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There were two recent articles in NYTimes on use of technology with opposing view. While one article proposes replacing textbooks with laptops, the other school "doesn't compute." This article takes a middle path, a balanced used of technology in our schools. The author argues that computer cannot replace books, technology cannot replace a teacher, writing, or discussion. Technology is a tool to enrich the material and agument a curriculum.

Arne Duncan, Education Secretary, says greater use of technology in teaching may engage students and help prevent dropout rates.

Superintendent and School Board understand the need for technology investment in Education and MUSD residents chose to extend the $40m bonds to fund this crucial initiative.

This company seems to package much of the free software for social networks within a company. They present an interesting vision of how it all might work as people collaborate on a project and utilized the system to find the right human resources. This looks sort of like the descriptions of what networked learning should (kind of) look like in schools. This is the industry model. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkP49rBrq68&feature=player_embedded

"Resilient mobile classroom incorporating laptops, video camera and electronic blackboard will work in areas without electricity"

This article lists sites with free content and argues they are democratizing education

Now this service/interface seems to offer real potential -- it's flexible, it's based on a dynamic interplay of different applications -- it's been around for a few years now -- anybody have first-hand experience with it?

Being a 2nd year part-time student, I already took David Rose's UDL course last spring. My group project for UDL was exploring VoiceThread-- understanding its current feautres and capabilities, testing it out in a real world situation with some students, and envisioning changes to fix shortcomings plus new features. Overall, we thought VoiceThread was really cool! Could allow students to communicate in different kinds of ways (text, voice, submitting video statements, drawing-- whatever someone preferred or was comfortable with) and enabled a growing transcript of student dialogue in reference to a piece of content. But there was a real learning curve- in figuring out how (as a 'teacher') to create an original VoiceThread using our media. And then students had to figure out the interface and tools available to them as they used VoiceThread to browse a stream we created and comment on it. As of last spring at least, I felt it was a bit cumbersome. Really wish it was more intuitive so both creators and viewers could jump right in and get right to communicating. Haven't gone back to using it as of late, but I hear they now have iPhone/iPad access!

Microsoft is showcasing range of products and solutions aimed at leveragng technology to transfrom education. Live@edu, a rich collaboration and communication platform, is the highlight of the show.

Thanks for this, Anna. I saw this group as part of an interview on ABC about iPads. Their data really gets me thinking about the educational and home space and how we need to design content to leverage the technology that is most accessible to them - and the iPad isn't the "golden ticket" (at least in this age span).

CommonSense is a strong organization - they have a comprehensive database of reviews of content, so if you are a parent looking for the low down on a media product (whether it be a TV show, video game, movie, etc.), commonsense is a good place to get an overview of the product. I have heard arguments, however, that their tendency is to be more conservative in their reviews. May not work for every parent, but definitely a good resource! For other groups like this one, check out the following: Temple's Media Education Lab, http://mediaeducationlab.com/ ; Children Now, http://www.childrennow.org/index.php/learn/talking_with_kids//television.html ; The LAMP http://www.thelampnyc.org/ ; and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/

Interesting topic! One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) founder Nicholas Negroponte plans to airdrop tablet computers in remote villages and then come back a year later to see how it worked. Remember the movie "The Gods Must be Crazy" or the story of "Hole in the wall" in India? Here is the link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2_CjRbZ5EI)

Opinion in edutopia

Chocolate-covered broccoli. jk Says the key is "intrinsic integration": ensuring that the mechanics of the game mesh tightly with the content the game is trying to teach.