Group items tagged

All told, 39,457 students and teachers will get Apple's iPad tablet with an annual cost of $266 per unit, including networking, and 24,128 will get Apple's MacBook Air with a cost of $319. Only 5,474 will use the HP ProBook 4440 laptop, equipped with Windows 7, which was the least-costly option for a laptop at $286.

"Today it was about a LOOC. Yes that is right, instead of a Massive Open Online Course it is a Little Open Online Course. The University of Maine is experimenting with opening up some courses for free to between 2 and 7 students. These students will be treated as any other student in the class with the same expectations and opportunities to complete assignments and exams if they wish. However, they will not receive credit for their work. They can decide to become a paying student before the normal add/drop period ends."

The proficiency-based approach university officials described shares much in common with competency-based programs offered by institutions like Western Governors University, Southern New Hampshire's College for America and the new "Flexible Option" from the University of Wisconsin System.

"The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) gives parents control over what information websites can collect from their kids. If you run a website designed for kids or have a website geared to a general audience but collect information from someone you know is under 13, you must comply with COPPA's two main requirements."

"Here's my main insight from the iPad Summit that I helped host over the last two days: If you are teaching and creating learning experiences with iPads, we really need you to share your practice online. "

"the staff needed to educate them­selves on how per­son­al de­vices could be used as a learn­ing tool. New Mil­ford's teach­ing staff set out to teach students about three main focal points when it came to al­low­ing per­son­al de­vices in their classrooms. They star­ted with de­monstrat­ing di­git­al re­spon­sibil­ity, di­git­al citizenship and creat­ing positive di­git­al footprints. These points would es­tablish a learn­ing en­viron­ment that would in­form students about what was ex­pec­ted of them, as well as set a foun­da­tion for years to come when they enter the work force."

"With this poorly articulated rationale in mind, I present first, some pros and cons to citing blogs within formal academic writing. Next, I put forth three main sub-questions that I think will help us-and by "us" I mean myself and the readers who grapple with the ethical and professional questions of rigor in standards of academic sourcing-organize our thoughts. "

"BrandYourself recently conducted a national study with Harris Interactive that looked into the Googling habits of over 2,500 online US adults. It was surprising to see how much a persons Google results influence everything from who we vote for, do business with and even date. You can view it here and below we included a summary of the key findings and key takeaways from each of the main sections of the study."

"According to faculty at various universities, there are two main ways that social networking sites are causing new concerns and considerations for faculty and institutions: frictionless sharing and context collapse."

"The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism. Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissists are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots."

"As you'll soon see, I wanted to write to you today to discuss three of the main concerns I've heard you mention about technology in schools."

"Overall, 117 of 485 (24.1%) of respondents used social media daily or many times daily to scan or explore medical information, whereas 69 of 485 (14.2%) contributed new information via social media on a daily basis. On a weekly basis or more, 296 of 485 (61.0%) scanned and 223 of 485 (46.0%) contributed. In terms of attitudes toward the use of social media, 279 of 485 respondents (57.5%) perceived social media to be beneficial, engaging, and a good way to get current, high-quality information. In terms of usefulness, 281 of 485 (57.9%) of respondents stated that social media enabled them to care for patients more effectively, and 291 of 485 (60.0%) stated it improved the quality of patient care they delivered. The main factors influencing a physician's usage of social media to share medical knowledge with other physicians were perceived ease of use and usefulness. Respondents who had positive attitudes toward the use of social media were more likely to use social media and to share medical information with other physicians through social media. Neither age nor gender had a significant impact on adoption or usage of social media."

"In my remarks today I'll try to discuss some of the reasons why engagement using digital texts and tools in our classrooms is difficult. One of the main impediments to this work is the fact that the Common Core State Standards make little room for integration of new literacies. My talk will focus on the nature of information on the Internet and its implications for how teachers think about reading comprehension, critical thinking, and learning in a digital information age. In short, we need to embrace all literacies. We will explore how the Internet poses new challenges for global learners that extend beyond traditional reading comprehension skills in order to encompass these new literacies as well as the higher level thinking skills associated with them."

I met the book's author, Seymour Papert, last week when I was in Maine and had the opportunity to thank him for the most important (or at least, my most favorite) ed-tech book, for Logo, and for all his work. It's been profoundly influential on my own.

The professional connections site LinkedIn is launching a new section of its social network Monday: University Pages targets younger users who want to connect with colleges. More than 200 schools now have profile pages, according to LinkedIn. As part of the new effort, the company also dropped its minimum age to 14 in the U.S. The new college profiles allow prospective students to see how many of a school's graduates are on LinkedIn, as well as a breakdown of the main fields in which they work. The pages also list the top employers of alumni.

The video demo is genuinely jaw-dropping stuff. It takes us through a series of photographs, showing how with just a few clicks of the mouse, 3-Sweep can turn the objects inside them into resizable, turnaroundable 3-D models. The first two clicks establish the object's profile; the third traces its main axis, with the software snapping intelligently to the object along the way, like a more sophisticated version of Photoshop's magic lasso.

"Instructional designers, trainers and educators have long realized the true value of animated videos as one of the main techniques that should be used to increase the audience's engagement and retention during an eLearning course. Would you be interested in a list of the top animated video software in the eLearning market?"

"Here are a baker's dozen of the main principles of connected learning. As you will see, they form an "ecosystem," where each component influences and changes the others. These apply in any field (although differently in each field). These principles draw from constructivist, engaged "public educators" (Stuart Hall's term)  going back as far as Lev Vygotsky and John Dewey and including Howard Gardner, Franz Fanon, Jacques Rancière, and digital pedagogy theorists including Yochai Benkler, Howard Rhinegold,  Mizuko Ito, and many others.  "

"Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps," said Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland and the author of "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace." "It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way." Continue reading the main story Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app's privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm.

"Self-determined learning or heutagogy is fast gaining interest from educators around the world interested in an evidence-based approach to learning. Grounded as it is on brain research and extensive research into how people learn self-determined learning is particularly popular among those interested in innovative approaches to learning. This edited book is the perfect primer on self-determined learning or heutagogy. It consists of an introductory chapter explaining the main concepts and principles of this exciting approach to educational practice. This is followed by 16 chapters describing the experience of practitioners in using the approach. These experiences come from a wide variety of interests including school education, higher education, workplace learning, consulting, lifelong learning, training, and community education. Full of links to resources, curated sites,and discussion forums, this is a valuable 'how to' book for the interested practitioner and theoretician alike."