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This blog post has relevance for what happens, and why, when education reformers (including technologists!) put out good ideas and watch them not get implemented, or not get implemented transformationally, on the ground in schools.

It's kind of hilarious to read this "instructions to give students" in the context of our class. "Charge your iPad" is first.

Part 1 of 3 of the Great iPad Debate.

TV Tropes is being very transparent about creating a moderation system for the content. This is in response to loosing advertising dollars from Google. It is interesting to see the outline for their model of moderating content. Some of these elements could be used in a web 2.0 environment for education

An interesting read in light of what we read in Disrupting Class - looking to higher ed as guinea pig for technology implementation in K-12.

Published Online: October 17, 2011 Published in Print: October 19, 2011, as Crafting Your BYOT Policy For the small but passionate minority of school districts that are opening doors to student-owned mobile devices, there's a lot riding on how effective the policy shift turns out to be in improving teaching and learning. I will be looking strongly at this experiment to assist with the charter school district I am putting together.

I can understand a districts hesitance towards the BYOT because of its responsibility for and inability to control the accessing of inappropriate content on such devices. What I would like to see - even if in baby steps (which I know is occurring in small scale all over the country), is the creation and sharing of engaging lessons that encourage this BYOT movement and combat the urge for students to be inappropriate because of the level of motivation the lesson itself provides. And I would also like to see some of the responsibility shift from policy makers to the students for self moderation - they know what is right and wrong in an educational setting - why can't we hold THEM accountable more?

Article addresses policy challenges in implementing BYOT

just the latest developments in flexible display technologies that are coming. Looks like Samsung and Nokia are already demonstrating their implementations at trade shows, and we may begin seeing these as early as 2012

A financial / investment perspective of the Education industry is offered in this report. I think the interesting thing is this section: "With the implementation of the Common Core standardized curriculum, the focus on content is becoming less about differentiation and more about delivery through emerging technology platforms," stated Mary Jo Zandy, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes. "Interactive assessment tools that measure student progress, particularly in the quantitative disciplines, will thus become even more important in K-12 education as schools aim to meet specific testing benchmarks."

Here are some resources for generating assessment rubrics in UDL fashion...

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.

Pros: -Many Students Already Own Devices -Upfront Cost Savings -Shorter Implementations Cons: -Disparate Equipment and Operating Systems -Not all Students Have Their own Devices -IT Service Levels Will Vary Across Devices

Not exactly a link re: technology, but really good reading if you intend to IMPLEMENT any of the stuff we have talked about for the last several months. You will need to move people to change habits - Marshal Ganz of HKS describes a process to articulate a vision of change and move people to action.

iPad deployment program

The U.A.E. has gone completely digital at the university level! All first year students got an iPad this year (14,000), and they plan on doing this until every university student has one.

EPIC-Ed is a U.S. Dept. of Education's online community of practice (OCOP) focused on the planning and implementation of ubiquitous computing environments. This is EPICEd's YouTube space. Videos include interviews with Karen Cator, Bob Wise, and teachers around the country, as well as on topics such as assessment and literacy.

This is mind-blowing, Jeff. It certainly speaks to the natural curiosity of children and the human capacity to learn, given resources and opportunities. Although I agree with the NETP about developing a strategic approach to tech implementation, I guess we should keep an open mind to the possibility that the technology can precede the strategy (and definitive research data) and still add value to a learning environment. After all, some inventions go on to serve unintended purposes that sometimes prove more useful than its original intended purpose. Who would have thought Ethiopian children could figure out how to hack tablets? Major props to them because I still have yet to figure it out. Thanks for sharing the article, Jeff.

Sugata Mitra would be proud!

Notes from a conference on emerging technologies (not sure if Professor Dede was there or not). Count me as a skeptic re: OLPC's Ethiopia experiment, but the Institute of Play/EA partnership is an interesting one. 

I was at EmTech  at MIT during this panel discussion.

Thanks for sharing Mohit. I think the implementation of OLPC in numerous countries have been beneficial and a step in the right direction. Maybe if you do place a laptop in a child's hands, he/she could learn certain basic skills (like what the article suggested). But to go beyond that to higher-order thinking skills, a robust curriculum would be needed to complement the technology. Still, credit to these folks for reaching out to the children in need.

Some of the city's "turnaround" schools, including the one where this teacher works, are listing knowledge or willingness to learn about using a blended learning instructional models as a criterion for hiring teachers. An interesting and entertaining blig post about implementation & buy-in of blended learning in NYC schools.

used iLearn http://www.ilearn.com/web/AboutGains.asp

These are important ideas - hope they archive the presentation, as it is opposite our section.

I followed this article to another really interesting article on th same site http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/09/04-education-technology-west with a prediction of the use of data mining and web dashboards through the lens of big data. I think we are very close to being able to implement these ideas in the near future. Great article thanks for sharing!

Heather, thanks for the additional information. Brookings is doing some good work in this area...