Robótica Educativa!

The OECD has recently published a report entitled "Students, Computers and Learning: Making the connection"(http://www.oecd.org/publications/students-computers-and-learning-9789264239555-en.htm). This report has caused quite a stir - both in popular media and in professional and academic circles. But what does it actually say? What are the conclusions we should draw from it? What are the consequences and implications we should expect?

Via Nik Peachey

Is your learning content text-heavy? How can you present this content in an effective and learner-friendly manner? What does it take to design an effective e-learning course without cluttering the screen with textual elements? Well, you need to focus on 5 critical aspects. Check out this info-graphic to find out what they are and why they are very important.

Via Edumorfosis

Southern Utah University is trying out a program that lets students complete all of their general-education credit requirements in one year.
The university is doing it by offering a kind of supercourse taught jointly by eight professors in different disciplines. The goal is to cover 13 courses’ worth of material in one year, in a class that is scheduled to meet three hours each day, five days a week.

A new theory that may explain why dark matter has evaded direct detection in Earth-based experiments has been developed by team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) particle physicists known as the Lattice Strong Dynamics Collaboration.

The group has combined theoretical and computational physics techniques and used the Laboratory’s massively parallel 2-petaflop Vulcan supercomputer to devise a new model of dark matter. The model identifies today’s dark matter as naturally “stealthy.” But in the extremely high-temperature plasma conditions that pervaded the early universe, it would have been easy to see dark matter via interactions with ordinary matter, the model shows.

A balancing act in the early universe

“These interactions in the early universe are important because ordinary and dark matter abundances today are strikingly similar in size, suggesting this occurred because of a balancing act performed between the two before the universe cooled,” said Pavlos Vranas of LLNL, one of the authors of a paper in an upcoming edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Dark matter makes up 83 percent of all matter in the universe and does not interact directly with electromagnetic or strong and weak nuclear forces. Light does not bounce off of it, and ordinary matter goes through it with only the feeblest of interactions. It is essentially invisible, yet its interactions with gravity produce striking effects on the movement of galaxies and galactic clusters, leaving little doubt of its existence.

The key to stealth dark matter’s split personality is its compositeness and the miracle of confinement. Like quarks in a neutron, at high temperatures these electrically charged constituents interact with nearly everything. But at lower temperatures, they bind together to form an electrically neutral composite particle. Unlike a neutron, which is bound by the ordinary strong interaction of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the stealthy neutron would have to be bound by a new and yet-unobserved strong interaction, a dark form of QCD.

Via Wildcat2030

The timeless skill of effective communication is the anchor, which will enable students to successfully find and share their voice with the world through the power of words. As we celebrate Digital Learning Month in February, we must embrace the power of digital media and the impact it has upon our daily lives. Are you utilizing the incredible power of social-media in your classroom?

In a world of instant communication, our students have the opportunity to engage and share with a global audience on a daily basis. Teaching students how to be effective collaborators, interact globally, and build powerful networks, is both the social and academic benefit to Twitter in education. As society and technology changes, so does literacy. Can social media positively impact 21st century literacy-learning? Utilizing Twitter in the classroom is more than assigning students a Twitter username, it’s developing and modeling the essential communication skill- writing effectively. If we want our students to blog, connect, and communicate, we must model this skill daily and ‘walk the walk.’

Twitter is the most popular platform for microblogging, which combines blogging, text messaging, and social networking. Social Media defines how we engage with each other. It’s no wonder that people deny it’s power and educators struggle with districts where social media is blocked. Many argue that social media is nothing but a high tech distraction. Educators needs to model and demonstrate social media as a tool for effective collaboration, communication, and empowerment.

Via Edumorfosis

The digital revolution has had a huge impact on the world of money. What does this mean for us?

Via Susan Myburgh

"On the whole, student evaluations are a notoriously poor gauge of "teaching effectiveness," and they reflect some of the ugliest parts of university culture ..."

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Via Leona Ungerer

This report analyses the incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education in Latin America, focusing mainly on what is commonly referred to as “e-learning”.

Via Nik Peachey, Carlos Rodrigues Cadre

In terms of digital transformation initiatives, there’s a lot of talk right now in terms of strategy and less emphasis on practical execution. Everyone wants to advise the CEO and the board, but these discussions often only take the conversation so far.

So how should an organization think beyond the strategy and get to transformative execution and outcomes? It’s important to develop an approach that can span this divide between strategy and execution so that once the transformation objectives have been selected, there’s a clear path to a unified architectural approach for IT and subsequent agile execution.

Via A.Busetti

Alors que les MOOCs, ces cours en ligne massifs, commencent à fleurir en France, il est possible aujourd'hui d'en savoir un peu plus sur ce qu'ils apportent et à qui. Dans leur "Regard franco-américain sur l'éducation", Sandrine et Maxime Crener font le point. Sur les bases d'une étude américaine, ils pointent leurs limites mais également leur apport en tant que "facilitateur d’acquisition de connaissances dans un marché du travail en constante mutation". Bref, de "véritables compagnons d'apprentissage". Voici leur texte.

Via fduport

Robots are poor at many activities that humans find simple. Now roboticists are making progress on a task that exemplifies them all: the automated assembly of an IKEA chair.Humans have long feared that robots are taking over the world. The truth, however, is more prosaic. It’s certainly the case that robots have revolutionized certain tasks such as car manufacturing, for example.But in many real world tasks, robots come a poor second to humans. They find it impossible to work in the messy, cluttered environment that humans cope with easily. They have difficulty locating and picking up small objects and they lack the fine control to assemble components.All these problems are exemplified in a single task—the assembly of an IKEA chair. This is an activity that many humans will have performed with varying degrees of success but one that robots simply cannot complete. At least not yet.

Via Philippe J DEWOST

HERE was a time a few years back when for one brief moment the
essence of leadership was crystal clear to me. Strangely, it was after leaving Visa and moving to a small, isolated ranch for a life of study and contemplation, raising a few cattle. I was attending to chores in the barn, comfortable and secure from the wind howling about the eaves and the roar of torrential rain on the tin roof. Through the din, I became aware of the faint, persistent bellowing of one of the cows.

Awareness gradually rose that the bellowing was unusual.
Flashlight in hand, I plunged into the storm and worked my way across the pasture in the direction of the sound. On the far side, in the circle of light from the flash, I could make out Eunice, the huge, one-horned mother cow. Sheltered in the corral to await the imminent birth of her calf, she had somehow gotten out and sought a private place to give birth -- unfortunately, on the brink of a steep bank fifteen feet above a flooded creek which raged through a ravine choked with poison oak and wild blackberry vines.

Via Edumorfosis