Group items tagged

Tying into discussions this week about bringing access to mobile devices to all via non-prohibitive costs, while still reaching a set of bare-minmum technical specs for actual use: India's "$35 tablet" has been a pipedream in the tech blog-o-sphere for awhile now, but it's finally available (though for a price of roughly $60). Still though, as an actual Android color touch tablet, with WiFi and cellular data capability - I'm curious to see how it's received and if it's adopted in any sort of large scale

I had heard months ago that India was creating this, but was not going to offer it commercially - rather, just for its own country. Just like the Little Professor (Prof Dede) calculator, when tablets get this affordable, educational systems can afford classroom sets of them and then use them regularly. But to Prof Dede's point - can they do everything that more expensive tablets can do? Or better yet - do they HAVE to?

I think this is what they're aiming to do - all classrooms/students across the country having this particular tablet. They won't be able to do everything today's expensive tablets can do, but I think they'll still be able too to do plenty. This $35 tablet's specs are comparable to the mobile devices we had here in the US in 2008/2009. Even back then, we were able to web browse, check email, use social networking (sharing pics and video too), watching streaming online video, and play basic 2D games. But even beyond those basic features, I think this tablet will be able to do more than we expect from something at this price point and basic hardware, for 2 reasons: 1. Wide-spread adoption of a single hardware. If this thing truly does become THE tablet for India's students, it will have such a massive userbase that software developers and designers who create educational software will have to cater to it. They will have to study this tablet and learn the ins-and-outs of its hardware in order to deliver content for it. "Underpowered" hardware is able to deliver experiences well beyond what would normally be expected from it when developers are able to optimize heavily for that particular set of components. This is why software for Apple's iPhone and iPad, and games for video game consoles (xbox, PS3, wii) are so polished. For the consoles especially, all the users have the same exact hardware, with the same features and components. Developers are able to create software that is very specialized for that hardware- opposed to spending their resources and time making sure the software works on a wide variety of hardware (like in the PC world). With this development style in mind, and with a fixed hardware model remaining widely used in the market for many years- the resultant software is very polished and goes beyond what users expect from it. This is why today's game consoles, which have been around since 2005/6, produce visuals that are still really impressive and sta

A new social network for colleges and universities called "GoingOn." Maybe the new Edmodo for higher ed? This article is a Q&A with the designer. Something interesting to keep your eyes on...

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

Next generation html offers more capacity for education

The author believe startups led by young students themselves rather than old brick-and-mortar colleges and universities that will be responsible for changing the way students learn.

On YouTube EDU and some of the successes beyond just the Khan Academy

Google is building a new search tool that pre-guesses what you are looking for. This is a step beyond children being able to look up answers to any questions they have without thinking.

Will online research tools contribute to the demise of the academic library? This article suggests we are using a blended approach to research. Curious to hear how many of us use Gutman's resources beyond a study space.

Coursera's "Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application" crashed in its first week. Beyond the obvious irony, there are some interesting lessons to learn here.

Michael Horn weighs in with a piece diametrically opposed to the previous post, calling out the end of the "old-edtech mindset".

issues of evaluating online schools - moving beyond fads

This article discusses successful blended curriculum. Interestingly, the article directs notice to the fact that the success is a cause of factors beyond just technology. One such factor is flex scheduling.

"applying computer vision to agriculture" - pure innovation

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."

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."

"The ability to tilt along multiple axes distinguishes our display from previous actuatable displays. Such screen versatility opens a range of opportunities for providing an additional integrated information channel to the user. "These opportunities include collaboration, terrain modeling, 3D video that is beyond auto-stereoscopic 3D and tangible gaming. We can imagine many scenarios that would benefit from the physicality offered by Tilt Displays. However, we need to establish whether users can relate to the new experiences and advantages of using such a device."

"Dramatic mission creep on one hand, and the dissolution of families and communities on the other, have made teaching impossibly difficult and beyond the skill set of average people," writes Gisèle Huff.

Those of you who have read about the Netflix contest probably know it's fascinating, and this NYTimes blog presents a good summary. More interesting is the fact that this type of work on algorithms may have other applications, beyond telling you what other movies you might like (e.g. commercial, scientific, perhaps even educational?). Therefore, it is tangentially related with our discussion on AI :)

Wonder if this will impact how people search online/ gather info beyond just shaving off time from the act.