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From Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff in Wired:
Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures.
By Alan Mozes, in Bloomberg Businessweek
The vast majority of medical school students believe that technology in the form of virtual reality exercises could help them to develop the skills they will need as future doctors, a new survey reveals.
The survey of 200 medical students from the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found nearly all (98 percent) believing the technology to be a definite aid to higher learning.
“Due in large part to their high degree of technological literacy, today’s medical students are a radically different audience than the students of 15 to 20 years ago,” study co-author Dr. Frederick W. Kron, a former assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin and current president of Medical Cyberworlds, Inc., said in a University of Michigan news release.
By Dianne de Guzman, in San Francisco Chronicle
School is starting in late August and already a few universities are touting their decision to make the iPad a part of the classroom, as an important tool in teaching.
Institutions such as George Fox University and Seton Hill University will give students an iPad to use this fall semester, according to Wired, in a bid to test the device at the university level — all in the name of cutting-edge technology.
By Meris Stansbury, from eSchool News
Two researchers at Duke University have published a draft study that raises questions about the academic value of giving students home computers and broadband internet access. Their study has led to a flurry of media coverage, with some reports trumpeting the study’s findings as evidence that efforts to close the digital divide are counterproductive. But is that what their research really says?
By Margo Rutledge Kissell, in Dayton Daily News
More than 29,000 K-12 students attend school online in Ohio, about five times more than did seven years ago.
They log into their computers from home without ever stepping into a classroom.
Some are in kindergarten.
Doug and Linda Sellers of Beavercreek took the virtual leap from the traditional bricks-and-mortar public schools when they enrolled their four children in an e-school three years ago. The couple said it was a difficult decision and a tough sell to relatives, many of whom are teachers.
By Michael Dorney, in The Miami Herald
Miami-Dade Public Schools is tightening its embrace with the 21st century by unveiling the newest addition to its magnet school fleet — the iPrep Academy.
Set to open this fall, iPrep Academy is in the district’s administration building at 1500 Biscayne Blvd. “in the heart of Miami’s business, cultural and economic landscape,” according to the school’s website.
“Geographically, it is near businesses and government organizations,” said Albert Pimienta, an administrator with the district’s Instructional Technology Department, which has been working on plans for the school. “But part of the curriculum is also an internship with a local business or government branch. Part of the students’ typical school day will be internship.”
Caroline Haythornthwaite (PhD, Toronto, 1996) is newly appointed Director, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia. She joins UBC in August, 2010 after 14 years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. In 2009-10, she was Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London presenting and writing on ‘Learning Networks’, and in summer 2009 she was a visiting researcher at the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has an international reputation in research on information and knowledge sharing through social networks, and the impact of computer media and the Internet on work, learning and social interaction. Her studies have examined social networks of work and media use, the development and nature of community online, distributed knowledge processes, the nature and constraints of interdisciplinary collaboration, and the transformative effects of the Internet and web 2.0 technologies on learning and collaborative practices. Recent work has concentrated on addressing e-learning as a socio-technical implementation for education, and also as a general, emerging practice of online, informal learning. Major publications include ‘The Internet in Everyday Life’ (2002, with Barry Wellman); ‘Learning, Culture and Community in Online Education’ (2004, with Michelle M. Kazmer), ‘The Handbook of E-learning Research’ (2007, with Richard Andrews), and ‘E-learning Research and Practice’ (2011, with Richard Andrews).
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From eSchool News
For many educators who are veterans of past education technology conferences, the name Alan November should be familiar. A senior partner of November Learning, a consulting firm that helps school systems redesign teaching and learning for the digital age, November has spoken at numerous ed-tech shows. But readers might not know that he became an educator “by accident,” as he says.
Trained as a city planner, November’s first client after college was a reform school for boys on an island in Boston Harbor that had burned to the ground. He was asked if he’d like to teach algebra and oceanography when one of the teachers quit, and that was when he discovered that he loved teaching—and also that the current education system didn’t meet the needs of every student.