Group items tagged

one outcome of the 2010 National Ed Tech Plan

Cute site asking students to use HOTS to solve crimes while learning information about the world. National Geographic hosts.

"Governments and OEM partners in many emerging markets have canceled orders for Intel-promoted Classmate PCs, or have asked to suspend shipments, according to Taiwan-based component makers." Classmate PCs = Ultra-small, ultra-cheap laptops intended for use in classrooms of developing nations.

Interesting to see what kind of role educational technology will play in this conversation.

"National statistics show that 68% of eighth graders cannot read at their grade level; American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to 30 other industrialized countries; and most college students are "non-traditional" - spending more than four years in college or enrolling well after high school." ...and they say the industrial school model doesn't need a makeover. Sheesh!

To what extent should videogames be used in classrooms, and what is the research support for this?

Note the author characterizes the National Educational Technology Plan as a "manifesto." Quoting this article, "... in March, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, released a draft National Educational Technology Plan that reads a bit like a manifesto for change, proposing among other things that the full force of technology be leveraged to meet "aggressive goals" and "grand" challenges, including increasing the percentage of the population that graduates from college to 60 percent from 39 percent in the next 10 years. What it takes to get there, the report suggests, is a "new kind of R.& D."

A bunch of especially interesting quotes toward the end: "This concept is something that Will Wright, who is best known for designing the Sims game franchise...refers to as 'failure-based learning,' in which failure is brief, surmountable, often exciting and therefore not scary... According to Ntiedo Etuk, the chief executive of Tabula Digita...children who persist in playing a game are demonstrating a valuable educational ideal.... 'They'll fail until they win.' He adds: 'Failure in an academic environment is depressing. Failure in a video game is pleasant. It's completely aspirational.' It is also, says James Paul Gee, antithetical to the governing reality of today's public schools. 'If you think about kids in school - especially in our testing regime - both the teacher and the student think that failure will lead to disaster,' he says. 'That's pretty much a guarantee that you'll never get to truly deep learning.'"

The further along I go, the more I am realizing that we have fully arrived in the information age. For our nation to compete globally - we must get out of the trap of growing media consumers, technology consumers, and information consumers. We must grow a generation of students who not only use technology, but understand technology so that they can become active technology producers, so that they can create, innovate, imagine, and disrupt. Possibly, understanding computer science will be as important as learning to read and write - the new literacy.

High ranking US Department of Education official talks about the importance of technology and the role of the National Ed Tech Plan

Karl Royle has produced the following research reports regarding games based learning. You can click the links to download. These reports have been commissioned by Becta, the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning.

A look at ICT in Education in 11 countries highlighting national programs in the field.

"The site links medical researchers from around the world-and is driving homegrown, locally relevant innovation in developing nations."

To impress kids with a world of wonders.

The White House announces the creation of a national center called Digital Promise that will focus on transforming education through learning technologies.

"The national health care debate right now is all about giving more people affordable access to doctors and hospitals. Yet the vast majority of health care decisions - 80 percent or more, experts say - are really made by individuals, instead of medical professionals..."

One laptop per elementary school kids, in Uruguay.

Uruguay is about to achieve the 1:1 child/laptop ratio for every primary school student in the country via OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). Only 5% of the country's education budget was needed to achieve this.

Google has US Education in its crosshairs.... Google is name-dropping all sorts of work in the education space in its forum to help redefine American education : Harlem Children's Zone, NCLB, A Nation at Risk, Sesame Street................. Here's a snippet: "And according to McKinsey's Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools report, if the U.S. had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of higher-performing nations, our GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. That's 9 to 16 percent of GDP!"

Schools in Denmark are piloting a program which allows students to use computers with internet access on national writing exams.

"The link between teenagers' computer abilities and an increase in academic cheating is evident across the nation."