Welcome to the Educational Technology News site. I have been involved in technology and distance education for over 28 years. Research interests include best practices in elearning. I am currently researching effectiveness of social media for enhancing social presence and teacher immediacy in elearning environments. 
"The big trend these days is online learning, online collaboration, and, well, online everything. In fact, self-learning has become an incredibly powerful force thanks to online technology. Udemy has just publsihed a fabulous infographic that considers self-learning the new master’s degree." 
"When is a test not a test? Apparently when you don’t realize that it is a test... Thinking about a future of education that does not include testing should bring a smile to everyone’s face who reads this tweet. There really isn’t much good about tests, test taking, or the pressure and stress that can surround a testing event. Here is a quick look at the good and bad of testing and what evaluation of students might look like in a world freed from the shackles of it." 
"Have you ever dreamed of experiencing a watershed moment in your field? Moments like the splitting of the atom or the landing of a man on the moon? If you’re an educational leader, buckle up, because your moment is here. Schools are still experiencing the shockwaves of the Internet, a transformative global network that is radically changing how we think about learning and schooling. Moments like these are exhilarating, because our decisions matter so much. They are also terrifying, because we’re under enormous pressure—first, to find the right path; second, to move people in that direction." 
"While looking at maps may belong to an old-fashioned approach to geography, digital mapping, the collection of all kinds of data from space or the ground, has changed the game. Geo-technologist Joseph Berry works on the cutting edge of those changes." 
"The semester is over. Grades are submitted. Summer approaches. And student evaluations are complete and ready to review. Student evaluations, as most professors know, are an imperfect arbiter of teaching excellence. Nonetheless, student evaluations can point to aspects of classes that need development and improvement, especially when many students point to the same issues in their evaluations." 
"Even if you only have a passing interest in technology and philanthropy, you'll probably have heard of Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child initiative... Now Negroponte is taking his vision to the next level, whereby children can learn to read without the need for a teacher or a traditional classroom structure... The tablets are equipped with solar panels, so that they can, essentially, power themselves in an environment completely devoid of electricity. The tablets are pre-installed with an array of educational applications and learning tools, designed to appeal to the naturally inquisitive nature of children." 
"A computer gamer who struggles through a series of challenges to advance to the next level is demonstrating some of the characteristics that employers are seeking, particularly in technology-related fields where jobs are going unfilled, a White House official told about 250 education, government, and nonprofit representatives here on Tuesday." 
"Mobile devices, tablets and apps could become mainstream with education in a year or less, according to the '2012 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition.' While the report from the New Media Consortium won't be released until June, the Consortium for School Networking hosted a webinar on Tuesday, May 15, to preview the results. The 46 members of the Horizon K-12 Advisory Board narrowed a long list of emerging technologies down to six that the New Media Consortium..." 
"Imagine it's the year 2032. You are a high school student. You are at a center where a visual scanner confirms your identity so you can enter a room where you are about to receive a brain scan. A robot attendant with a soothing voice recommends that you should relax and that you are welcome to take a nap. As you lie down in the scanner and earphones playing your favorite music block out ambient noise, you find yourself drifting off to sleep." 
"People in their 30s now are born before the technological revolution and have in a way or other learned how to use technology in their life and work. This category of people are called digital immigrants. If you are one of them then take a moment and think back to your university or college days when litttle or no technology was available. Think about how you used to do researches and how hard it was to find the references needed to finsih your memoir or whatever that you were working on... Here is an awesome infographic on how technology is changing college life." 
"Teaching isn’t known to be a lucrative profession, but online marketplace Teachers Pay Teachers is changing that for some educators. Deanna Jump, a kindergarten teacher from Georgia, has made $700,000 selling her lesson plans on Teachers Pay Teachers, an ecommerce startup where teachers offer their lesson plans to fellow educators." 
"Nobody likes seeing a 404 page, it’s like hitting a brick wall. With hundreds of thousands of pages on wayne.edu, it’s bound to happen and our goal is to make it as unlikely as possible. I was recently inspired by Renny Gleeson’s TED talk, '404, the story of a page not found'. It made me dive deeper in to our 404 experience." |
"As blended learning continues to expand across the K-12 sector, definitions are important to help people talk about the new phenomena. This white paper refines our previous work in helping to create a shared language for the emerging field so that innovators can build upon each other’s ideas, rather than talk past each other." 
Chelsea Clinton and James P. Steyer say the explosion in online access for children and teenagers has created privacy concerns and cognitive development issues. 
