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The Edutainment Era: Debunking Myths and Sharing Less "Developers and others in the video game industry often attribute the failure of the "edutainment" industry in the 1990′s either to a lack of market demand or the difficulty of creating great products. In reality neither of these assertions is correct."

Very interesting article about mHealth summit and explosion of medical tech devices. Yet most innovations are for the consumer industry as opposed to the providers, who need innovations just as much. The regulations and approvals necessary for physicians is a huge hurdle.

PoweredUp Boston: October 14 + 15, 2010 * Hear from leading Boston area developers and thought leaders on the latest local and global issues shaping our industry. * Network with local developers, investors, educational institutions and government officials. * Learn about the unique resources and opportunities available to Boston area businesses in the video game industry. Who Should Attend: * Boston area indie game developers (existing and aspiring) * Established Boston area game developers looking to connect with other developers * National and international companies looking to establish a presence in Boston * Investors * Infrastructure, middleware and other organizations interested in doing business with Boston area game companies * Students and faculty interested in the gaming industry

In this video, IBM outlines what a smarter school, district, and city would look like. However, I feel that the video fail to say exactly what IBM is doing to hep schools, districts, and cities to become "smarter."As a side note, I find it interesting that IBM uses individuals with different accents - and wonder if this is a marketing tool. 

A 360-degree display, engineered by Sony, with potential applications in marketing and the medical industry

The following is a rounded, 360 degree display that can be viewed at any angle. Sony sees potential use of this technology in the medical imaging industry, as well as marketing/signage.

State legislation passed in the spring could put up-to-the-minute instructional content at students' fingertips-either online or in customized printed form-eliminating the mass-market hardback textbook.

TX, CA, and FL markets drive the textbook industry. If TX leads the way, eliminating mass market textbooks, then they will undoubtedly revolutionize the publishing industry. Tablet textbooks may be the wave of the future, but let's just hope publishers don't think revolutionizing the textbook industry means reading textbooks on a screen.

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."

One way business industry is trying to overcome the 'safety' issue related to ''ubiquitous'' environment. This is about making automobiles 'smart' and use it as a mean to collect data. 

At the Techonomy conference, industry leaders discuss the future of three-dimensional printing -- and how the technology will change markets forever. (Credit: Asa Mathat/Techonomy) MARANA, Ariz. - Three-dimensional printing: hype, or hope? That's the question industry leaders sought to answer at the Techonomy conference here in the sunny greater Tucson area.

Scientist discusses positive effects of action video games, suggests entertainment industry should join scientists to create engaging educational games.

Thanks for sharing Brandon. I like two things she said in particular 1) General wisdom often carries no weight 2) Like red wine, video games may be good when used appropriately. I'm convinced myself in the power of game-based learning but do agree that more work needs to be done in bringing good ones to the class.

Via Instapundit: In Technology Review, Michael Fitzgerald reports on an innovate approach to make digital versions of expensive textbooks available to cost-conscious students.

A A Clay Christensen literally wrote the book on disruption, so it's worth paying attention to him when he talks about where the disruption fueled by the web is going to strike next.

A look at a Brooklyn public school that offers a six-year high school/college curriculum geared toward jobs in the technology industry. Ironically, it doesn't seem like technology is being used to transform student understanding. And there seems to be a risk that these kids are being trained to do jobs that will be obsolete by the time they finish school.

The report, titled "Conducting and Reporting Product Evaluation Research: Guidelines and Considerations for Educational Technology Publishers and Developers," is authored by Denis Newman, CEO of Empirical Education Inc., and produced by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). It's based on Empirical Education's many years of conducting this kind of research, both for publishers and for the U.S. Department of Education (ED). A working group of industry experts also was established for evaluation, and it met monthly for more than a year to sort through the issues and draft a set of considerations.

I was intrigued by Howard Gardner's comment at the end of his talk when he (to paraphrase) said that he thought "education" as we know it is coming to an end and being replaced by learning. That's the conclusion I have been straying to as a result of my coursework this past semester. Education cannot respond to innovations the way businesses do.

Commentary on NYT article by Matt Richtel critical of Apple's "wooing" the ed industry.

in response to Jen Lavalle's post about games having to go cross-platform to survive. Adobe, makes of the Flash platform, have announced they are stopping further development of the plugin for mobile devices. They are instead now going to focus on open standards (like HTML5), to allow content to be viewed on all modern devices (mobile and computers) with no plug in required. They will also focus on tools to allow developers to push content speciically to the app stores of today's most popular mobile devices. This is a good & bad sign for app developers who use Flash (lots of them, it's been an industry standard for years. Flash has suffered from terrible performance on mobile devices, so it's good to see Adobe acknowledging the need to do something different for their mobile strategy. But what this means for the tools developers will (need to learn to) use? TBD...

SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) is hosting a webinar about its efforts to create a standard metadata framework for tagging and delivering learning resources matched to individuals' needs, in line with . Unfortunately, it is during next week's section, but perhaps it will be archived...

One of the few uses of advanced technologies in the history curriculum

As delivery of history teaching to students becomes more and more realistic, it is more important than ever to ensure that we have in place a robust and diverse oversight network to ensure that the narrative being suggested is an accurate representation of the time and place, as opposed to a history-as-written-by-the-winners narrative, which is pervasive throughout many textbooks. For many students, this sort of immersion will overwhelm any alternative streams of knowledge coming from Harlem in the 20s, so it is vital that the VR be constructed in a way that captures the context of why it was such a dynamic time in New York. As for the creators of this technology having to turn to the porn industry for technical support, that should not come as a surprise, as many claim that porn has revolutionized, or at least been instrumental in, the emergence of many new industries from VHS to the internet.

"The report Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning, by Cooney Center Industry Fellow Carly Shuler, makes the case that our nation's leaders should not overlook the role mobile technologies can play, if well deployed, in building human capital and in helping to stimulate valuable innovation."