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The question may be whether the iPad is best suited as a 1-to-1 device or to be shared as part of a stable of digital classroom tools. For example, on the other side of Arlington, Jamestown Elementary School’s instructional technology coordinator, Camilla Gagliolo, has stashed the nearly 60 iPads at her school in technology cabinets across classrooms in the 550-student K-5 school. About a half-dozen sit in each cabinet, next to a similar number of netbook computers and iPod touch media players.

students can choose which device to use for an ongoing book-publishing project. During math in Bill Donovan’s 4th grade class, students rotate between workstations working on quick-response math exercises. Some are using math-drill apps on the iPad, iPod touches, or laptops. And some are using old-fashioned pencil and paper.

How do big data and analytics generate value for higher education? They can improve administrative decision-making and organizational resource allocation. They can identify at-risk learners and provide intervention to assist learners in achieving success. By analyzing discussion messages posted, assignments completed, and messages read in LMSs such as Moodle and Desire2Learn, educators can identify students who are at risk of dropping out.13 They can create, through transparent data and analysis, a shared understanding of the institution’s successes and challenges. They can innovate and transform the college/university system, as well as academic models and pedagogical approaches. They can assist in making sense of complex topics through the combination of social networks and technical and information networks: that is, algorithms can recognize and provide insight into data and at-risk challenges. They can help leaders transition to holistic decision-making through analyses of what-if scenarios and experimentation to explore how various elements within a complex discipline (e.g., retaining students, reducing costs) connect and to explore the impact of changing core elements. They can increase organizational productivity and effectiveness by providing up-to-date information and allowing rapid response to challenges. They can help institutional leaders determine the hard (e.g., patents, research) and soft (e.g., reputation, profile, quality of teaching) value generated by faculty activity.14 They can provide learners with insight into their own learning habits and can give recommendations for improvement. Learning-facing analytics, such as the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Check My Activity tool, allows learners to “compare their own activity . . . against an anonymous summary of their course peers.”15

Analytics in education must be transformative, altering existing teaching, learning, and assessment processes, academic work, and administration.

Undoubtedly, analytics and big data have a significant role to play in the future of higher education. The growing role of analysis techniques and technologies in government and business sectors affirms this trend. In education the value of analytics and big data can be found in (1) their role in guiding reform activities in higher education, and (2) how they can assist educators in improving teaching and learning.

Learning analytics is essential for penetrating the fog that has settled over much of higher education. Educators, students, and administrators need a foundation on which to enact change. For educators, the availability of real-time insight into the performance of learners—including students who are at-risk—can be a significant help in the planning of teaching activities. For students, receiving information about their performance in relation to their peers or about their progress in relation to their personal goals can be motivating and encouraging. Finally, administrators and decision-makers are today confronted with tremendous uncertainty in the face of budget cuts and global competition in higher education. Learning analytics can penetrate the fog of uncertainty around how to allocate resources, develop competitive advantages, and most important, improve the quality and value of the learning experience.

At this macro level, administrators at school and district levels use learning analytics to gauge students’ performance, and to compare how schools are performing vis a vis each other.

which measures schools’ overall performance through students’ performance on state standardized tests.

. SNAPP (Social Networks Advancing Pedagogical Practice) is one university-based learning analytics program (developed at the University of Wollongong in Australia) that analyses the social networks that form within learning management systems. SNAPP records statistics on not only which students participate on LMS’, and how frequently, but also pays close attention to which students respond to which students’ comments and posts, emerging leaders, whose posts are frequent and elicit much discussion, and outliers, who contribute little. Snapp also provides visualizations of these social networks to instructors and course administrators.

Tablets

Flat Classroom Project Help

Student Summit Video - whiteboard view and audio only NetGen2010 Timeline 3/5 - Greeting from Don posted to the Ning via video Weekly- discussions posted to the forum 2/20-3/5 - "Handshake process" - Students join Ning - post introductions 3/1 - Teams announce 3/15-4/10 Research phase of project 4/10 - Wikis complete 4/1 - Student Keynote Some time in March, there will be a live session with Don Tapscott 4/10-5/8 - Movie Artifact phase of project (note that there will be some overlap between Research and Movie Artifact) *Storyboarding *Outsourced video requests posted to the Ning by 3/10 5/10 - Final Deadline for All Movies to be posted 5/10-5/20 - Post project reflections, student summits, awards Project Files Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital Chapter 1 Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital Chapter 3 Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital Chapter 5 2010 Horizon Report Daily Assignment points - 25 points Create useful Diigo Bookmarks for the NetGen2010 Project and/or communicate with your Team members on the wiki Discussion tab - up to 10 points Post credible research information (preferably in your own words) to your Team's wiki  - must use proper citations - up to 10 points Blog about your latest NetGen2010 activity/progress - up to 5 points If you are absent a day, you are expected to complete the tasks either from home or the next day at school. NetGen2010 Project Links: Video Project Overview - http://netgened2010.flatclassroomproject.org/OverviewPPHS Video Project Assignment http://netgened2010.flatclassroomproject.org/More+information - overview of the ProjectDiigo Standard Tags:Visual Data Analysis:  visualdataGesture Based Computing:  gesturebasedOpen Content:  opencontentSimple Augmented Reality:  augmentedrealityElectronic Books: ebooksMobile Computing:  mobileNetGen2010 Diigo Tag Cloud - these are the Diigo Bookmark tags that you should use.

Analytics generates a system alert for advisors to initiate an Individual Learning Plan (ILP)

Analytics can be a powerful tool for higher education

As the practice of analytics is refined, colleges and universities can place more and better information into the hands of a greater number of people, enabling informed decision-making.

the focus of future analytics efforts can shift from predicting who is going to be successful to customizing learning environments so that the most effective instructional approaches are used for each student. Eventually, institutions may be able to provide unique learning paths, matching instructional activities to a student's learning needs.

Online educational game “collections,” such as Primary Games Arena, BrainPOP, and zondle Non-digital games, such as conventional board games and card games

Having students design and develop their own games is a powerful way to have students learn not only about the technical and creative aspects of making a game but also about content-specific topics (such as history or math) that needs to be embedded in the game. Popular game creation tools include:

In this course, teachers will learn how to design and develop their own educational alternate reality game or other new media game that does not require programming skills nor a large development team to build.

Using game elements and principles to turn a class into a more game-like setting can be a way to help motivate and engage students. In this course, teachers will learn about the pros and cons of using gamification strategies, such as the use of badges and point systems, in the classroom or online course and ways in which they can implement these strategies.