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A new proposal calls for a Consumer Reports-like rating body to evaluate new digital learning tools. Ed tech innovators like the idea in theory but they worry that it won't work in practice.

Funny, I was just talking with someone about this very idea the other day. We absolutely need something like this and my guess is that we will have a few competitors, at least early on, for the top ed tech review site. I think there is space for both an organization that specializes and for a yelp like site that essentially crowd sources the reviews. It will be tough to keep up, but think of how many products and areas Consumer Reports deals with- we can do this, and need to do this, for ed tech to get used wisely in our schools.

With regards to e-learning, I think inevitably some company or organization will provide ratings of the quality of online degree programs and learning tools. Whether this is Consumer Reports or US World & News Report or some new player (investment opportunity?), the need for objective assessments of digital learning tools is definitely needed. The Benchmarking e-learning wiki is interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmarking_e-learning

The Horizon Report is referenced in a lot of our readings but I don't think we've actually read it. Here is the latest reports. It breaks down technologies to look out for in 1 year or less, 2-3 years, 4-5 years.

The latest report on digital textbooks

Technology isn't explicit in this article, but it is ever-present in regards to this author's re-thinking of the classic book report. Instead of "same old, same old", this article suggests that students should be remixing the information they gather from books and recreating it in different ways - 21st century skills!!! "Below, we present some alternatives to that classic classroom assignment, the book report. All of our ideas are inspired by The New York Times in some way, either because we've adapted an interesting format, or because we were inspired by an article, review, essay, interview or multimedia feature."

Gartner report on social technologies

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.

Interesting report on the slowing move to cloud-basted email. 3 reasons for this are inertia, lack of strategic value and disappointment w/ vendor offerings

As prices fall, technology has more potential to be used in the classroom.  

A hands-on report with the $35 tablet (Aakash). Interested that they call it a "leap frog" technology, in that it's a modern technology brought into a society that didn't have related legacy technologies to begin with. Relates to our class discussion of 'disruptive technologies'- if a group is starting with nothing at all, the bar can initially be set very low and it's still better than nothing. From there, the only direction to go is up (improvement). The article was also updated with a detailed use report w/ video: http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/28/aakash-35-android-tablet/

Does Ed Tech Need it's Own Consumer Reports? Interesting article about creating a evaluation system for ed tech called EDU Star

Thanks for sharing this interesting report Junjie. I like that part which encourages more dialogue between employers and education providers. However, I don't think they addressed the possible problem that could arise from that dialogue which is, employers are asking for solutions to their problems, and these problems may not be the main issues of the time when the students graduate.

Matthew, I agree that the skill sets the job market asks from future employees are in constant change. So probably the education providers should try to equip those potential employees with the capacity to transfer old skills into new ones so as to meet the ever-changing demand, though it is indeed very difficult to train the transfer-skills.

3 distinct groups of employers and  7 distinct youth segments (well positioned, driven, struggling, disheartened, disengaged, too cool, too poor) - they are "identified with different outcomes and motivations", requires "a different set of interventions". also concentration and mix of these segments also varies by country. executive summary is short and TIE relevant. 

The DHL's Global Connectedness report is interesting. The pillar is composed of trade/capital/information/people. Total rank of connectedness: US 20th. Each page for country analysis is helpful to think about kind of education is required for each country's future growth. 

important annual report on emerging educational technologies in higher education

Special report on the ways technology is remaking every aspect of education-bringing top-notch courses to the world's poorest citizens and reshaping the way all students learn

Here's a report from FutureLab at the National Foundation for Educational Research. It's a long report but they touch on a number of ways that neuroscience and technology can be integrated, whether it being using fMRI to demonstrate how brain activity levels are heightened when someone is allowed to choose their own avatar in a video game, or creating an app that helps dyslexic children read based on a neuroscience framework.

Special report on e-learning highlights policy issues related to teaching