public, or more a "sponsor-day" event? I would love to go!

Not sure if it's public event, I only know about it because I will be helping with the App Inventor demo. I'll let you know once I know more info.

Hi T561- a bit old, but an international perspective on the inequality of technology access across the globe. This article links in with the TIE list discussions about the One Laptop Per Child effort as well. If we want to use technology to break down international barriers, like Dede's "Microsoft of the future" film, we have to address the issue of accessibility, both across the globe and within our own student population.

Newest Disney attraction called - Sum of All Thrills where kids get to design their own virtual roller coaster. It uses virtual-reality technology. "Disney hopes the interactive nature of the ride would also help kids learn that math and science can be fun."

While I would not consider this incredibly expensive ride a 'distruptive innovation' or even an emerging ed technology, what Epcot has done by bringing this DIY-VR concept to the masses (if you are one of the masses that can A- afford Disney and B-have the patience to wait in line for `5-6 hours) is very important to future ed tech innovation strategies. The progression/invention of such cost prohibitive entertainment tools will fall squarely on the high-end theme parks and consumer venues. The challenge has been set by Epcot and now others must either compete directly or develop a better or more accessible solution. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few cost saving innovations that might be developed in this 'race'- Artificial G-Force Engline: variable air pressure, smart-chairs, fans

Summer Davos happened this week. A quick highlight from there that is related to our field. Nothing much new in the article itself but WEF is connecting the importance of improving current education with youth employment issue. the word AR is also used within this article. 

This links to five different presentations on where mobile learning is going!