Group items tagged

iPod touch, and most are usable with the iPhone as well, apps listed by subject matter. English, Math, Music...

Industry top firms, including Google, News Corp, Disney, and NBC Universal, are showing interest in online education. "Demand for online education is exploding. The global market for online learning at schools and businesses is expected to grow from $32.1 billion in 2010 to approximately $50 billion by 2015, according to research firm Ambient Insight."

Interesting graphic on video games and ed; purports kids who learned by playing an ed game improved their standardized test scores by 50% (no reference however)

"By outfitting a mobile shipping container with desks, a 50-inch electronic board, Internet-enabled solar-powered notebooks, Samsung Galaxy tablet computers and Wi-Fi cameras, children can receive a technology-rich education without traveling far."

full disclosure: classmate Alex Schoenfeld first shared this with the us in the TIE facebook group :). But it brings an interesting trend in the adoption and pricing of mobile apps: Article outlining what lots of us know when it comes to moblie apps and pricing - free, $1, and $2 are the price-points that sell, and allow us to try out an app with minimal regret. But with the rise of more and more high-quailty, high-profile, and high-budget educatioanl apps, will the pricing structure change? Will parents and educators be willing to spend the prices of traditional computer software ($50 or more?) for really great mobile apps? The article brings up an interesting model that seems to already be coming to life looking at how apps are being sold and updated lately: "Donahoo and Russell propose there's a better way: subscriptions and content expansion packs.  Launchpad Toys follows the latter tact. The initial price the Toontastic app for $3 (though it's currently free). Users can use that fully functioning app, or choose to add additional characters and themes with $.99 expansion packs. This way, they contend, costs are controlled; it's cheap for parents and children to evaluate an app, and the model encourages regular updates."

Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: It's the latest report on the state of online learning that Christenson believes will encompass 50% of high school classes by 2018. Not sure I agree with this, but it's still interesting to see the latest data.

In the US, 250000 students are enrolled in full-time public virtual schools in 30 states, according to Susan Patrick of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a trade association. Although that's just a fraction of the country's 50 million students, it has grown 30% each year. Some schools in Michigan already shown the advantage of digital learning.

This is an interesting article. I am just concerned that it is not unbiased or driven by an agenda other than improving education. I found this information about the Mackinac Center online: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mackinac-center-public-policy I am starting to realize that a lot of the technology in schools rhetoric is driven by corporate and political interests, and as the industry becomes ever more profitable, I'm worried that companies are going to jump in and try to influence policy, rushing through the movement toward the wrong kind of technology in schools- i.e. sacking half of the teaching staff and replacing them with cheap computers. I think one of our most important jobs as Harvard TIE students is to education the public about the right ways to adapt technology in the classroom, and the important role that teachers will continue to play in this movement.

UbiSlate, another version of Aakash tablet to be introduced next month ($50 approx) while OLPC XO-3 is yet to arrive. This indian company DataWind plans to roll out similar projects in Brazil, Egypt, Panama, Thailand and Turkey. With more roll out, the product may get even cheaper.

Nice article on the challenges in school reform - An excerpt from the article - " you simply cannot fix America's schools by "scaling" charter schools. ...... Charter schools offer proof of the concept that great teaching is a huge difference-maker, but charters can only absorb a tiny fraction of the nation's 50 million public schoolchildren. Real reform has to go beyond charters - and it has to include the unions."

From text to speech solutions to describing dyslexia, this is a great list of apps for reading challenges. For EDC

Not really educational, but our section this week got me thinking about what *could* exist

An article that advocates the use of social media in the classroom. It highlights one pilot program in Oregon.

Top 50 iPhone applications for educators and some of them are free.

While many of the apps listed are organization the teaching tools and media lists have some great apps for the classroom. For EDC

MassCUE is hosting it's annual Education Technology conference on October 26-27. Check out the topics on their schedule.  I've arranged a discounted student admission fee ($50/day) and I'm organizing a field trip (for up to 15) students on that Thursday with Yong Zhao as the keynote speaker.  Contact me if interested.

Stanford's acclaimed d. school inspired 50 teams of graduate students to pitch projects at Aspen Ideas Festival. Spark Truck, one of the winners is a "mobile maker lab" that brings simple tech to help inspire kids to become creators.

We know a good deal about the contents of this article arlready, but its a TIME article and it links to some interesting studies and polls. http://nation.time.com/2012/10/18/higher-education-poll/?pcd=teaser and this should encourage us, as we pay through the nose for this education: David Stavens (Udacity's co-founder, and Stanford alum) concedes. "I think the top 50 schools are probably safe," he says. "There's a magic that goes on inside a university campus that, if you can afford to live inside that bubble, is wonderful." ... I agree with Mr. Stavens . I hope you do too. See you in class!

This is a good example of how a product is trying to make you feel more immersed by placing virtual objects in the real world instead of a completely virtual world.

This could possibly put the 'fun' back in 'functional' - if students are operating within the "real world" on sincere applications, they may generalize their skills better. I'm all for perceiving my world in 50% cartoon ;o)

"The best professional-development research shows that teachers need sustained contact hours (between 30 and 100) of training before altering their practices. So, she did a back-of-the envelope calculation about how much time it would take to implement 50 hours of formative-assessment training over the course of a school year...... Teachers would need about six hours a month, for eight months, which amounts to one early-close afternoon a month plus two additional hours. (Good luck with that in this economy.)"

Perhaps this is where technology can play an enabling role. Easy to use and real-time tools like Socrative or technology based learning environments with embedded formative assessments (like my formative assessment design proposal for VPA) could help reduce the time / training barriers for teachers to incorporate formative assessment into the teaching practice. At the very least, new curriculum initiatives aligned with common core standards SHOULD BE REQUIRED to incorporate formative-assessments. Unfortunately on PARCC is. "Of the two assessment consortia, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, is not developing formative-assessment resources as part of its federal grant. The other consortium, known as SMARTER Balanced, is."

"What accounts for the high attrition rates? Maybe some of it has to do with aptitude, or encouragement, or good role models and mentors. But Philip Babcock, an economist at the University of California, Davis, suggests that a lot of it has to do with homework. Professor Babcock has written extensively about college students' evolving study habits (or lack thereof) over the last 50 years. He found that in 1961, full-time students spent about 40 hours each week in class and studying. By 2003, they were investing about 27 hours a week". But then, we did not have Facebook, Twitter and Videogames in 1961 :-)