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Implementing Authentic Tasks in Web-Based Learning Environments (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) |... - 0 views

  • Of course, information is not sufficient for learning. Students must be challenged with authentic tasks that drive the need to use, transform, apply, and reinterpret that information.
  • discuss problems, debate issues, and exchange information regarding task completion
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    The article defines and describes the characteristics of authentic learning.
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First virtual school in Mass. opens Thursday - Boston.com - 4 views

    • Jessica O'Brien
       
      Poor student health is associated with educational gaps. It seems possible that virtual schools may one day offer an effective alternative to traditional schools for children with chronic disease. However, it seems far too premature to consider that application yet.
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    Very few virtual schools have worked with students this young, so there are interesting questions about jumping from no virtual schooling all the way to this model.
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    I wonder what the purpose would be of having a school entirely virtual. I can see this being a better opportunity for children in rural communities who are limited by distance (overlooking the financial aspect, of course). I also see this as a subtle way to eventually reduce staffing (not as many teachers and support staff workers needed). Have we evaluated the physical effects of children being glued to a screen for six hours a day?
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    There is a really fascinating and controversial policy story behind this. Through "legislative sausage-making" the states first virtual school is being run by a single district out in Western Mass., mostly as a result of the entrepreneurial spirit of the superintendent. There are big questions about what will happen as students across the state sign up for the virtual school and their districts are required to pay tuition to Greenfield. And Greenfield isn't really providing a school, they are just enrolling students to be taught by a for-profit company, K-12. There are quite a few very interesting policy issues that would be worth digging into as the state launches this new venture in an unusual way.
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    When I first read the article, I immediately thought "an idealist gone rogue." I wondered if there was even any research/method behind this decision, and you mentioned there is a fee. Did I understand correctly that the school district will have to pay this fee for the student like some sort of voucher? If I get a chance I'm going to look for more articles out there on this project. Thanks for mentioning it, Justin. Interesting, indeed.
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Second Thoughts on Online Education - 3 views

  • Certain groups did notably worse online. Hispanic students online fell nearly a full grade lower than Hispanic students that took the course in class. Male students did about a half-grade worse online, as did low-achievers, which had college grade-point averages below the mean for the university.
  • A policy issue raised by the study, Mr. Figlio said, was whether a shift to online education will serve to widen the achievement gap between the best students and others.
  • “But what we are saying is that there’s no free lunch” in the drive to online education, he said.
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    I get really nervous about these "shifts" when they become sensationalized. Despite our insistence that students are not created equal, we keep searching for the one-size-fits-all solution to education, and in this era that solution is bolstered by anything containing the word DIGITAL. How much socioemotional development will students lose if this trend increases over time? How do we provide for human relationships, mentors, even confrontation and conflict resolution when we are all hiding behind computer screens? It has to be about more than convenience.
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Disrupting Class - 6 views

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    Michael Horn, co-author of "Disrupting Class" and Executive Director for Education and the Innosight Institute, has agreed to do a live chat with me and Andrew Barras on Wednesday, September 29. Right now the time is looking like 12Noon EST. This is a great one-on-one interaction opportunity for teachers, education reformers, education administrators and anyone interested in the role that digital learning plays in the delivery of equity to every student in America.
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    Hi Cameron, If you do get something arranged and want more participants, we could post this on the TIE list, EPLIP list, or the T561 class list... Of course, if you are trying to do something more intimate, that might not be a good idea, and you should just let Diigo followers go :) Anyway, kudos for putting it together!
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    Justin, would be great to post this on the lists you mention.
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    Sure, can you email me a short little blurb with a few more details-- confirming the time, the medium, the end time, the topic, etc.
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N.J. schools explore using iPads as teaching devices | NJ.com - 5 views

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    Really interesting article on a school district in New Jersey that is testing iPad use across multiple classroom subjects . The district purchased 60 devices for students in the testing program. Pending the results, they are considering providing all of their high school students with the device as early as next year.
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    Thanks for contributing this great article. I am going to closely monitor this "experiment" and may potentially seek to interview some of the teachers who created this iPad curriculum for the various courses.
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    I'd really like to see one of these lessons in action- this sounds cool. I wonder, do the ipads stay in the classrooms?
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Evaluating E-Educators' Evolving Skills - 3 views

