Group items tagged

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...

Internet is certaily playing an incredibly important role in our daily life, no matter in the United States, or China.

Interesting report contradicting some previous findings about the link between technology and social isolation.

Does anybody know much about KPCB? Here are some good statistics about mobile internet trends from February. They also have this article http://www.kpcb.com/insights/internet-trends-2011 from the Web 2.0 Summit in San Fran just last week. Just curious as to their background and credibility. Published February 2011 by Matt Murphy and Mary Meeker This multimedia presentation co-authored by KPCB partners Matt Murphy and Mary Meeker outlines and analyzes the top 10 trends defining the current worldwide mobile Internet industry.

Ars Technica's take on the grand question of our time

How does the internet affect our lives?

Some Chinese school officials have gone against the wishes of the national government and removed Internet filtering software becuase it "has strong conflicts with teaching software we need for normal work." On the other hand, many public schools in the US not only tolerate draconian filtering policies, but elect to implement such policies on the local level! Why are we willing to sacrifice educational opportunities for some imagined sense of security about our children? If you haven't looked over the "Unmasking the Digital Truth" Wiki, I highly recommend that you do so. It discusses some of the common misconceptions about Internet filtering in schools and associated laws. (http://unmaskdigitaltruth.pbworks.com/)

Article about how some schools in China have uninstalled the controversial Internet filter (Green Dam), which was required to be installed on all public systems by mandate of the Chinese government.

for your study break :) what if the internet disappeared today? (in pictures)

"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."

I clicked through some related articles on this one a little bit, and it's worth following up on. I want to know how this treaty plans to address spam and cyberattacks. It is certainly high-time for this treaty to be updated, if it has truly not happened since 1988. The internet is certainly important enough to warrant further discussion, but I feel as if I'm speaking out of turn. I do not know what other treaty exist regarding internet based telecommunication in the UN.

Gateway source for all students: high school and college composition and journalism and student of life. Bookmark this source and then bookmark the hyperlinks in this article. Do you have the 10 (11 for the bonus) tech skills down? I certainly can improve in some of these areas.

Cable companies, as part of a new FCC initiative, will be offering broadband internet to homes with children who are elgible for free school lunches.  The initiative is called "Connect-to-Compete". While having broadband at the home isn't the same as always on, mobile internet available wirelessly for students wherever they are on any device they happen to have on them, this is a good start to lessen digital exclusion for these groups

A history and forecast of the internet

Interesting to look at some of the federal policies that restrict internet use in schools. The incentive for schools to participate is access to an E-rate saver program. This is a bit controversial because it utilizes censorship and restricts the students' freedom to take full advantage of the information available on the Web. The reasons behind the CIPA act are pretty obvious- safety.

What do Kansas City, Chicago, and Seattle have in common? Extremely fast internet paving the way for ubiquitous computing.

article on the National School Speed Test to access the quality of Internet access for K-12 schools - critical information in the conversation regarding technology integration

Dueling opinions on what the Net offers us.

An article describing how AR apps for cellphones could provide users with location-based data using barcode tagging.