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"This article talks about the negative effects of texting on learning. I thought about the OneVille project when reading this. Perhaps, if implementing texting as an educational tool, ground rules about grammar need to be implemented in conjunction with other rules that we talked about in section."

Interesting stance from the UK, where the government hopes to raise up the importance of computer science in education, where ICT (information and communication technology) lessons are not up to date with the needs and skills of the 21st century. Kids engaged in ICT classes learn how to use software, and not how software works or how it's created. From the article: "Written by gaming guru Ian Livingstone and visual effects veteran Alex Hope, Next Gen called for programming skills to replace learning about business software in ICT lessons." direct link to the UK Government's response to the 'Next Gen' report: http://www.dcms.gov.uk/publications/8646.aspx

Ipad app that teaches fractions

I tend to agree with Professor Cuban - "IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning." The real challenge is to convert the initial excitement and performance improvement into sustained progress. The key may be in leveraging the increased self-efficacy of students.

This article makes me wonder about the novelty bump you get when you try anything new. In EcoMuve, they researched the effectiveness of EcoMuve vs a new ecology classroom based activity. This tactic is measuring the effectiveness of the technology. However in these studies, if they had kids using a computer game to practice fractions, did the control group practice fractions using a classroom based activity? 15% growth is not much to get excited about.

A Stanford University group tracked students in eight virtual schools and found that "in every subgroup, with significant effects, cyber charter performance is lower." K12 Inc. made large profit, but at what cost?

It is sad that every good idea gets hijacked for 'profit-maximizing'

Interesting EDC study showing positive results with an online Algebra course for rural students in Maine and Vermont.    The 8th graders taking the virtual algebra course performed much better and were more likely to take advanced math classes by the 10th grade.  It's an example of educational technology being used in a very effective and appropriate way to address rural student equity issues.

This article that highlights Khan Academy but also other interesting resources. I found this to have good information to add to our discussions about Khan and it's effectiveness. Other interesting aspects include a mention about open source college textbooks (Connexions) and a paper about effective teaching ("Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Scientific Education")

In Virginia and Pennsylvania, companies opened online, i.e., virstual schools. The schools get Kids don't have to ride yellow bus anymore - learning is solitary, lessons delivered online, and children progress at their own pace. However, while virtual schools continue to expand, their effectiveness is unclear

Online courses are not students only, they are for teachers too. Tennessee offers free online courses to help educators maximize their knowledge of balanced assessment systems, including formative instructional practices, value-added progress measures and effective strategies to improve teaching and learning. Since Fall 2010, more than 270,000 courses have been completed throughout Tennessee by 42,000 educators.

Communication and ­collaboration between curriculum and technology leaders are necessary to impact teaching and learning. Educators are knowledgeable about ­research on effective ­instructional ­strategies while tech leaders are familiar with educational technology trends and emerging applications and mobile devices. Together, these leaders can ­develop a common language that aligns ­evidence-based instructional practices.

Nice contrast - one company believes in design and the other in data.

I'm intrigued by the writer's argument that a focus on data (Google) helps make the existing technologies more effective and powerful, while the focus on design (Apple) helps create new technologies and bring about revolutions in technology usage. It seems to me that we must have both existing to reap maximum benefit, but it's not clear whether the two ideologies together will be as effective as they are apart.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan leads a team to State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) Leadership Summit, "Leveraging Technology for Learning." Th panels focus on making shift to digital textbook, increasing broadband access, STEM, assessment, and improving teacher effectiveness - many of these we discussed in our T561 class.

Thought-provoking game. Play to the end for the full effect (three levels)

Hi Deidre, thanks for sharing the game. Interesting although a little 'guidance' along the way might have sustained the players attention longer haha.

The presentation on the ARG alien abduction in class today reminded me of this awesome news story a couple months back. Sans fancy technology, a school staged an alien abduction for its students. Unfortunately, they got some flak for the War of the Worlds effect it had on the younger kids. But this school seems really awesome and I hope no one got disciplined for providing an innovation learning experience.

For people interested in the new HTML 5 standard, there are some great things that will be possible. This article gives a quick overview of Canvas, which will use JavaScript to allow some pretty complicated visual effects. This guide assumes a good grasp of the current standards and of typical digital design tools.

Have you LOLed today? A comic that presents a cynical view of the efficacy of blogs to effect change.

This is a pretty good web-based audio editor. This could serve as a good replacement for Audacity or GarageBand. It has some great effects and a good library of sound clips. It operates in much the same way as Audacity of GarageBand, just in your web browser.

This is a review of Clay Shirky's book, "Here Comes Everybody" in which he describes the dramatic impact the internet has, and will continue to have on how we learn and communicate. This book (and review) will give you some insight into how your children may be using these technologies. But it should also raise questions about how we, as practitioners, can use the affordances of the new tech to improve our efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy.

"Families, learners, educators, and decision-makers will need to become sophisticated at pattern recognition in order to create effective and differentiated learning experiences and environments... will redefine forms of knowledge, knowing, and assessment. "