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The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. But the school's chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud.

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...

A range of education related posts that I am positive are updated regularly. For sure, bookmark it onto your browser !

Is the online experience important enough to warrant this?

This strikes me as a case where technology is being implemented without enough thought as to how the technology actually furthers the learning goals. "Having an online learning experience" doesn't seem to me like a good enough reason to require students to take a course online, especially for students who do not have easy access to the internet. While I think it's important for students to get experience with an online learning platform, I hope that they are learning more than just how to use the technology -- what is more important is that they learn how to be part of a collaborative Community of Inquiry (I am borrowing the phrase Community of Inquiry from Garrison's "E-learning in the 21st Century"). This requires them to think and write critically and collaborate effectively with their peers.

The schools I founded in Tennessee are really attempting to harness the power of these feedback loops using a very complicated design. Technology helps. But, this technology leaves much to be desire though the information one can generate is invaluable.

""The whole evening is about educating parents about the technology that's out there," said Laura Boss, director of communications for Newport-Mesa Unified School District, who stressed that parents should not be afraid of the every-changing technology and that being informed is the first step. "This is the world [today's] kids live in." The presentation encouraged parents to embrace their kids' digital world, support balanced use, monitor their kids' digital media use, and discuss what sites they are allowed to visit and what they can and can't download. A few tips shared during the presentation: Give kids a code of conduct. Remind them not to post/IM/text anything they wouldn't say to that person's face; Discuss cyber-bullying with kids and ask if they know anyone who has been bullied; Talk about the importance of privacy and how to protect it; and discuss their online identity and possible risky behavior. "Raise good digital citizens!" a slide stated."

"Learning technology is like the Bakken field-a giant untapped resource to dramatically improve productivity. The two breakthroughs most likely to unleash human potential are customization and motivation."

Interesting look at mapping 21st Century Skills to Montessori .

I am a fan of the Motessori approach and am encouraged to see that they are mapping the new technology skills to the tenets of what has been working so well for them already.

Technology is a double-edged sword. Young children cannot be exposed to the screen all day long, but there is no need to make a fuss about it. They can still learn a lot if they are properly guided.

Interesting study for how students use facebook, and how that might affect academic performance. Those who used facebook to post statuses did worse academically then those who used it to share links/comment on others' links etc. Obviously, self-reporting of facebook use is limiting, as well as the myriad of other factors that influence academic performance. Still, something to look for when it gets published in the journal of Computers in Human Behavior. "How does Facebook activity affect a student's grades? Reynol Junco, a professor at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, recently set out to determine exactly that. Mr. Junco assembled a sample of nearly 2,000 college students who self-reported details of their Facebook use: not just total time spent on the social networking site, but specific actions taken such as commenting, chatting, uploading photos or seeing what others are doing - "lurking," as Mr. Junco calls it."

"As technology speeds up and our children are raised more and more on video (like YouTube) and video games, they won't have the time or patience for reading, even on a fancy digital device. And they won't want to listen to others reading to them, either (see Audible). We're on a one way street to animation replacing text books."

A contrarian view. "Some education experts say that the push to equip classrooms with computers is unwarranted because studies do not clearly show that this leads to better test scores or other measurable gains."

First of all - the girl in the picture of this article is reading Nancy Drew - who else spent most of their childhood with their head buried in a mystery series? :-) Secondly, I cannot tell you how valuable mud was to my childhood. Had I not been at a camp every summer where I was able to play around in mud and run through the woods all day, I would not be the person I am today. I think I did most of my growing and much of my learning in informal environments such as camp. It sounds to me like this school is trying to replicate those learning experiences...in a classroom. Not saying it's the way to go...but certainly an interesting model. Thanks for sharing!

Waldorf philosophy is different approach. For example, children learn to write first before they learn to read. As a result children may learn to read as late as 8 or 9. It's based on the anthroposophy philosophy. Children's who parents value these things will do well in a school without technology. Children who are plugged in at home would have a difficult time. This is effective for private school but not public school.

Pertinent discussion for those of us looking to create educational software

No- the sites I have stumbled upon in the past few years are more like list serves without any real organization. One of my goals at HGSE is to identify or create a site that would do this well.

Allison, how about we create a 'rating' agency for educational products (software, toys, kits etc) the way we think it should work? (We can call it Allison's list, like Angie's list). I am putting up this idea seriously. If there is a need that is not being met, I suppose it is an opportunity.

Article wArns against effects of screen time on the developing mind. The Article also states that quality programs Are only educational if the child understands the content and context, which children under two usually can not.

Published Online: October 17, 2011 Published in Print: October 19, 2011, as Crafting Your BYOT Policy For the small but passionate minority of school districts that are opening doors to student-owned mobile devices, there's a lot riding on how effective the policy shift turns out to be in improving teaching and learning. I will be looking strongly at this experiment to assist with the charter school district I am putting together.

I can understand a districts hesitance towards the BYOT because of its responsibility for and inability to control the accessing of inappropriate content on such devices. What I would like to see - even if in baby steps (which I know is occurring in small scale all over the country), is the creation and sharing of engaging lessons that encourage this BYOT movement and combat the urge for students to be inappropriate because of the level of motivation the lesson itself provides. And I would also like to see some of the responsibility shift from policy makers to the students for self moderation - they know what is right and wrong in an educational setting - why can't we hold THEM accountable more?

Article addresses policy challenges in implementing BYOT

Going back to our class on augmented reality, this article looks at how "augmented identities" might be useful in a classroom in the future

A look at what makes universities special and important. It's interesting that what they note are aspects that require smaller classes and more resources. I thought this is a good article to think about some of the key features of universities, and how they can be replicated in the virtual world.

Is this the start of a movement?

This is a "retweet" from Alex Shoenfeld but since he is not in this course I am posting it here.

I thought this was very reminiscent of the video that Prof. Dede showed early on in our class. Some parts are a little too "Big Brother" for my tastes, but the donation to the benefit concert just by holding a device up to the screen was fantastic...ease of use..."One-Click Wonders"...LOVE it!

This article is from July 2010, but I found it interesting that the featured parents subscribed to the Waldorf approach to learning, but were lured in by the "irresistibility of technology" and began to make apps. "I decided it was better to contribute positively instead of taking a reactionary, orthodox stance." - Lynette Mattke