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Key choices are now being made about the E-Rate in terms of both amount of funding and how that money can be used. I and others are advocating that E-Rate should fund mobile devices and networking outside of schools.

A new proposal calls for a Consumer Reports-like rating body to evaluate new digital learning tools. Ed tech innovators like the idea in theory but they worry that it won't work in practice.

Funny, I was just talking with someone about this very idea the other day. We absolutely need something like this and my guess is that we will have a few competitors, at least early on, for the top ed tech review site. I think there is space for both an organization that specializes and for a yelp like site that essentially crowd sources the reviews. It will be tough to keep up, but think of how many products and areas Consumer Reports deals with- we can do this, and need to do this, for ed tech to get used wisely in our schools.

With regards to e-learning, I think inevitably some company or organization will provide ratings of the quality of online degree programs and learning tools. Whether this is Consumer Reports or US World & News Report or some new player (investment opportunity?), the need for objective assessments of digital learning tools is definitely needed. The Benchmarking e-learning wiki is interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmarking_e-learning

Since 1990, the gap has remained fairly constant. In addition, Hispanic young adults in the United States continued to have a relatively high status dropout rate when compared to Asian/Pacific Islanders, Whites, or Blacks (table A and table

Fox's IGN Entertainment purchases "What they Play site" that uses the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board" data to provide a family guide to video games

Tennessee Technology Centers (a "career-training program" that is state funded) is using strictly enforced scheduling to help retain students with 1 in 4 odds of completing their program. The school is taking the opposite approach that most higher education schools take. Instead of having the freedom to create their own schedule, they work with the school to determine a schedule from the beginning which is permanent throughout the duration of their time at the school and is strictly enforced. The school is hoping to increase retention of students in 1 to 2 year programs that have low graduation rates, and produce more graduates in emerging technology fields.

RIT hosts a school within a school- the National Technical Institute for the Deaf makes it a unique environment to study this question. I wonder though if this passes Prof. Dede's predictable outcome test.

Over 6 million students are learning online. More importantly, the rate of growth is 10% per year compared to 2% student population growth in higher education.

Chattanooga school is using clickers, as we use at HGSE, to improve retention rate?

Upcoming conference on the use of iPads in education at Harvard Medical School - Joseph B. Martin Conference Center November 7-8 (pre-conference Nov 6) Educators, researchers, industry - all represented Organized by EdTechTeacher 2012

This conference takes place at Hynes Nov 13-15. I am in touch with the co-founder who is an alumnus and may be able to offer us student rates. Let me know if you're interested!

This ties into the discussion in class this week. A nice quick summary of the debate, along with a database for all the ongoing comments via the FCC.

Kids send camera 93,000 ft into atmosphere (based on linear discent rate.) "Want to inspire middle school and high school students to launch things into space."

Here's an individual analysis of each company and how it rated according to Technology, Business Model and Utility

The concerns about federal regulation of social media continue

Interesting to look at some of the federal policies that restrict internet use in schools. The incentive for schools to participate is access to an E-rate saver program. This is a bit controversial because it utilizes censorship and restricts the students' freedom to take full advantage of the information available on the Web. The reasons behind the CIPA act are pretty obvious- safety.

This is a website that allows users to find videos from which children (3-18) can learn. All videos are hosted by other sites like YouTube, but content is approved and moderated separately. Comments and discussions are separate from the comments on the original post (i.e. WatchKnow comments do not get added to YouTube and YouTube comments do not appear on WatchKnow). There is heavy emphasis on transparent, widespread monitoring of content. This is accomplished in ways very reminiscent of Wikipedia's moderation methods. Right now, the site has a good number of videos, but lacks a rich community of active users. This means that it is harder to locate quality videos since few users have rated and discussed content.

This website is very similar to an idea I've been brewing for a while (though I believe this site is missing some of the more promising features). I was pleasantly surprised to see professor Dede's name on the Advisory Committee.

For those of you in Professor Wiske's class, this makes our course work all the more relevant. For the purposes of this class, what technologies are effective in providing the tools for teachers and students to engage in quality online education? Certainly a question that, based on these numbers, is only going to grow more complex with time...

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

User created app ratings for Android phones. Appsfire, a leading and pioneering marketing platform for mobile apps through visual and social discovery.

Stanford's new online course on blended learning environments.

I think this is a really important experiment. Venturelab is a MOOC that is using a teams based model. Participants fill out assessments which are used to "build" teams. Team members rate each other's work. Interesting to see how they progress.