Group items tagged

MindReader API enables the real time analysis, tagging and inference of cognitive-affective mental states from facial video. 

People have posted about the Star Wars sale before, but here is an analysis of what the impact means on "Tech Education"--kind of talks about it is more efficient to separate entertainment and education, but using the sale money to directly fund education is a good move.

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...

A potpourri of articles about online education compiled by Union Square Ventures as part of their analysis of the education market.

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. 

Documentation of results of an analysis of Apple's Education section of the App Store, with a focus on understanding market dynamics, opportunities that are emerging in the educational apps market, and areas of innovation.

Financial analysis of MOOCs and potential impact on lesser-known universities...though I think people are still trying to figure out where MOOCs play in the general higher education landscape.

Analysis of MOOCs and how they might alter higher education. Not many more additional topics from the usual concerns, but they do have some interviews with MOOC participants that give the article more of a personal feel.

Trying to move the MOOC conversation beyond hype and toward more careful analysis.

More on MOOCs: "One one side, there are those who portray traditional higher education models as enjoying too much immunity from market forces and public demands for greater academic efficiency and productivity; on the other side are faculty groups and others who are struggling against a narrative of disruption that sees higher education as a business while discounting the issues of academic quality, freedom and governance."

Here's an individual analysis of each company and how it rated according to Technology, Business Model and Utility

Can an emerging technology be 'disruptive' and 'emerging' at the same time? Pre-disruption perhaps? Either way, I don't see this hack replacing the bulky, expensive and single use mode of the standard cardiovascular systems, but then again, is't that how these things develop? Imagine a game that actually got your heart moving (ala Nintendo Wii Fitness) while also running a diagnostic analysis on the back end... Still, Donkey Kong has a terrible bedside manner.

Hey...I know this guy! Chris def. walks the walk in his analysis of PD practice and methods. See the direct parallels to t561?

DC is keeping/firing teachers based on "grading" teachers in their successes with their students on standardized tests.

This article is not directly related to education, but it gives you a sense of how much information youth today might be consuming. An average American consumed 34 gigabytes per day in 2008. From the executive summary: 'In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.'

This is an editorial discussing how emerging technologies can help eliminate the need for annual standardized testing of students by tracking their progress constantly throughout the year through technology use. IPads, Khan Academy, data analysis, KIPP schools, the achievement gap, online courses and their innovations through emerging technologies are discussed.

Ethno is an on-line Java program that helps you analyze sequential events. Prerequisite analysis produces a diagram showing how some events are necessary for other events, and how abstract events are represented in concrete happenings.