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"E-learning programmes often offer training schemes which could help educate employees on the necessary rules and regulations surrounding manual labour jobs, such as construction...Online learning programs which specialise in health and safety and employee training are being increasingly adopted by businesses and large organisations."

"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."

I was speaking with Chris yesterday and we agreed that it was going to be the entertainment industry that would pioneer this technology. At this point, it looks as if Vuzix core market and strategy for growing their AR library is business (training) and academia. The fact that you can see through the lens but ALSO see the 'broadcast' image is huge. Yesterdays AR demo would have been soooo much more immersive had we been able to keep one eye on the R (reality...cars, appraoching hornets, etc) and one I on the AR.

Following up on the discussion we had in class today, do you think we are focusing too much of our attention on teacher training? If students have the ability to not only understand a certain technology but can also use that technology to self train, isn't the role of the teacher in that respect, highly reduced? Perhaps its easier and would prove fruitful if we redirected our strengths to developing software and devices that are intuitive and help children learn rather than spending the resources on helping a different generation of learners (i.e., the teachers) understand this technology? Also, if you think about it, we are probably only one generation away from the teachers who see the value of technology in teaching. This ideal generation is of course the current students who are using technology and find it extremely helpful. They wouldn't need any convincing or training to use technology in their classroom

you can become a google certified teacher by attending the Google Teacher Academy

I'm sure some of you are already aware of this certification program offered through Google -- anybody know what's behind it and how it is viewed by academics and learning scientists?

I know a lot of educators are super interested in the program, but it is difficult to get to training center for an 8 hour training (often they are in random cities across the the US), and to get funding because it ain't cheap. However, a lot of teachers are taking on the challenge of training each other rather than having "google certified teacher" title. Since Google Educator apps are free - if someone in a district takes ownership, then you can kind of get around the challenges of PD. I am working with the IT specialist in a middle school in Newton, who has done a lot of trainings on Google apps for educators. I'll ask her for more info :-)

Results of a 2012 survey on salaries in the corporate training field.

Relevant to the discussion we had yesterday in recitation about professional development and the comments from Emily about similarities in technology adoption. Teachers can learn about how to use social media from business trainers, too.

Many of you have read my "rants" about buying iPads before the teacher's even know what to do with them. This article speaks to the need for Professional Development before full scale implementation.

Is a good teacher a good teacher regardless of the medium, or do online teachers need medium-specific training? The "class pet" idea is great.

Definitely worthwhile to keep a pulse on Dr. Bror Saxberg's work, esp. if you are interested in learning science. He is the Chief Learning Office at Kaplan and has a unique academic background (a Rhodes Scholar with MD from Harvard, PhD from MIT, Masters from Oxford, etc.) Professor Dede had also mentioned him in one of our previous lectures. Your's truly had the honor of having breakfast, one-on-one, with Dr. Bror Saxberg at his office in DC. :-) This posting talks about a beta course at Kaplan to train "learning architects" on how to build learning environments.

Some key training initiatives in cyber security, big data, analytics, mobile, etc. IBM's recent report "found that only 1 in 10 organizations has the skills needed to effectively apply advanced technologies such as business analytics, mobile computing, cloud computing and social business."

Schools need edtech staff to provide "intensive, on-the-ground support" to "unite tools and training in a way that renders the marriage of technology and education feasible"

Lessons learned from Cisco's experience indicate that business-education partnerships should: * Be set up so that all aspects of the project are transparent to outsiders, even if corporations profit from the R&D * Foster experimentation, because it is not always clear in advance which ideas and projects will work best * Establish in-depth training for every new technology, with businesspeople and educators learning from each other

Site with a lot of links to AR info

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.

Pretty relevant to what we've discussed in class so far--Verizon is launching a couple of initiatives to encourage mobile ed tech development. One is to encourage students to create educational apps relevant to their communities, while the other is to train teachers on how to use technology and mobile tech in their classrooms. Third part is an online portal for sharing knowledge and materials between teachers.

A nice reminder that throwing tech into a classroom solves nothing without proper teacher training. "That is why our investment in upgrading classrooms needs to focus equally on making sure teachers know how to use digital tools effectively." "the motherboard and the memory chip will never replace the passion and inspiration of a real-life teacher."

So I think this articles goes along the same lines as the one from Daniel, about "Are Kids Really Motivated by Technology?". Both bring up great points that just technology alone can't solve education--so it's interesting to think about what that means for a lot of the technology-driven initiatives we see now. Khan, digital textbooks, etc., bring in technology to the classroom, but how much do they still depend on teacher proficiency in the classroom? Are they just repackaging traditional education? What about things like Coursera or edX--does interacting with an inspirational and passionate teacher through the Web still positively affect students?

Interesting article - highlights the growth of virtual training tools and their capacity to improve real world tasks. Example: "The amazing results of the training and simulation program have led to significantly improved grades on students' critical skills tests, taking scores from a 56% success in 2007, to 95% at the end of 2008 after the simulation was instituted."

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.

The public school district in St. Louis, Missouri was awarded an Innovative Technology Education Fund grant to buy iPads for all students with autism in six autism-specific classrooms. This seems to be an example of utilizing an emerging technology in an excellent way with proper teacher training, rather than using technology for technology's sake. The schools will be advised on how to implement the iPads by an autism science and advocacy organization and have two full days of professional development planned.

This is great news on the autism-rights front! I know a severely autistic 21-year-old who is highly communicative because of the technology he has used since he was young.