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More info on their PD (coaching service requires additional $), also details on their plan to expand audience (to 5th, 6th grader) and regions (france, singapore and korea)

We know a good deal about the contents of this article arlready, but its a TIME article and it links to some interesting studies and polls. http://nation.time.com/2012/10/18/higher-education-poll/?pcd=teaser and this should encourage us, as we pay through the nose for this education: David Stavens (Udacity's co-founder, and Stanford alum) concedes. "I think the top 50 schools are probably safe," he says. "There's a magic that goes on inside a university campus that, if you can afford to live inside that bubble, is wonderful." ... I agree with Mr. Stavens . I hope you do too. See you in class!

"The best professional-development research shows that teachers need sustained contact hours (between 30 and 100) of training before altering their practices. So, she did a back-of-the envelope calculation about how much time it would take to implement 50 hours of formative-assessment training over the course of a school year...... Teachers would need about six hours a month, for eight months, which amounts to one early-close afternoon a month plus two additional hours. (Good luck with that in this economy.)"

Perhaps this is where technology can play an enabling role. Easy to use and real-time tools like Socrative or technology based learning environments with embedded formative assessments (like my formative assessment design proposal for VPA) could help reduce the time / training barriers for teachers to incorporate formative assessment into the teaching practice. At the very least, new curriculum initiatives aligned with common core standards SHOULD BE REQUIRED to incorporate formative-assessments. Unfortunately on PARCC is. "Of the two assessment consortia, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, is not developing formative-assessment resources as part of its federal grant. The other consortium, known as SMARTER Balanced, is."

Technology isn't explicit in this article, but it is ever-present in regards to this author's re-thinking of the classic book report. Instead of "same old, same old", this article suggests that students should be remixing the information they gather from books and recreating it in different ways - 21st century skills!!! "Below, we present some alternatives to that classic classroom assignment, the book report. All of our ideas are inspired by The New York Times in some way, either because we've adapted an interesting format, or because we were inspired by an article, review, essay, interview or multimedia feature."

This article makes interesting references not only to our resistance to change (disruption), but also our inability to control media and not the other way around. "Human beings are creatures of habit and the introduction of anything new typically raises an eyebrow (at least) or pitchforks (more often). It's a somewhat common theme that is tiresome to me, but one that provokes debate throughout the times." And "There's a macro lesson here: If you think your kid is spending too much time on their iPad and not enough time outside getting some exercise, don't blame the iPad."

A series of NY Times articles from a few weeks

Article about how I-Pads will make electronic patient records easier to use, less expensive, and eventually transform health care. Interesting to read after our online discussion about AI in informal learning- health communication and medical training.

With the privacy concerns surrounding medical records, HIPPA legislation and the password security that is now required of personnel in hospitals to access medical records with ever changing password authentication tokens, I wonder if iPad wireless communication poses any risk to data being hijacked.

Cherie- I actually discussed this issue with a relative who is a doctor and he said that while his office is trying to switch to digital records, he is also concerned about privacy, increased government/insurance company regulation, and a disconnect in patient care/communication (looking down instead of talking to the patient). He also is concerned about time management with so many patients- the time it will take to record information on a tablet instead of the time he takes verbally recording patient information in just a few seconds.

an interesting article on procrastination. Perhaps worth reading to better understand our own behavior and the behavior of future students we attempt to engage. There is a not a direct technology angle here, but it would be important to think about this topic when looking at technologies for the classroom.

Check out the video at http://vimeo.com/11731351 (It's the same info Cameron posted a while ago but this time it's made the widely read Huffington Post ... and I think it's a good repeat post since I, for one, didn't pay enough attention to this the first time I heard about it.)

Time wasters in whose opinion?

on "electronic bathroom wall": elite universities are struggling with the problem of anonymous gossip sites

This is exciting news.. Education''s premise is that it will lead to an increase in desired economic returns to the time spent in school. Does the future "happiness" quotient have an impact on the time a student decides to invest in education?

Tom Daccord and Justin Reich have a great blog on their EdTechTeacher website.  Coming up on March 3-4, they are hosting the EdTechTeacher2012 Winter Conference "Leading Change in Changing Times"  featuring familiar faces:  Chris Dede and Stone Wiske.

Ok... maybe the tie in to education is not immediately obvious. Mostly, I just think this is so cool that I had to post it. But think for a moment about carpool, soccer practice, and sports as a starter. No longer does a kid's participation in extracurricular activities require them to get a ride from mom. Go a little further... field trips, classes that are only offered at the charter school across town, on-site science explorations. How many more kids could venture out of their neighborhood for educational opportunities? There was a time 20 years ago I never would have believed that elementary school children would be carrying their own phone, but now will they all get their own car in 2nd grade??

The top two barriers to technology-enhanced learning (TEL) the survey concludes: lack of time and insufficient financial resources

iPads are found to have a direct impact and maximize student learning time in a classroom in Michigan

An all-too-familiar tale of school districts hailing software as a "silver bullet" and then getting frustrated when student achievement gains didn't live up to expectations--even though teachers implemented it for a tiny fraction of the recommended use time...

video on Time To Know platform

"At a time when education technology is getting a lot of attention, there is no class time allocated to technology education."