Group items tagged

This alignment is important because well-designed learning spaces and enabling technologies encourage students to spend more time on campus, increasing engagement and improving retention.

They appear to prefer learning-by-doing rather than learning-by-listening and often choose to study in groups. Much to the consternation of adults acculturated to lectures, they become impatient in situations where they don't feel engaged.

While many student attributes may be important to educators, five characteristics seem particularly applicable for learning spaces: Digital Mobile Independent Social Participatory

ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives. Alan Kay of Apple calls this "Third Paradigm" computing.

Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality.

The TSI does not address the need for infrastructure.

Higher-efficiency strategies result in more reliable technology support at relatively lower levels of effort.

The upper layers of the OSI model deal with application issues and generally are implemented only in software. The highest layer, the application layer, is closest to the end user. Both users and application layer processes interact with software applications that contain a communications component. The term upper layer is sometimes used to refer to any layer above another layer in the OSI model. The lower layers of the OSI model handle data transport issues. The physical layer and the data link layer are implemented in hardware and software. The lowest layer, the physical layer, is closest to the physical network medium (the network cabling, for example) and is responsible for actually placing information on the medium.

Internetwork addresses identify devices separately or as members of a group. Addressing schemes vary depending on the protocol family and the OSI layer. Three types of internetwork addresses are commonly used: data link layer addresses, Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, and network layer addresses.

A data link layer address uniquely identifies each physical network connection of a network device. Data-link addresses sometimes are referred to as physical or hardware addresses.

videogames (arguably one of the most sophisticated forms of information technology to date)

five leading-edge thinkers in the field: James Paul Gee, J. C. Herz, Randy Hinrichs, Marc Prensky, and Ben Sawyer.

power-performanced learning

This technology initiative provided every student with a district-owned laptop computer for use during the school year, both in the classroom and at home. In addition, all six district buildings are wireless environments.

The second phase of the program implementation included intensive and ongoing training of the faculty with the goal of integrating technology into all curricular areas. As a result of the faculty cross-curricular training, students receive instruction in the use of applications and resources in the context of the learning environment, rather than in isolation. In addition to content instruction, students simultaneously are able to expand their digital literacy, further develop curiosity and creativity, and benefit from the experience of teaming and collaboration with peers, both locally and internationally.

Community support for the initiative has been an important part of the successful implementation.

I see that one rationale for the Commons is to "get the students to the library." In our case, it has been very effective in attracting students…our gate count was 110 percent higher…so, it will attract students. But that begs the question?once they are in the building, what do we do with them? How do we engage them? The rationale for the learning commons, in my view, is that, properly designed, implemented, and operated, it will enhance student learning and scholarship. That is the real challenge, and the real goal, of the learning commons.3

Information commons have drawn students by offering environments that address their needs,4 bringing together technology, content, and services in a physical space that results in an environment different from that of a typical library.

The technology in an information commons is intentionally more pervasive than in most traditional academic libraries.

Educators must create structures that support this learning. Space can have a powerful impact on learning; we cannot overlook space in our attempts to accomplish our goals.

A room with rows of tablet arm chairs facing an instructor's desk in front of chalkboards conveys the pedagogical approach "I talk or demonstrate; you listen or observe." A room of square tables with a chair on each side conveys the importance of teamwork and interaction to learning. (See Figures 1 and 2.)

A classroom always has a front.

In the United States, Maine has led the way with its laptop program, which has made students more enthusiastic in the classroom, but not necessarily resulted in better test scores.

More than 80 percent of instructors say the laptops help them make lessons more personal to students, make it easier for students to study problems from the real world and to dig deeper into certain topics,

Many teachers who were surveyed also said that students using laptops are becoming better at combining information from multiple sources and expressing their thoughts. Students in the program report that they understand the material better.

Stories definitely can teach, but they are also designed to be engaging, to pull at your heart as well as your head, and to help viewers draw conclusions about their own lives or actions."

felt that if they knew that they could turn those writing pieces — particularly the personal narrative that is part of the portfolio — into digital stories, their feelings about writing might change."

students creating digital stories about a time each of their lives changed.

put the relative threat of online predators in perspective, while at the same time noting that schools and parents must to more to give students the media literacy skills required to use the Internet responsibly.

On the other side of this digital divide, there are countless young people who feel like they are masters of digital technology, despite the fact they often use these tools naively or recklessly because of a lack media literacy and critical thinking skills.

More Internet-enabled phones will be sold and activated in 2009 than personal computers.

Today, the computer for the rest of us is a phone.

Our infrastructure has to keep up with this growth just to maintain our current level of quality, but to actually make search smarter, our index and infrastructure need to grow at a pace FASTER than the web.

ore than a decade ago, schools began investing heavily in laptops at the urging of school boards and parent groups who saw them as the key to the 21st century classroom. Following Maine’s lead in 2002, states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Dakota helped buy laptops for thousands of students through statewide initiatives like “Classrooms for the Future

Classrooms for the Future

Many school administrators and teachers say laptops in the classroom have motivated even reluctant students to learn, resulting in higher attendance and lower detention and dropout rates.

Such disappointments are the latest example of how technology is often embraced by philanthropists and political leaders as a quick fix, only to leave teachers flummoxed about how best to integrate the new gadgets into curriculums.

Last month, the United States Department of Education released a study showing no difference in academic achievement between students who used educational software programs for math and reading and those who did not.

a survey of district teachers and parents found that one-fifth of Matoaca students rarely or never used their laptops for learning.

paradigm of interaction that I call everyware.

and is delivered in a manner appropriate to our location and context.