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The state of Michigan has allocated some funding to upgrade technology in K-12 schools. The expectation is that all students will take standardized tests online within a couple of years.

Has this article about Chris Dede & EcoMuve been shared yet? I like its take on stepping up field trips...

A couple of youth-oriented websites settled with the government recently because of COPPA (law that protects children's private information online, if they are under 13yo). Now legislatures want to expand COPPA, so it may significantly impact learning games developers, too.

Pretty relevant to what we've discussed in class so far--Verizon is launching a couple of initiatives to encourage mobile ed tech development. One is to encourage students to create educational apps relevant to their communities, while the other is to train teachers on how to use technology and mobile tech in their classrooms. Third part is an online portal for sharing knowledge and materials between teachers.

related to discussion in section on 9/10 - "takes the most cutting-edge graphics and couples them with some of the most important lessons a student needs" 

A former Apple interface designer critiques Microsoft's 'Productivity Future Vision (2011)' video that has been spreading on the web (and a couple of you have shared here on Diigo).  The Apple guru's biggest gripe? Microsoft portrays a future dominated by single finger interaction with touch-enabled devices. But we are already seeing more elaborate Human-Computer interaction involving more of  our bodies and communication modes-- full body (Kinect, Microsoft), and voice & hearing (Siri, Apple). Mr. Victor says that Microsoft's vision wasn't as revolutionary as it seems.

I agree with the author on Microsoft's lack of vision about future technologies (which I also ranted about on facebook). At the same time, we have to note that Microsoft currently has devices that enable 'full body' communication and Apple does not. And their latest wonder 'Siri' was acquired, not developed internally. I respect Apple for their innovations but we haven't seen any 'vision' from Apple yet and I am curious to know what they might be thinking.

Kind of like Professor Dede's post about McGraw-Hill's interest in e-learning, here is a blog post from Pearson about MOOCs. I think his take (Jeff Borden, one of their VPs) is pretty accurate, in that we need a version 2 where it's not as lecture-based as version 1. I would guess that they are working on their own "version 2" solution (perhaps with Knewton?).

Maria, do you know if this event is open to the public, or more a "sponsor-day" event? I would love to go!

Not sure if it's public event, I only know about it because I will be helping with the App Inventor demo. I'll let you know once I know more info.

A letter to President Obama about MOOCs and higher education, from his council of advisors on science and technology. This was released just a couple of days ago and highlights some of the potential benefits and current issues in the ongoing MOOC debate which we have all discussed. "Although the new technologies introduced by MOOCs are still in their infancy, and many questions and challenges remain, we believe that they hold the possibility of transforming education at all levels by providing better metrics for educational outcomes, and better alignment of incentives for innovation in pedagogy."

The presentation on the ARG alien abduction in class today reminded me of this awesome news story a couple months back. Sans fancy technology, a school staged an alien abduction for its students. Unfortunately, they got some flak for the War of the Worlds effect it had on the younger kids. But this school seems really awesome and I hope no one got disciplined for providing an innovation learning experience.

an interesting writeup on on the basics of Khan Academy- including a couple of example teachers & classrooms. Also includes interview excerpts with Salman Khan.

It seems that the gamification of Khan Academy is undermining the "dropping out/back" of the technology after a certain amount of time, but students are learning, so is this good or bad?

This article seems pretty consistent with what we heard today. I think the most interesting aspect of the whole Khan Academy phenomenon is not what he does (make direct instruction videos- People learn to cook that way from Emeril), or how he does it (very few production values), or even that the internet makes him so distributable. The most incredible thing to me is that this one guy who did an end run around the entire establishment of EDUCATION is having this much impact on kids, teachers, and policy makers around the world. He isn't doing anything all that innovative and yet he is having the impact on education that one would think would come from an extraordinary innovator. Why isn't that innovator coming from EDUCATION. I think the big generative questions KA offers us in Education are: Why is this such a big deal? (And I do believe it is), Why didn't we think of it?; and Given all we know about education, shouldn't we be able have a much more substantial effect with much more substantial outcomes with as few resources as KA? If not? What are we doing?

It's tough to make a living creating apps

What struck me most about this article was that the couple had no marketing plan and even less understanding of financial management (specifically cash flow, assets, and liabilities). Sobering. Thanks for sharing, Danna.

I would be interested to know why she is stepping down - the article doesn't address her reason for leaving. In fact, based on another article from last week, I got the impression that she would be serving in this position for at least a couple more years: https://www.edsurge.com/n/karen-cator-doe-is-ready-for-second-term

The issue

HGSET561

This is a really interesting article, and coupled with the edX / Anant Agarwal article below from Douglas, I think it brings up additional questions. Even with all the features that Anant says will be added to edX, I feel like they are all just part of the "convenience" factor and in many cases (like grading, discussion forum), more convenience for the teaching staff than the students. It is convenient for the students to do online labwork instead of going to a physical lab, for example. So I wonder if that type of convenience is enough to convince more students to sign up to MOOCs, or if they have to fundamentally change to add more types of value?

"Technology in education is one of the "prominent technology trends expected to influence the consumer electronics (CE) industry in the years ahead," according to the 2013 edition of "Five Technology Trends to Watch," a report released this week by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). The other four tech trends identified were the future of 3D printing, next-generation TVs and displays, the evolution of the audio market, and the mobile revolution in Africa." Basically goes on to state that parents and students support more ed tech (which I think has come up in a couple other articles, too).

A couple months back Prof. Dede said a change in education was necessary because the status quo was facing collapse. We're see these kinds of decisions all over the country in the past few weeks. I wonder if we're seeing the change.

I enjoyed his talk a couple months ago. He wanted us to arrange a debate between him and Arne Duncan.

Intrinsic motivation couple with mentorship really helps!

Discusses the increase of agressive marketing that facilitates cheating that is being coupled with the growing of opportunities for online learning.

This is an opinion article that talks about immersion and the first-person camera angle in video games. He argues that game developers should re-evaluate the assumption that the first-person viewpoint is inherently more immersive than other gaming experiences.