Educational Technology News

Here's an interesting perspective to take on technology in the classroom. A new report sheds some light on the people actually buying all that BYOD.

Why do eLearning programs crash and burn? Here are some specific mistakes to avoid and prepare for when planning for your next program.

"As anyone who has read TUAW over the past few weeks can tell there's no shortage of IPad keyboards on the market these days. All of them tend to use Bluetooth to connect to the iPad, which is fine -- except when you're a school teacher or IT person who needs to figure out which keyboard is paired with a particular iPad."

"According to the latest trend, schools are adopting BYOT policies and allowing students to bring in smartphones, iPod Touches, tablet computers and laptops to school. While there are many mobile and Web-integrated technologies that can support this kind of initiative, the real issue lies in the socioeconomic status of the students. This simple act of bringing your own technology to school may also widen the achievement gap, and more importantly impose a new type of technology segregation. There is much more at stake with a BYOT policy than meets the eye."

"In a PBL classroom, teachers present problems that students must solve together in groups. Rather than reciting facts and hoping some of them stick, teachers give students the resources they need to research concepts and apply them in a practical form. Mistakes are allowed and even expected in the course of meaningful learning. The result: Students become active rather than passive learners and build important workplace skills... Here are four essential elements of a successful PBL classroom."

"Want to make video games? Awesome! First, just learn to code and then get ready for a lot of hard work. Or maybe not. Pixel Press wants to let anyone of any age create their own video game levels with just a pencil, graph paper, and an iPad or iPhone... 'Pixel Press' is a game where players create their own levels using pencil and graph paper, without knowing how to code."

"...in a political environment hostile to taxes, many public universities are desperately short of the funding needed to sustain their goals of providing equitable access to all who are qualified as well as to continue to lead the world with the best opportunities for advanced education.  Like private universities, public institutions have little alternative other than raising fees, which increases the cynicism of conservative politicians towards higher education and puts a degree out of reach of ever more young Americans."

The Center for Digital Education is on a quest again to find the top technology innovators that are transforming education for our 3rd-annual YEARBOOK...

Too often these unique individuals must toil long hours and combat skepticism at every turn to see their ideas reach fruition. Once implemented, their efforts become best practices for others to model and follow. The 2013 YEARBOOK is about getting these thought leaders the recognition they deserve by celebrating their efforts and impact.

We want to hear from you! Who are the digital education pioneers? Who is driving change that is impacting educational outcomes where you live?

"The flipped classroom model generated a lot of excitement initially, but more recently some educators — even those who were initial advocates — have expressed disillusionment with the idea of assigning students to watch instructional videos at home and work on problem solving and practice in class. Biggest criticisms: watching videos of lectures wasn’t all that revolutionary, that it perpetuated bad teaching and raised questions about equal access to digital technology."

"According to a new study, we really don't have to worry too much about the nearly 1 in 4 children without access to FarmVille at home."

 

“Our results indicate that computer ownership alone is unlikely to have much of an impact on short-term schooling outcomes for low-income children,” report Robert W. Fairlie and Jonathan Robinson in a new study of a large-scale randomized computer give-away experiment in California."

"While I am not a huge fan of MOOCs (See, MOOCs – The Opium of the Masses, I think that there is one area in which they might actually be extremely useful – ongoing teacher professional development (PD). They are a good fit to help meet a very specific need, which they could do quite well given teachers’ experience with education."

"'It’s Mooc or die', a university vice-chancellor has said, claiming that institutions must embrace the massive open online course movement and adapt their teaching methods or face a tough future."

What happens when you turn your back in a 21st century classroom? BYOT, indeed.

As online technologies have exploded into mainstream education and corporate training, the need for professionals who are highly qualified in designing, developing, implementing, and assessing instruction has increased. However, the roles and responsibilities of educational technologists have become as varied as the employers who hire them and the tools they use. In order to shed some light on the matter, 161 EdTech professionals were surveyed in order to define the role(s) they play in K-12, higher education, corporate, and government work environments.

"Technology affects  the lesson planning and professional development of teachers. Respondents to the Pew survey were described as tech-savvy overall, but they still had to put in extra work to master technological tools.

Refer to the infographic below to take a tour of the classrooms of Ms. Digital and Mr. Tech, and explore how EduTech is used in education, how successful it is, and how it affects students and educators."

"Online higher education is increasingly hailed as a chance for educators in the developed world to expand access and quality across the globe. Yet it may not be quite so easy. Not only does much of the world not have broadband or speak English, but American-made educational material may be unfit for and unwanted in developing countries, according to academics who have worked for years on online distance education and with open educational resources, or OER."

Online learning environments present an opportunity to better serve autistic students that teachers can learn to use effectively.

"Mobile computing is the wave of the future. While the high school economics book still has a chapter on 'balancing the checkbook,' I do my banking between grocery lines with mobile banking apps, rarely even seeing a check. I shop on Amazon, I send gifts remotely, and Google share important business and school materials for collaboration. Then I Skype or do a Google Hangout for remote collaboration. Why, then must students use paper agendas, put their phones away, and use a pencil and paper?  Students can do so much with an iPhone (or an Android, or even a BlackBerry). It can truly help them work smarter, not harder. How?"

 

"Online Teacher of the Year Renee Citlau offers advice for taking K–12 learning virtual. Itching to launch an online course at your school? Here are five steps the nation’s best online teacher says every program should take."

"Is innovation, I wondered, just a euphemism for anxiety? In one small-group conversation I sat in on recently, for example, a colleague observed that when she arrived at her new institution, a meeting was called summoning all those individuals on campus who, like her, possessed the word innovation in their job titles – 90 people attended the meeting, she said. That’s a lot of innovation. Or is it something else?"