Archive for the 'News' Category

Page 2 of 12

How Higher Education Uses Social Media

Published on February 20, 2012 in News. 0 Comments

Schools are on a short list of organizations that have been notoriously slow to adopt emerging tech. But within the last few years, as social media becomes more integral to students’ lives, educational institutions are finally catching on, and catching up.

When it comes to higher ed, there are not only opportunities for digital learning, but digital marketing too. Some schools have taken the reigns on both sides, with mixed results.

The infographic below takes a look at how schools have fared with social media over the last few years — what platforms are best, where they’ve succeeded, and the challenges that lay ahead. Full Graphic.

Tablet History: 14 Devices That Laid the Groundwork for the iPad

Published on February 16, 2012 in News. 0 Comments

Rob Lammie, Mashable.com

Telautograph (1888)

Using a special pen connected to wires that tracked the pen’s position on paper, the telautograph sent handwritten messages via telegraph. (Image courtesy of jmcvey.net.)

RAND Tablet (1964)

The 10 by 10-inch RAND Tablet let computer users choose menu options, draw diagrams and even write software using only a digital stylus. (Image courtesy of Flickr, Marshall Astor.)

More…

Mooresville’s Shining Example (It’s Not Just About the Laptops)

Published on February 13, 2012 in News. 0 Comments

From Alan Schwarz in the New York Times series “Grading the Digital School”:

Sixty educators from across the nation roamed the halls and ringed the rooms of East Mooresville Intermediate School, searching for the secret formula. They found it in Erin Holsinger’s fifth-grade math class.

There, a boy peering into his school-issued MacBook blitzed through fractions by himself, determined to reach sixth-grade work by winter. Three desks away, a girl was struggling with basic multiplication — only 29 percent right, her screen said — and Ms. Holsinger knelt beside her to assist. Curiosity was fed and embarrassment avoided, as teacher connected with student through emotion far more than Wi-Fi.

“This is not about the technology,” Mark Edwards, superintendent of Mooresville Graded School District, would tell the visitors later over lunch. “It’s not about the box. It’s about changing the culture of instruction — preparing students for their future, not our past.”

Ubiquitous learning has never been about devices but about what can be achieved with their use. This article re-emphasizes the point. Digital tools do not teach children; teachers teach with the tools by creating conditions that facilitate children’s learning. Network-connected laptops in schools allow new learning conditions. Thoughtful, energetic, and perseverant school systems take advantage of the possibilities. All benefit.

For the article…

Digital Textbooks Go Straight From Scientists to Students

Published on February 8, 2012 in News. 0 Comments

Dave Mosher, Wired.com

A year ago, electronic textbook publishers turned down David Johnston’s big idea: the first interactive marine science textbook.

Johnston, who runs a marine biology lab at Duke University, wanted the digital tome to show undergraduate students what his scientific field has to offer. But e-book publishers said the subject matter was too niche and the requested features too expensive to make financial sense.

“When we approached them, they essentially told us we were too small,” Johnston said. Frustrated by the experience, Johnston set out to create open source software to publish the book himself.

“We are not going after the biology 101 iPad textbook. We are not trying to build the digital textbook for chemistry,” Johnston said. “We’ve created a simple tool for specialized subjects where there isn’t a textbook, and knowledge advances quickly. Being an open source effort gives academics the flexibility they need.” More…

Image courtesy of Wired.com

Technology Is at Least 3 Years Away From Improving Student Success

Published on January 31, 2012 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Josh Fischman, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Las Vegas—At the very start of the Higher Ed Tech Summit here this week, James Applegate threw out a challenge. Mr. Applegate, vice president for program development at the Lumina Foundation, told an overflow crowd that the United States needed 60 percent of its adults to hold high-quality degrees and credentials by the year 2025.

During the rest of the day, technology executives described programs that could improve graduation rates and learning, but won’t be able to do so for several years. They collect many points of data on what professors and students do, but can’t yet say what results in better grades and graduation rates. “We’re beginning to get lots of data on things like time of task, but we don’t have the outcomes yet to say what leads to a true learning moment. I think we are three to five years away from being about to do that,” said Troy Williams, vice president and general manager of Macmillan New Ventures, which makes the classroom polling system called I-clicker. “These are really early days,” agreed Matthew Pittinsky, who runs a digital transcript company called Parchment and was one of the founders of Blackboard.

There’s lots of technology out there that’s outcome-related. For instance, at the meeting, which is part of the international Consumer Electronics Show, the interactive textbook publisher Kno announced a suite of new features. One of them, a performance gauge callled Kno Me, gives students information about how much time they spend on different sections of a book, the results of quizzes, and the kinds of notes they took. “With thousands of students using these books, we can show them which of these variables are related to students—anonymous, of course—who get A’s, or B’s, or C’s, so students learn what kind of activity leads to the best results,” said Osman Rashid, the company’s chief executive. More…

Image via Chronicle.com

5 Predictions for Higher Ed Technology in 2012

Published on January 18, 2012 in News. 0 Comments

Audrey Watters, Inside Higher Ed

MIT's Simmons Hall

The flurry of late 2011 news has certainly made making predictions about technology and higher education fun.

The announcement about MITx — MIT’s plans to offer certification (“for a modest fee”) for open courseware — was the year’s final shot across the bow of higher education. Beware, it seemed to indicate: things are changing. No doubt, 2011 was a year of shrinking government funding for education, rising student debt, rising unemployment among college grads (gasp! people questioned the value of a college diploma!) and growing private sector investment in education companies. 2012 will likely bring more of the same.

As such it’s both easy and difficult to make predictions. “There will be more integration of technology into the classroom” is an easy one. “This will be fraught with privacy and security and pedagogical concerns” is another. But in many ways, we’ve had these same sorts of conversations about education technology for years now. Will things be different in 2012? If so, why? (If not, why not?)

I do think we’re at a point where we could see great change in education — at universities as well as at the K-12 level. Those are driven by technology, true, but also myriad other economic factors. The predictions I have to make about higher education for 2012 occur at that intersection: new technologies, new economies, new business models … and the fallout therewith. More…

Image via Forbes.com

Archive for the 'News' Category

Page 2 of 12

Telautograph (1888)

RAND Tablet (1964)

Better Study Habits and Performance With Tablets