Group items tagged

a school with a curriculum based on videogames

While I applaud the concept of their program, I believe it tips the scale too far in the direction of technology. Unless the students plan to solely work in a digital world the removal of a physical classroom and interaction will greatly affect their social development. For example, physics lab was partially about the smell of the chemicals, the viewing of the wave pools, the teamwork and the mistakes that were real life.

Programs and organizations like "UnCollege" and the "Thiel Fellowship" provide low-cost, low accreditation practical alternatives to college. Part of the changing landscape of higher education, perhaps one that reinforces the MOOC revolution. New York Times, "Saying No to College".

Interesting article - highlights the growth of virtual training tools and their capacity to improve real world tasks. Example: "The amazing results of the training and simulation program have led to significantly improved grades on students' critical skills tests, taking scores from a 56% success in 2007, to 95% at the end of 2008 after the simulation was instituted."

Microsoft Courier Booklet

The Microsoft Courier is a two screen folding tablet device that allows for user interaction via gestures and/or stylus. The user interface looks to be the Courier's strongest point, but I'm curious to see if the stylus-heavy interaction will provide for any major advantage over a typical laptop and the already existent tablet pc market for anything other than art programs. In an educational setting, this could potentially be used as a library reference device and/or collaborative art device, but just as has been the case with many educational products in the past, may not be novel enough to sway education (or any other market) into preventing the Courier into becoming vaporware. However, this still poses as an excellent example of new devices coming onto the market that focus on new or perfected methods of Human Computer Interaction (HCI).

What are the implications of being "off the grid" in terms of the Internet while in college? How dependent are we on this technology?

I saw some (bad) reality tv program about a family who did this and the wonders it resulted in for this family's quality of life ... I like this idea, especially coupled with discussion afterward among the participants who can, perhaps, realize what all the time spent in Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc. takes away from ....

The first (or at least most comprehensive!) 3D visualization of this kind of surgical procedure; arguably these kinds of animations are superior to 2D animations for showing anatomy. Next step for education: interactive surgical media?

These kind of videos would be helpful for medical students to watch in their surgery clerkship before observing a particular surgery, especially since anatomy curriculum has been shortened and cut throughout national medical school programs.

Interesting conversation with the CEO of Rocketship, a blended-learning-focused charter school organization. "We should all focus on personalized learning and obsessing daily with how we ensure our students are spending large chunks of their day (80%+) in their optimal zone of learning-meaning exactly at their level. I would bet that students in countries that lead the world in achievement spend maybe 25-40% of their time in these optimal zones. Technology is an incredible tool in this work as there are online programs that immediately allow a student to access content in their optimal zone. Again-technology is not the complete answer, but it is definitely part of the solution."

Here is another $35 tablet from Singapore called the I-slate. Every great solution has got to address a real pain - this learning tablet tackles the lack of electric power in several locations around the globe. There is some mention of what it can and cannot do on the technology front. The learning programs embedded are not elaborated.

Company called "Knewton" making software similar to what we discussed with School of One - ongoing assessments (short quizzes), online tutoring, etc.