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The Digital Citizenship and Creative Content program is a free, turnkey instructional program. The goal is to create an awareness of the rights connected with creative content. Because only through education can students gain an understanding of the relevance of and a personal respect for creative rights and grow to become good digital citizens.

Thoughtful post about technology integration for tablets

Yes, very interesting indeed. We've discussed a lot about the lack of professional development for implementation of iPads in the classroom, but not too much about the SAMR model (substitution, augmentation, modification, redefinition), developed by Ruben R. Puentendura. He is spot on in saying "For technology to be truly innovative and impactful on students, we must get to the stage of Redefinition, in which we use technology to create and perform tasks that - prior to the existence of the technology - were inconceivable" I think this is going to be tough to overcome with the iPad. Schools are so caught up in their fad. It seems as though it's hard for anyone, even smart creative people, to use their ipads in truly creative, richer, deeper, redefining ways.

Thank you for sharing this post Prof Chris. I agree that we cannot 'throw the iPad in, mix and stir' to develop a new program. However, where I disagree with the approach is that it does not start with the learner. The author began with pedagogy and then technology, but I feel that there should be learning theory first and then pedagogy and technology to support both.

Interactive insights drawn from neuroscience not only provide educators with a scientific basis for understanding some of the best practices in teaching, but also offer a new lens through which to look at the problems teachers grapple with every day. By gaining insights into how the brain works-and how students actually learn-teachers will be able to create their own solutions to the classroom challenges they face and improve their practice

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

An interesting article on how resistant to change different types of organizations are. Educational institutions rank pretty highly resistant. Though it is interesting to note that businesses rank the most adaptive (non resistant)--so the education technology and startup trend may be a good sign!

Interesting. from where I am from (=Japan), business organizations with long history with the majority of employees committed until retirement age of 60 (slowly this is changing though), maybe NPO and even government (with so much shuffling going on) would rank higher...

The author makes a good point that heightened market competition seems to contribute to reduced resistance. I noticed that the more-resistant organizations operate in more highly regulated markets, which would seem to create internal cultures more oriented to compliance and, thus, resistance.

There has been so much buzz around gamification recently that it can be difficult to separate the hype from the reality. With clients asking the first questions about gamification, in this post I'm attempting to draw some lines around gamification in learning. First off, as I understand it, gamification in learning means attempting to apply the principles that make individuals play games for thousands of hours. Gamification is not 'gaming', we needn't create digital games costing thousands of dollars and hours to benefit.

How the web is changing the lives of people after they die. This is not depressing! I actually think it's quite interesting, and certainly now a part of "life after death." A friend of mine with over 2000 FB friends passed away last summer and I still see his page ranked highly on mine almost daily. Admittedly, it's odd, but it's also a nice reminder of him.

Nature offers some of the most amazing technology and perhaps sometimes, instead of looking to constantly innovate or create technology, we can look to nature's technology to transform education in our classrooms (and out of them)

An Indian firm has created a mobile device platform that "empowers social enterprises (at the bottom of the pyramid) to capture, analyze and process information remotely through smartphones / tablets". I think this is interesting in it's bringing mobile collaboration to some of the most remote places, physically and economically.

This is another project by CAST which has been particularly relevant to the work our research project is involved with. For more information click on the link below: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/43/1/68 This article was provided to us by our contact at CAST and attempts to validate this type of "Digital Reading Environment." It's also authored by Catherine Show of HGSE, and is just a year old. The statistical data is a little above my comprehension level but it is described at a level I can understand. CAST UDL Book Builder This wonderful and free online tool allows you to create your own interactive "books" to help young readers learn reading strategies to build comprehension. Enter your own text, images, and hints.

this was presented in one of my other classes (A-117). it provides an interesting way to use digital text for enhanced learning.

Apparently their new strategy is to "airdrop" OLPC laptops into communities and let students teach themselves. Now, I'm all for students learning by creating and constructivist pedagogy... but this seems altogether irresponsible. Also, seems like we're promoting different standards for students in low income/low resource settings vs. students in resource rich settings through initiatives like this--and not in a good way. =/

Thank you for posting - this is fascinating. This is not only a threat to Blackboard, but also the MOOC companies (Coursera, Udacity, etc.). If the tool continues to be developed in terms of functionality and ease of use, AND third party developers build out applications that plug into this platform, then colleges and universities will start to build their own online courses, and not farm out their content to the Coursera's of the world... This reminds of the dot com era (circa 2000) when companies large and small hired "web development" firms to create websites for them. Now companies largely do this themselves...

Thanks for sharing Mohit. It's great that it's open source and allows teachers all over the world to build their own courses. I wonder what this would do to the larger online course companies...

Building on Maria's link from GeekWire, here is another article about a bubble forming in ed tech...and building on Jason's comment about not wanting to investmenting in ed tech, it seems like a lot of wealthy people aren't worried about it! This article goes into the numbers a little more on trying to show the bubble effect, such as the number of investment rounds and startups. It also talks a bit about Christensen's "innovator" profile and how a lot of the ed tech folks now are mission-driven people who are innovating like Christensen describes. Not sure if what they are doing will work, but trying because they are passionate about it

Can Ed tech start-ups be classified into those driven by a desire to improve education and children's lives or those simply seeking to make a lot of money? Or are motives and intentions always impossible to judge and inextricable from behavior.

Thanks for sharing. I liked the last message of this article. "But as long as we remember that it takes both the tool and the teacher to create success, the mission-driven innovators will outnumber the market-driven copycats. And innovation will outshine the bubbles.". EdSurge is one of my favorite source too. One of my former client at Hedge Fund in HK messaged me earlier this month ''btw u might be spot on on this education stuff. this should offer a sizable business opportunity in coming years u should go grab some" - def. he is one of those guys out there who might contribute to the bubble in the future...

"Coastline Community College is set to create low-cost, online bachelor's degree pathways where students can enroll simultaneously at one of three public universities, none of which are in California."

Alas, NASA has almost no funding for the multiplayer game, and there is substantial opposition from internal leadership

The article highlighted the different agendas of the administrator (who brings the budget), educator (who is concerned with lesson objectives), and game designer (who wants to create an engaging game). I think that if students are not sufficiently engaged by the game, the educational objectives would probably not be delivered successfully either. If budget cuts ended up taking the fun out of an educational game, perhaps it might be worth rethinking if it should still be a game?

Matthew, you raise a good point. Users should be seen as stakeholders who can help improve the game in terms of both engagement and learning.

This is the thing I really wanted people to see related to collective note-taking. See 27:00 to approximately 34 or 35 minute mark. His students take shared notes and create a master exam review sheet.

Its clear, the Common Core Standards are creating new market opportunities.

Founded by a HGSE alum, EdTechTeacher takes a holistic approach towards teacher professional development.

Steve Hargadon (http://www.stevehargadon.com/p/about-me.html) is hosting one-day events called Hack Your Education all across the US (Boston on Nov 2-3!). He wants to teach students, parents, and teachers how to use Web 2.0 technologies to create your own personal learning path / resources / plan.

Cool Tool App to create flash cards for more interactive study materials