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"Duolingo for schools offers a window into the future of education technology. It shows us how interactive digital technologies can be used to create a more equitable educational landscape, not just in the U.S., but globally. It reminds us why we all bought into these networked technologies in the first place. Data-driven solutions don't have to be all about corporate growth, they can also be about creating innovative ways to improve humanity's lived experience in the world."

"The findings also show faculty members are creating new opportunities with technology. Through experimentation with online education, for example, faculty members say they are able to serve a more diverse set of students and think more critically about how to engage students with course content, and with free and open course materials, they say they are increasing access to education."

" five critical questions for teaching and learning for technology and media selection: Who are the learners? What are the desired learning outcomes from the teaching? What instructional strategies will be employed to facilitate the learning outcomes? What are the unique educational characteristics of each medium/technology, and how well do these match the learning and teaching requirements? What resources are available? "

"But that will not happen unless countries and states make very large investments in their teachers. Not, I might add, to teach them how to use technology.  That will get us nowhere. Their lack of knowledge about how to use technology has never been the problem. It is their lack of deep knowledge about the doors that the technology can open that is the problem."

Podcast by Derek Bruff and his Vanderbilt center team. A podcast on educational technology in higher education.

I/we need to consider this with our team and education more broadly. "Theory 1: Nothing we "know" about software development should be assumed to be true. Most of our tools, our mental models, and our practices are remnants of an era (possibly fictional) where software was written by solo practitioners, but modern software is a team sport. Theory 2: Technology is the product of the culture that builds it. Great technology is the product of a great culture. Culture gives us the ability to act in a loosely coupled way; it allows us to pursue a diversity of tactics. Uncertainty is the mind-killer and culture creates certainty in the face of the yawning shapeless void of possible solutions that is software engineering. Culture is what you do, not what you say. It starts at the top. It affects everything. You have a choice about the culture you promote, not about the culture you have. Theory 3: Software development should be thought of as a cycle of continual learning and improvement rather a progression from start to finish, or a search for correctness. If you aren't shipping, you aren't learning. If it slows down shipping, it probably isn't worth it. Maturity is knowing when to make the trade off and when not to. I had some experience with this at Flickr, and I wanted to see how far you could scale it. My private bet was that we'd make it to 50 engineers before things broke down. Theory 4: You build a culture of learning by optimizing globally not locally. Your improvement, over time, as a team, with shared tools, practices and beliefs is more important than individual pockets of brilliance. And more satisfying. Theory 5: If you want to build for the long term, the only guarantee is change. Invest in your people and your ability to ask questions, not your current answers. Your current answers are wrong, or they will be soon. "

Quoting Mr. Russell from the introduction to his book,

"These studies tell me that there is nothing inherent in the technologies that elicits improvements in learning. Having said that, let me reassure you that difference in outcomes can be made more positive by adapting the content to the technology. That is, in going through the process of redesigning a course to adapt the content to the technology, it can be improved."

This idea is reflected in the history of the No Significant Difference literature. Over the last 50 years, the question for media comparison studies (MCS) has evolved from, "Can students learn at a distance?" to "What is the effect of distance delivery on student outcomes?" Over the years, especially since the internet revolution, the conviction that distance delivery is necessarily inferior to face to face instruction has faded a bit. As we accept that it is not the technology itself, but the application of technology, that has the potential to affect learning, it is our hope that future research will strive to identify the instructional methods that best utilize technology attributes to improve student outcomes.

"This week, the Connected Learning Research Network, a research group that I chair, released a report (PDF) that outlines how connected learning environments are designed and how they can benefit youth in networked society, especially the underprivileged and vulnerable. The report calls for several core changes in education, including: * Close the gap between the no-frills learning that too often happens in-school and the interactive, hands-on learning that usually takes place out of school; * Take advantage of the Internet's ability to help youth develop knowledge, expertise, skills and important new literacies; * Use the benefits of digital technology and social networking to combat the increasing reality of the haves and have-nots in education. "

"Today, innovation is increasingly conflated with hype, disruption for disruption's sake, and outsourcing laced with a dose of austerity-driven downsizing. If any concept should be seen as an uncomplicated good thing in higher education, it's innovation. Defined by a common-sense notion of "doing things better" and burnished by the sheen of dazzling technological advances, what's not to like about innovation?"

"As long as students are willing to pay tuition in exchange for an automated education, there will be administrators willing to provide it."

"Digital Storytelling 106--better known as "ds106"--sprouted in 2010 as a computer science class on digital storytelling at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Founded by Jim Groom, educational technology consultant Alan Levine, and instructional technologists Martha Burtis & Tom Woodward, ds106 has evolved into a model for all instructors and students who aspire to experience, explore, and extend connected learning."

ds106 as gold standard for open...amazing...

The thumbnail came out too small to read on my computer. This is an excerpt from a white paper about technology in health profession education that speaks to the need for faculty development opportunities in the effective use of educational technologies. Thank you ALT lab and OLE for your work to meet this need!

"Many view Blackboard as the embodiment of everything wrong with education technology: it's old-fashioned, it's hard to use, and once a school system has bought into it, it's even harder to get rid of."

Maybe there's hope?????? "Which is why, since joining the company in 2012, Bhatt has vowed to refocus Blackboard's products to serve the students who use them and not just the IT administrators who buy them. Now he's ready to show the world just how he plans to do that. Later today, Bhatt will take the stage at the company's annual BbWorld Conference, where he will announce the launch of the company's redesigned core products and the introduction of new ones, all of which aim to make Blackboard a service that its 100 million existing users actually want to use."

The primary audience for this book is college faculty and graduate students interested in quality teaching in blended learning environments. The secondary audience is education technology professionals, instructional designers, teaching and learning developers, and instructional aides - all those involved in the design and development of the media and materials for blended learning.

"While technology is still at the core of the model, the kernel in the center of that core is games and "game-like" learning. In the process of finding its feet, Quest ditched the "school for digital kids" tagline and replaced it with "Challenging students to invent their future." A "challenge," in fact, is a key component of any game, one of many game terms that all Quest students master. Game-related activity - such as creating an overarching narrative for a unit of study, inventing a board or other "analog" game or performing a dramatic role-play exercise - is the container for all curricular content, from algebra and sex education to memoir writing and conflict resolution. "

"the WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) award to colleges, universities and organizations who are implementing exceptionally creative, technology-based solutions to contemporary challenges in higher education."

Excellent! Sharing with faculty colleagues.