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    Free webinar on Sept 23 to discuss skills for on-line faciltators
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Doctor and Patient - Teaching Doctors About Food and Diet - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • For the last 15 years, to help schools with their nutrition curriculum, the University of North Carolina has offered a series of instruction modules free of charge. Initially delivered by CD-ROM and now online, the program, Nutrition in Medicine, is an interactive multimedia series of courses covering topics like the molecular mechanism of cancer nutrition, pediatric obesity, dietary supplements and nutrition in the elderly.
  • More recently, Ms. Adams and her colleagues have begun working on online nutrition education programs geared toward practicing physicians.
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    I wonder how many medical students and physicians are learning through online information, such as these nutrition modules, to make up for the gaps in current medical education curriculum? These nutrition modules are interactive and let students take electronic notes while reviewing the material.
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Online Skills Laboratory - 1 views

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    Comments on Obama's $500 million initiative to create online contents for basic skills courses in math and sciences.
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If students are capable of self-tutoring, are we putting too much importance on teacher... - 2 views

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    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
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Another platform for teaching programming to our students - 0 views

  • Learn computer programming the easy way with Processing, a simple language that lets you use code to create drawings, animation, and interactive graphics. Programming courses usually start with theory, but this book lets you jump right into creative and fun projects. It's ideal for anyone who wants to learn basic programming, and serves as a simple introduction to graphics for people with some programming skills.
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    Scratch isn't the only game in town :-) Note that I've already posted about App Inventor here (which is another "dive right in" programming environ)
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Education will evolve with technology, experts advise - 2 views

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    Over 4.6 million students enrolled for online courses in 2008, a 17 percent increase on the numbers reported for the previous year. While students are enjoying the accessibility and convenience online learning provides, online educators firmly stand by their position that online learning should compliment not replace classroom learning
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Online Project Receives $2.5 Million Grant To Aid Middle School Science -- THE Journal - 0 views

  • the team plans to use the grant money to develop 35 new simulations specifically geared to middle school physical science education. The existing library of simulations targets concepts and applications generally used in high school- and college-level physics courses.
  • The PhET simulations allow us to conduct experiments, with students at the helm, that we wouldn't otherwise be able to stage or model in the classroom."

One Step Closer to My Dream - 3 views

started by Sarah Usher on 02 Jun 11 no follow-up yet
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Brainscape: Learn Faster - Research - 2 views

  • Confidence-Based Repetition These combined concepts of Repetition, Active Recall, and Metacognition work together to create Brainscape’s unique process of Confidence-Based Repetition (CBR). CBR acts essentially as your personalized knowledge stream, where bite-sized concepts are repeated one after another, in Question/Answer pairs, and then re-entered into the repetition queue in intervals based on your confidence in how well you know them. Low-confidence items (e.g. the 1’s and 2’s) are repeated more often until you upgrade your confidence to higher levels.
    • James Glanville
       
      "Confidence-based repitition" looks like the direct application of current thinking in neuroscience about how we learn.   I wonder how well it really works?  It's theory based but not truly field tested.....Not quite iterative research-design-field test-tweak loop Dock's Design course prescribes.
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    Interesting startup.  Building a learning tool based on the neuroscience concept of "confidence-based repetition."  
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The Problem with Lecturing - 13 views

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    An example of student preconceived notions preventing them from learning scientific concepts.
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    Interesting article. Dockterman speaks of Mazur all the time and it's nice to see the background.
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    Great find. It touches on two topics I'm pursuing this semester- conceptual change and how formative assessments can improve learning. Eric Mazur's approach is fantastic. I wonder how what he does can be applied to K-12 teaching.
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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lBYrKPoVFwg This is a video of Professor Mazur using this strategy. I'm currently taking a class where the professor uses a similar type of engagement method and I find that it is much more interesting and results in deeper understanding than a typical lecture method.
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    Ayelet, I curious what class / professor.
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    Merseth. Do you agree with this characterization? Do you find that style effective?
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    Thanks, Diana. I can use this article in two of my other classes.
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    Great video - key quote "You can forget facts but you can't forget understandings." Yes - I would agree that Merseth and a number of other HGSE professors structure their courses for engagement in a similar manner. Requiring reading & active reflection (by via a written brief, case preparation, or online quiz) before the class / lecture is a great way to prep for deeper engagement and understanding. The genius in Mazur's approach is to use technology to assess before class and during class what his students understand and, more importantly, don't understand AND then tailor what he presents next to address misconceptions.
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How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education | Magazine - 3 views

