Group items tagged

"There's a whole galaxy of terminology that you should know about when it comes to education technology. From PLNs to Blended Learning to Synchronous Online Learning… it can get overwhelming. Dubbed the EdTech Cheat Sheet, I think it's one of the most useful infographics out there today. You should consider printing this out and keeping it handy should you ever come across some crazy term that doesn't make sense to you."

"A quick search for "edtech communities" returns thousands of results. Here's a helpful list of some of the best communities for professors, administrators and IT workers. "

"As edtech expert, Tony Vincent, would say, "Date the tool, but marry the ability." There will always be multiple edtech tools, programs, and products that provide similar principle functions to support student engagement. However, to achieve engagement that exceeds the element of surprise or novelty, which is often necessary as an instructional "hooking" tool, it is imperative that we place the brunt of our instructional design efforts towards building thinking skills and cognitive growth within students."

"A curious disconnect has been emerging in my thinking, one that has been made clear with the hype-oriented buzzwords of today's ed tech companies. I no longer want to be affiliated with the tool-fetish of edtech. It's time to say adios to technosolutionism that recreates people as agents within a programmed infrastructure."

"Since the advent of e-learning and PLNs (personal learning networks), tech-savvy teachers have turned in their droves to the social networking site Twitter. But whilst the site provides a host of useful #edtech functions, from networking and making connections to sharing great new resources, some teachers are undeniably more successful at harnessing its power than others. Here are our top tips for how to be a great tweeting teacher…"

"The key to unlocking a brighter future for students lies within the understanding and application of learning science. As a data scientist and edtech developer, I believe our job is not about inventing the next shiny digital device; it's about improving education outcomes for students, and doing so demonstrably and empirically with research. And the starting point for that is looking at what we already know from the science of learning."

"I am convinced of two things: The education will be the most important growth business of the 21st century. That whatever comes next in education will emerge from India."

"I am posting a few tips to help you out this year that I found while reading posts from my Personal/Passionate Learning Network (PLN). I hope these tips help inspire you! And one of the best things I can recommend to help you successfully integrate technology, is to get connected. Begin to develop your on PLN by interacting with educators on Social Media."

"The overarching theme now of Learnist and Lore (aside from the first letter of the names) is that these sites are designed to function just like the most popular social networks in the world … except they were built just for teachers and students. To me, that says that it's a very exciting time in edtech as companies are able to finally leverage the resources and data from the Facebooks and Blackboards of the world … then turning this into a very useful new tool that can be completely tailored to the education audience."

"Two professors at the University of Texas at Austin have given birth to a new term, SMOC, which stands for "synchronous massive online class." How's it different? The Wall Street Journal describes it as "somewhere between a MOOC...a late night television show and a real-time research experiment," where "students, professors and teaching assistants [are required] to be online at the same time." Running what appears to be a live MOOC doesn't come cheap: the two professors admitted they needed 125 school employees to run the show. And that may be why they're hoping to charge non-UT students for their intro to psychology SMOC"

"So when we saw the very useful teachbytes graphic above making some noise on pinterest on several different popular #edtech websites, it reminded us of the constant demands changing technologies place on existing ways we do business. When and in what contexts it makes sense to cite social media content is probably a more relevant post than sharing a graphic that simply shows the format, but they're both nice to have, yes?"

While many children's home lives are abuzz with the same platforms and devices as the 21st century workplace, school just hasn't kept pace, and in many classrooms pedagogies are barely more inclusive of new technology than they were in the 1980s. We desperately need to improve on this record, which is why schools need to make hiring educational technology professionals -- whether specially trained classroom teachers or dedicated staffers -- a top priority.

This looks like a nice change from PP. Not static.