Group items tagged

Only New Hampshire scores higher than Utah on the percentage of homes with online access. In Utah, it's more than 85 percent of people with Internet access, compared with the national average of 76 percent.

ncreased by more than 400 percent in the past 10 years, with 33 percent of the world now connected to the Internet, up from 9 percent in 2002, according to Nielsen ratings.

We can’t answer the question “Is tech useful in schools?” until we’ve grappled with a deeper question: “What kinds of learning should be taking place in those schools?” If we favor an approach by which students actively construct meaning, an interactive process that involves a deep understanding of ideas and emerges from the interests and questions of the learners themselves, well, then we’d be open to the kinds of technology that truly support this kind of inquiry. Show me something that helps kids create, design, produce, construct—and I’m on board. Show me something that helps them make things collaboratively (rather than just on their own), and I’m even more interested—although it’s important to keep in mind that meaningful learning never requires technology, so even here we should object whenever we’re told that software (or a device with a screen) is essential.

If you haven’t given much thought to the kind of intellectual life we might want schools to foster, then it might sound exciting to “personalize” or “customize” learning. But as I argued not long ago, we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with personal learning. The first involves adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores, and it requires the purchase of software. The second involves working with each student to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests, and it requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well.

Marking places is key to creating a tour in Google Earth. A Google Earth tour consists of numerous locations that are placemarked each with information related to your topic area. These placemarkers are held within a folder for your tour. When your tour is complete you may save that folder as a Google Earth file that ends with the .kmz extension. These files may be posted on a website, emailed or shared with other electronically. When a friend or person who downloaded your tour opens it within Google Earth, they will be able to take part in your virtual tour seeing all your images, reading your information or watching your videos! The nice part is that the process is very easy and straight forward.