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    One teacher claims that "The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school." - Do you agree that this is a good solution? 
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    That is the way a couple of my colleagues (science and math) use Khan and they feel it creates more opportunity to use them as a resource for their specific needs. The spend some time at the beginning of class to answer questions as a group and then students begin working on problems and asking for individual help during class.
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    I think the idea of distributing video tutorials and courseware for free is a powerful lever for change and education (Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, etc). While I'm intrigued by Khan Academy and see the benefit to help student who want to pause and replay lessons, there is a limit to it's use as an educational tool. In the article linked below, the Los Altos district currently piloting the program noted that they have not seen any statistical difference between Khan students and the control group. http://losaltos.patch.com/articles/school-district-expands-khan-academy-to-all-schools
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    I too am intrigued by this "inverting" of time spent in the classroom and at home. My idealized model would be to introduce learners to new material at their own pace out of the classroom (allowing for pausing, note taking, reflecting and/or rewinding) and focus classroom time on face to face guiding and coaching of clusters of students or individual students engaged in applying or exploring the current material. To help facilitate this (and assist with accountability) some brief form of pre-assessment before class or at the start of class could illuminate for student and teacher alike what material has been mastered and what needs more attention. The research report from the TIE Foundations summer reading appears to support this type of hybrid approach. => Marsha Lovett, Oded Meyer, and Candace Thille (2008). The Open Learning Initiative: Measuring the effectiveness of the OLI statistics course in accelerating student learning.
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    An added benefit of tools such as Khan Academy is the option for reinforcement. In a traditional K-12 school environment students do not have the option to watch a video of their class or spend personalized time reviewing a concept they need more time with during class time due to the required pace of school curriculum. An online learning tool allows a student to watch a lesson as many times as needed and to learn from an expert. Often if a student needs help outside the classroom the only people they turn to is parents, who may or may not know about the content themselves.
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BYOD - Worst Idea of the 21st Century? : Stager-to-Go - 7 views

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    Uche, you keep posting stuff I have a problem with- OK I understand that BYOD policies may not be so great but I really believe that familes should shoulder some of the costs for hardware since degredation is such a problem. The schools can have agreements with vendors to provide certain laptops or tablets for a certain price point and they can design their systems to support these items. Parents are expected to purchase backpacks, binders, and school supplies. When parents can't provide these back-to-school supplies, schools cover it. The same should be for computers. Speaking as a middle class parent (refer to above article) I believe this is an important investment in our schools so that they can focus on hardware support and software implementation/ integration.
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    @Allison and Uche - I am torn. While I initially thought BYOD was a good idea so that schools would have to stop "blaming" their fiscal woes on their inability to integrate emerging technologies into the curriculum, I now have some appreciation with points from this article - especially around "false equivalences" and "enshrining inequities" in light of my own children's "bring your own electronic device" day that took place two weeks ago. As a school wide reward for meeting their Accelerated Reading goal, all students were told they could bring an electronic device to school to "play" with on Friday afternoon. This prompted my kids to call me (Skype) on Thursday night and ask me if I could buy them a DS or a SmartPhone that NIGHT so that they could bring either of those devices to school for the celebration. Now mind you, my kids have access to lap tops, iPad, Smart Phones, Wii games, GameBoy, iPods, Flip camera, digital camera, etc - albeit not their OWN - but still access to them for use (when Mom and Dad are not using them). But apparently, of the devices left that Mom and Dad weren't using, none of them were "cool" enough for this event. That got me wondering if BYOD might have the same effect on our learners making those who don't have the latest and greatest feel bad or less adequate then their friends or classmates who could bring something they deemed as "better?" Allison, your point seems to be that requiring parents to cover the expense of a digital device as a requirement for school is not a bad idea, but I think you are referring to expecting the SAME device to be purchased and used, not myriad devices with various capabilities, features and functions - am I understanding you correctly? And if we did try to mandate parental supply of digital devices, would we have a different kind of fight on our hands because, as consumers, parents might have their own biases around what they deem is the best device of all (not just PC vs MAC or iOS vs Android, but sma
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    I still believe that a system properly designed could mitigate some of your concerns. In reality, schools can not support any device that a student brings in. They are capable of supporting a certain number and if they build relationships with the vendors to sell those devices that the school is capable of supporting then families will be aware that the school will offer the best deal on the items that are compatible. Every year the school recommends items for back to school supplies. If the laptop could replace all of the binders it might be worth it. There are many factors to consider but the biggest obstacle is that schools maintain such old equipment because of their budget woes. Even when we can purchase the latest and greatest software, the computers can't run it.
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    What a great debate you guys are having! One point worth considering is that typically the parents are responsible for purchasing the supplies, while the school is responsible for providing the content (textbooks, workbooks, handouts, worksheets, videos, etc). In the near future these devices may also be the primary sources of content, replacing textbooks altogether. I would hope perhaps funding for textbooks could be transferred to funding for these devices. I would also hope that the price of these devices drops significantly (is the $35 tablet in our future?). Then of course the question of who pays is less important. In my job producing educational video for publishing companies, I spend way too much time dealing with various formats and compatibility problems with browsers, so I'd love to see a future where this becomes more standardized.
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Digital Badges - 4 views

