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Casual but good little piece about the sort of kids churned out by home-schooling.

Casual but good little piece about the sort of kids churned out by home-schooling.

Cable companies, as part of a new FCC initiative, will be offering broadband internet to homes with children who are elgible for free school lunches.  The initiative is called "Connect-to-Compete". While having broadband at the home isn't the same as always on, mobile internet available wirelessly for students wherever they are on any device they happen to have on them, this is a good start to lessen digital exclusion for these groups

Per our discussion about Sherry Turkle's work, here is an article she co-authored on interactive robots in nursing homes.

virtual education meets some students' needs

Thanks for sharing this link. This is interesting for me to read because I grew up in this district. I also think virtual classrooms are a valuable tool for children who suffer from illness and might otherwise have to miss extended periods of class time. My younger brother is a college student and is currently stuck at home with Mono and might have to drop the semester- it would be great if he could keep up with his work online, while resting at home.

It is frustrating that his college does not have a distance learning option. Hope your brother feels better soon.

Do any of you know 'LINE'? as of last months, 80mn users globally (36mn users in Japan) and its pace of growth is exceeding that of any other types of social media in the country (Facebook, Twitter, etc). They target 1) users who have smartphones but not PC, 2) those who are interested in communication emotions effectively through ''emoticons'. If some people are concerned about how twitter/facebook/texting would have adverse impact on children language skill, let's talk about the implication of this thing if kids learn to communicate just by selecting emoticons (whose designs and variety are great by the way) and sending that to each other. I still have LINE on my PC but seeing this rapid growth in my home country concerns me a bit. 

Part of a socialist platform that aims to reform education. No homework at home, but a longer school week. 

Technology in the classroom --> only works with parental participation. This is an angle that has not been covered much in our class. But, my experience tells me it is more important than whether technology helps pedagogy.

no more class field trips to the imax once this comes out

An easy way to make time-lapse videos could be great in the classroom, especially for science. I can picture setting up a camera on the little seeds that kids plant for mother's day and then when they send home their flowers they can also watch a youtube video with mom showing the flower grow from start to finish - literally. Watch a culture grow.  Document behavior in the classroom and play back for parents quickly...the possibilities are endless.  

Students are using "Smart bracelets" to carry makeup work from school to home.

I'm trying to figure out how this is different or value added from just giving every kid a $10 flash thumbdrive.

I hope more organizations create a home for failed apps. We can learn from what went wrong or consider why an option never caught on.

Teacher Karl Fisch uploads his lectures to YouTube for his students to watch at home at night, then gets them to apply the concepts in class by day.

In light of our conversation of mobile learning, this article provides insight as to the stationary nature of the use of mobile technology. Shadow Cities - a game that prizes 'on the go', 'real world' scenarios within the game, found that most people play mobile games in the spaces where they spend the majority of their time - especially the home, which means mobile games compete with traditional gaming devices. Anyway, some food for thought...

Jennifer, Thanks for sharing this. In this push for mobile, I guess it makes sense if you step back and realize that most of the gaming systems that people started using (PS3, Xbox, Wii) were not built for mobility or portability and perhaps they haven't realized they can "transfer" the gaming experience to anyWHERE? Or maybe it is that gamers are creatures of habit? or superstition (like baseball players who don't shave their face throughout the playoffs so as to not mess with the karma or mojo?) and don't want to upset the environment that they consider the best for their particular performance of the game? The commercial that Prof Dede showed with the Augmented Reality spin and where Shadow Cities is headed really is a whole new way of approaching gaming and I wonder if the same type of gamers who are traditionalists (sit at home and play) would be interested in this new type of mobile gaming or if it might just open up a whole new set of gamers - who despise the sedentary nature of traditional gaming systems - and push them to get involved?

The idea of "showing what you know" and earning badges instead of degrees? In this economic downswing, could something like this become the new emergent way of learning and of assessing? Thoughts?

Sounds like the digital badge is more lke a digital portfolio- which I would more likely support. I find it interesting that our education system (which strives and struggles to provide consistent, high quality education from coast to coast) is seen as deficient but this badge proposal will be the answer? It's like the flood of support for home-schooling after a home-schooler wins a national competition but no one knows about the tens of homescholers I had to remediate in rural NH. Standardization is the key for any system to be integrated into another system. The variety of education models we have in our country makes it difficult for employers to integrate employees. If this digital badge concept relies on a variety of models, they will have the same problem.

The prospect of digital badges to show what you know is both exciting with its potential affordances and worrisome with some of its limitations and ambiguity. It'd be great if the ideal came to pass that digital badges would allow valid demonstration of super-specific skills and knowledge over a greater range of fields and topics than what having a B.A. or B.S. currently does. Digital badges could represent the most particular concepts or skills at a granular level even-- those that are essential in the real-world (whether that be desired by employers or otherwise). If the task or test or challenge, or whatever else would be the means of assessment for earning a badge, was carefully designed and evaluated to be a truly valid measure of proficiency, then earning a badge for something would be a clear indication that you know something. But like Allison said, standardization would be key. What would these assessments/ badge challenges be- so that they would be truly valid indicators of proficiency? Who would be the purveyors or authorities to determine the assessments or challenges to accomplish a badge? Given the medium (completing badge assessments on one's own computer or mobile device - from any site they're at potentially) - what's to stop a user from going "open book" or "opening another tab" in order to look up answers to questions or tutorials on how to do a task, in order to complete the assessment? Doing this would allow a user to ace the assessment and earn the badge- but would defeat any value of the badge in truly demonstrating knowledge or skill. By imagining if digital badges did reach mass-acceptance and use in the real world, and we were to ultimately find them all over the internet like we're now finding social media widgets, it made me realize that the "prove proficiency anywhere I am in any way I want" won't work. I changed fields and career paths from what I studied in college, so I definitely appreciate the value in being able to truly show e

Here's a mass of tools that can teachers can use right now to turn themselves and their students into a more interactive, personal version of Khan Academy.

When a Dad and his son do a space project together at home for the sheer joy of learning, they accomplish something amazing! (you'll have to watch)

It is worth remembering that there are anywhere between 1.5x - 2x more students in home school than in charter schools.