Group items tagged

Article from July 2011 that is an example of how to transistion to a BYOD school.

I like it that "the district has focused on making sure that technical staff understand the educational goals of the initiative and that educators understand the technical challenges to enabling it". I my previous experience in non-educational settings, whenever the user community and the technology community were aligned and focused on solving a 'business' problem it was likely to lead to a successful conclusion.

Here is the link to the archived version of the SIIA webinar I posted about a few days ago: "The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) is working to create a standard metadata framework for tagging educational resources on the web to enhance search, discovery and delivery of educational content. The project is funded by the Gates and Hewlett Foundations, administered through AEP and Creative Commons, and builds on the broader Schema.org project by leading search engines Bing, Google, and Yahoo! This webinar provides an overview of the LRMI goals and deliverables, an update on progress and timelines, a look at the technical specifications, and a discussion of its implementation and impact with a focus on content publishers, aggregators and other digital learning providers."

Insider's view blog about Rocketship Education's technical infrastructure that supports their blended learning model.

Students from Norco College created an interactive game that introduces middle schools students to career technical education. '' It's so important to get students thinking early about their future'' (Director of Career & Technical Education Projects)

When I was a little kid, a strange little kid, I believed this scenario was playing out and that I was the only human that ever existed...You too? This is a full matured approach to the UI and emersive properties of AR & VR. But as usual, the vision of this new world mirrors present paradigms just with futuristic technical applicatios...playing vinyl records and adjusting the rabbit-ears on their TV to watch Survivor Season 325

Tying into discussions this week about bringing access to mobile devices to all via non-prohibitive costs, while still reaching a set of bare-minmum technical specs for actual use: India's "$35 tablet" has been a pipedream in the tech blog-o-sphere for awhile now, but it's finally available (though for a price of roughly $60). Still though, as an actual Android color touch tablet, with WiFi and cellular data capability - I'm curious to see how it's received and if it's adopted in any sort of large scale

I had heard months ago that India was creating this, but was not going to offer it commercially - rather, just for its own country. Just like the Little Professor (Prof Dede) calculator, when tablets get this affordable, educational systems can afford classroom sets of them and then use them regularly. But to Prof Dede's point - can they do everything that more expensive tablets can do? Or better yet - do they HAVE to?

I think this is what they're aiming to do - all classrooms/students across the country having this particular tablet. They won't be able to do everything today's expensive tablets can do, but I think they'll still be able too to do plenty. This $35 tablet's specs are comparable to the mobile devices we had here in the US in 2008/2009. Even back then, we were able to web browse, check email, use social networking (sharing pics and video too), watching streaming online video, and play basic 2D games. But even beyond those basic features, I think this tablet will be able to do more than we expect from something at this price point and basic hardware, for 2 reasons: 1. Wide-spread adoption of a single hardware. If this thing truly does become THE tablet for India's students, it will have such a massive userbase that software developers and designers who create educational software will have to cater to it. They will have to study this tablet and learn the ins-and-outs of its hardware in order to deliver content for it. "Underpowered" hardware is able to deliver experiences well beyond what would normally be expected from it when developers are able to optimize heavily for that particular set of components. This is why software for Apple's iPhone and iPad, and games for video game consoles (xbox, PS3, wii) are so polished. For the consoles especially, all the users have the same exact hardware, with the same features and components. Developers are able to create software that is very specialized for that hardware- opposed to spending their resources and time making sure the software works on a wide variety of hardware (like in the PC world). With this development style in mind, and with a fixed hardware model remaining widely used in the market for many years- the resultant software is very polished and goes beyond what users expect from it. This is why today's game consoles, which have been around since 2005/6, produce visuals that are still really impressive and sta

Three long-time Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, veterans from Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and Google, started funding education start-ups last Spring. Their incubator, Imagine K12, has now "graduated" its first group of startups. If accepted, Imagine K12 give $15k to $20k to startups and empower them with "dazzling network of connections."

Chris Lehmann is the founding principle of an innovative science and technical high school in Philadelphia (Science Leadership Academy) and will be the keynote speaker at the next ISTE conference. This is an interview where he discusses where he thinks technology and education are headed.

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.

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.

Anything that involves 'instant' such as twitter, texting, and youtube, hurt your 'working memory' and thus make you dumber. Facebook, on the other hand, expands your working memory as you seek to keep in touch with all your 'friends'. Really?

But what if the people finding me on Facebook were better left fogotten.

Interesting video and snarky article.  Complex technology with a dead simple UI used for learning--or amusement?  Or Both?

Jason Ohler writes about digital storytelling

The fascinating pdf from the researchers at MIT is linked to on Boing Boing. The comments on Boing Boing are also worth glancing at.

Hi Margaret, There's some interesting research around this question that points to bad messaging as the culprit. In case you're interested, here is a link to some market research the Engineer Your Life coalition did. The NAE also has an interesting research report called "Changing the Conversation." Natalie

Saw this over the summer and thought it raised some good questions about IEP initiatives, a child's ability to learn technical frameworks without explicit instruction, community engagement, technological innovation in impoverished areas, etc.

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves? Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

I thought this was a great video when I watched it. Very interesting experiment. It reminded me of how I know people who learned other languages through their love of music--they just memorized song lyrics and practiced until they figured out the language!

Yesterday afternoon, some of us were at a talk by Prof. Alex Pentland I found several of the topics tie back to our class discussion. In particular, his thoughts that only the individual should have ownership over personal data and others may seek permission to access it was, I felt appropriate. Of course for young students it appears more complicated. I am considering reading his papers ( at least the non technical parts :) His ideas can impact learning in the class room too ! Please share your thoughts !