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    The idea of "showing what you know" and earning badges instead of degrees? In this economic downswing, could something like this become the new emergent way of learning and of assessing? Thoughts?
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    Sounds like the digital badge is more lke a digital portfolio- which I would more likely support. I find it interesting that our education system (which strives and struggles to provide consistent, high quality education from coast to coast) is seen as deficient but this badge proposal will be the answer? It's like the flood of support for home-schooling after a home-schooler wins a national competition but no one knows about the tens of homescholers I had to remediate in rural NH. Standardization is the key for any system to be integrated into another system. The variety of education models we have in our country makes it difficult for employers to integrate employees. If this digital badge concept relies on a variety of models, they will have the same problem.
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    The prospect of digital badges to show what you know is both exciting with its potential affordances and worrisome with some of its limitations and ambiguity. It'd be great if the ideal came to pass that digital badges would allow valid demonstration of super-specific skills and knowledge over a greater range of fields and topics than what having a B.A. or B.S. currently does. Digital badges could represent the most particular concepts or skills at a granular level even-- those that are essential in the real-world (whether that be desired by employers or otherwise). If the task or test or challenge, or whatever else would be the means of assessment for earning a badge, was carefully designed and evaluated to be a truly valid measure of proficiency, then earning a badge for something would be a clear indication that you know something. But like Allison said, standardization would be key. What would these assessments/ badge challenges be- so that they would be truly valid indicators of proficiency? Who would be the purveyors or authorities to determine the assessments or challenges to accomplish a badge? Given the medium (completing badge assessments on one's own computer or mobile device - from any site they're at potentially) - what's to stop a user from going "open book" or "opening another tab" in order to look up answers to questions or tutorials on how to do a task, in order to complete the assessment? Doing this would allow a user to ace the assessment and earn the badge- but would defeat any value of the badge in truly demonstrating knowledge or skill. By imagining if digital badges did reach mass-acceptance and use in the real world, and we were to ultimately find them all over the internet like we're now finding social media widgets, it made me realize that the "prove proficiency anywhere I am in any way I want" won't work. I changed fields and career paths from what I studied in college, so I definitely appreciate the value in being able to truly show e
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Online education expands for U.S. need, awaits innovation - USATODAY.com - 1 views

  • Proponents of online education cite a recent Department of Education study that concluded course work is better absorbed online than material presented in live classrooms.
  • interest in online education may have plateaued for now, awaiting innovations that will transform the experience beyond screen imitations of the brick-and-mortar curriculum
  • Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen predicted half of kindergarten through high school students will attend school online within the next decade.
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Academic Earth | Online Courses | Academic Video Lectures - 1 views

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    New delivery platform, but from what I can tell, same lecture format. "Disruptive" in that it offers students (who might not otherwise be students) a chance to sit in and learn the same content as the rich/smart enough to have a seat at MIT, Yale Stanford, etc.
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