"Welcome to the world of hybrid education where you can sit on your couch in your pajamas and attend a class lecture at the same time, or make a comment about the lecture to your classmates without having to utter a word. Or perhaps you have class three days a week, but only have to travel to campus one of those days." 
"By the end of 2012, paid mobile apps are projected to be an $8 billion a year market. To put that in perspective, that’s how much money the entire National Football League brought in in 2010. So if you can’t throw a 70-yard pass or tackle a 250-pound running back, it might be wise to explore a career in app design. Many enterprising and creative students have already begun making waves in this still-new industry. Here are 25 of the best products they’ve come up with." 
"Tablets have come a long way since Apple launched its pioneering Newton MessagePad in 1993, the first Internet-connected flat-screen device pairing a stylus with handwriting-recognition software. Since then, computer hardware companies have been refining and experimenting with the concept of Internet-connected tablet computing devices. The personal digital assistant (PDA), convertible laptop/tablets, dual-screen booklet tablets, e-book readers and other designs have been among the many iterations of tablet computers, sometimes known as slates or media tablets." 
"For Collier County (Fla.) Public Schools, an urban district of 51 schools equipped with document cameras, interactive whiteboards, projectors and fiber-optic Internet connections in all classrooms, adopting digital textbooks made perfect sense. After using Discovery Education products for the last decade, CCPS chose the company’s new series of digital textbooks, dubbed Techbook, for all elementary and middle school science classes... Techbook has the ability to build formative assessments quickly, administer them, and use the data to inform kids about what they need to do to master a concept, which is one reason CCPS chose this digital textbook." 
"Larry Walther believes textbooks of the future won't break students' backs or their budgets. Walther, a Utah State University professor and chairman of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business' School of Accountancy, offers his accounting 'textbooks' free on his website to his students. And now, many of his texts also are available to students worldwide, through a London-based company, Bookboon, that offers free downloads that are paid for by the inclusion of advertisements every few pages." 
"Students learn just as much in a course that’s taught partly online as they would in a traditional classroom, but such courses won’t reach their potential until they are both easier for faculty members to customize and more fun for students, according to a report released today." 
"Instructor presence in the online environment can be elusive as a shadow – it’s one dimensional, monochromatic and takes on various forms depending upon the point of view. Yet, instructor presence in online learning communities is vital to ‘complete learning’.... In the virtual environment the instructor needs to be ‘real’, 3-dimensional, have a personality, be the subject matter expert and as if this isn’t enough, help the student achieve the learning goals in this virtual space." 
"When it comes to using technology in school, the tension between what students and parents want and what schools allow is becoming more apparent — and more divisive. Students want more control over how they use technology in school, but many classrooms are still making it difficult. That’s according to the most recent Speak Up 2011 report, 'Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey,' which reflects the views of more than 416,000 K-12 students, parents, and educators nationwide surveyed on how technology can enhance the learning environment." 
"Schools are demanding the right to search smartphones and laptops in a bid to catch cyberbullying. What are the implications? Principals in New Zealand are lobbying for a change in legislation that would allow schools to search mobile devices when students are on school property for evidence of cyberbullying. The report indicates that as a way to change how schools deal with the ongoing issue of cyberbullying, principals want to shift from restorative justice to the suspension of bullies — with evidence gleaned from being able to legally access student’s mobile devices." 
"'The future is here,' William Gibson once quipped. 'It’s just not evenly distributed.' Gibson, the sci-fi writer who coined the term 'cyberspace' back in 1982, could easily have been describing the state of technology in today’s K–12 classrooms. Sure, there are lots of stories about schools adopting the very latest digital devices, such as Maine’s Auburn School District giving iPads to each of its more than 250 kindergarteners or Burlington High, outside of Boston, ditching traditional textbooks and equipping every kid with the Apple tablets. But stories like these don’t represent what’s happening in most of our nation’s schools. In fact, the distribution of technology in our classrooms remains radically uneven. It differs by school and grade level. It differs by region. It differs in the make, model, and operating system of various computers. It differs in usage." 
"What is 'ed-tech'? What do we mean when we talk – or at least, what do I mean when I talk – about education technology? I’ve been stewing about this a lot this week, in part thanks to a tweet by Bud Hunt: 'Ed-tech isn’t a thing,' he says. It’s merely shorthand for something else." |
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Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy getting scoop.it! I have been working in the IT field since graduating from your class, but am now back in the classroom to stay up to date on the teacher end. Your publication helps me immensely! Thanks again~ P. Grieve UTB, M,Ed.05`