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more on blended learning, professional development

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

"This contribution to Seton Hall's Center for Mobile Research & Innovation is about more than just teaching the students to develop mobile apps - it is also teaching them professional and life skills, motivating them and preparing them for college, and instilling community service values"

Thought this may be of interest to those in the research team looking at PD and social media.

Teachers rate educational apps. I'm interested in the intersection of crowdsourcing and teacher professional development.

That would be interesting to see what teachers develop....this brings me to the thought that was brought up by that guy (don't recall his name) at the i-lab about having teachers develop apps but having them be able to make money off of it....

An old article from 2007 referenced in my discussion post on infrastructure and mobile learning. It's interesting to consider the capacity and willingness to leverage the power of mobile devices to overcome infrastructure deficiencies in the developing world.

"Carnegie Mellon University is convening a high-powered consortium of educators, researchers, and technology-company executives that will spearhead efforts to develop standards and promote best practices in online education."

The developer kit would especially be helpful to developers planning on using the device to develop augmented reality applications. Typically, augmented reality refers to an enhanced (and, sometimes, fantastic) vision of reality.

This would also be very powerful for engineering applications, virtually "adding" prototypes from solidworks or 3D modeling programs to see their impact on objects or spaces. I also see a cool educational aspect where students could build theoretical bridges, building models, or art installations to see how they would impact the real space they might inhabit.

Sillicon Valley (Social) entrepreneurs hosting developer garage in Uganda

survey shows teachers want professional development on web 2 and social networking tools

How does technology effect parent-student relationships and student development during the college years?

A recent study about fast-paced television programs and children's development finds that attention, problem solving and other skills under the umbrella of "executive function" are harmed by watching some shows.

The Daily Show takes on iPads educational games and the 'freemium' pay model (free to get a game, costs $ to get desired add-ons and content). They specifically look at the game Tapfish.  Pretty funny - but I think hits the dangers of this model head on

Battu!!! You stole my thunder. I wanted to post this but I'm glad you did because I think it is one of the real hazards of education fronting for the products of private companies. We need to be ahead of the curve.

agreed - I think awareness of this growing model is crucial. But with the increasing occurrence of the pay-for-more mantra in mobile apps (especially those made by big publishers & developers-- even educational apps)--- will small-time efforts (solo developers, non-profits) be able to compete? Is this model reflecting the true nature of app development? It's already hard for small/independent efforts to match the polish and amount of content of stuff made by the 'pros' (big publishers & devs). Is it the constant revenue the big apps are getting from in-app purchases that allows their stuff to rise and stay steps ahead? I wonder if there'll be an obvious and real difference in the quality of free vs paid/pay-to-play apps down the road, enough that certain apps won't even be available in one category or the other.

A great example of a new immersive interface that Microsoft is developing

An article on strategies for developing the right environment for blended learning.

Here's an article highlighting the development of apps that engage users (in this case, kids) in the world around them...

Business still early in development. They are trying to provide solution for this problem: 'it's extremely difficult to track, quantify and contextualize the diversity of experiences in informal lifelong learning." Too early to say if this is even a sustainable business model but we will see. 

IDEO serves as a design and innovation firm for businesses and start-ups... but what about helping schools with instructional design and development?

White paper outlines the existing structures that constrict the development of 21st century skills, various tools, e.g. through including badging, personalization, adult learning, etc.