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Fun predictions for technologies and cultural trends that will go extinct over the next several decades.

""No one's got the model that's going to work yet," said James Grimmelmann, a New York Law School professor who specializes in computer and Internet law. "I expect all the current ventures to fail, because the expectations are too high. People think something will catch on like wildfire. But more likely, it's maybe a decade later that somebody figures out how to do it and make money." "

Minnesota government uses a decades-old law to ban online classes, then reconsiders after public outrage.

Meeting Hope In the next few decades, hundreds of millions of young, poor families will migrate to cities in the developing world in search of work and opportunity. Education provides them with a shared sense of hope. Many will be the first generation in their families to go to school. It is vital that the hopes they invest are not disappointed.

"President Obama will launch the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration's goal of moving American students from the middle of the pack to the front in science and math achievement over the next decade. The President will announce a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)."

"The world is ripe for another revolution - this time in education. Technology has advanced so much over the last two decades that we can virtually change the way we educate." - Vivek Wadwa, senior research associate at Harvard Law School and director of research at Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship.

Afghanistan has launched a new literacy program that enables Afghan women deprived of a basic education during decades of war to learn to read and write using a mobile phone.

This is really deep, Janet. I sense that sometimes there's a double standard between our expectations of what children's education should be versus adult education. There's always push-back when we consider using mobile devices as a primary teaching tool for kids. But I sense there's less push-back when we offer it in adult education. Is this because we think adults can learn better on their own? Or perhaps teachers are important in children's socialization process? Or that education is a basic right for all children, but not necessarily for adults? At the core, these women were once children deprived of an education during their most formative years.

I really appreciate your comments on this topic, Pearl. And, like you, I wonder at the effectiveness of a mobile literacy program. But I also find it interesting that there is even an attempt to reach women who were deprived of an education earlier in their lives.

For two decades Oakland has been the focus of education reform efforts and expenditures, now they're bringing their education system up to date.

Despite the promises tech offers to reinvent schooling, not much has changed in the last decade

Invoking a decades old law that requires any degree granting academic institution to obtain a license to operate in state (and pay a hefty fee for said license), Minnesota has banned universities from offering free online courses through education site Coursera, prompting the site to issue this notice to all Minnesota users: Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so.

Kind of an emerging use of old-technology, but universities and publishers are fighting over the use of electronic scans / copies of book chapters used for classes. I think ti's interesting how content hasn't necessarily changed at the university level like it has for K-12 (like interactive textbooks instead of decades-old material). Maybe due to specialization at universities? Or just that professors at university are less open to adoption of "new" material?

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan leads a team to State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) Leadership Summit, "Leveraging Technology for Learning." Th panels focus on making shift to digital textbook, increasing broadband access, STEM, assessment, and improving teacher effectiveness - many of these we discussed in our T561 class.

Did some digging into the Quest for Learning school that was mentioned in the Connected Learning reading. They're about average on test scores in 2012 (found here: http://projects.nytimes.com/new-york-schools-test-scores/counties/new-york/districts/new-york-city-district-2/schools/quest-to-learn), which could be cited to support arguments on both side the 'gaming v traditional learning' coin with regards to standardized tests. It will certainly be interesting to see how their graduates fair over the next decade or so.

Well spotted, Ms. Laura. Schools like this really do take some leap of faith. Even parents/students/administrators/teachers who really believe in the ideals must realize that the students do not exist in a vacuum and that if/when their kids take the SATs, apply to college, etc., they are buying into the system that they are trying to reject/amend earlier in the students life.

Comment: As we're talking about the Common Core Standards, this is a concept which aligns itself to the CCSS. I volunteered through a non-profit organization this summer to teach AVID classes concepts about the world of work, entrepreneurship and personal finances. (AVID is advancement via Individualistic Determination) 

This article summarizes some research findings that suggest that electronic readers, such as the Kindle and iPad, are still inferior to the printed page and may even worsen student comprehension of material. The most up-to-date information technology seems inadequate for educational and academic needs.

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...

Interesting thoughts about changes in technology over the past 10 years and where it may be heading in the future

The last decade expanded what we could do online, but the Web's basic programming couldn't keep up. That threatened to fracture the world's greatest innovation engine-until a small group of Web rivals joined forces to save it. The Web has been showing its age.