And the technology is not just laptops, we are entering a new phase with smartphones. Schools’ narrow e-teaching focus worries expert
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Computers may have opened up boundless opportunities for young people, but schools are squashing those opportunities, a world leading authority says. |
Californian Gary Stager, an expert in computers in schools for 27 years, has travelled the world spreading the message of what can be achieved if children get proper access to technology in schools. He is disturbed by the “narrow thinking” he has found from the adults in charge. |
Dr Stager said he was constantly amazed by what children achieved when given the technology. Asked to solve a problem, children often communicated over the internet with world-leading experts in the field. |
But computers in schools often did not work “because there are policies put in place that treat teachers and children like imbeciles or felons”. |
“It breaks my heart when I am in schools where kids have laptops and are staring at the screen doing nothing and playing some really mediocre game.” Read more at www.nzherald.co.nz |
Will we see e-readers by Apple and Google in the next year? What will this mean about the way we publish information. E-readers could push growth in e-textbook market, analysts say |
| With more e-readers hitting the U.S. market, analysts predict a big uptick in device sales in late 2010, with a strong surge in the popularity of electronic textbooks used in high schools and colleges in time for school in the fall of 2011. |
Weiner predicted that a number of major vendors, including Google Inc. and Apple Inc., could enter the market with devices and marketing plans that involve textbook publishers and, possibly, college bookstores. |
| While the cost of components inside e-readers is dropping, thus lowering the overall cost of an e-reader, Jakhanwal predicted that it could be three years before e-readers hit the magic $99 price point targeted by many consumer electronics manufacturers to attract a large audience. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
The cost of an e-reader and e-books may be cheaper than traditional textbooks. Okla. tech center eyes Kindles, iPhones for e-learning |
Students can avoid carrying 10-pound reference guides, browse course curricula |
Computerworld -
High school and college students could be big beneficiaries of mobile technology by using e-readers and smartphones to access electronic textbooks and other course materials. |
At Francis Tuttle Technology Center in Oklahoma City, pilot projects using iPhones and Kindle e-readers are in their early stages, as administrators weigh technical and financial considerations, said Chief Technology Officer Russ Hester. |
| He estimated that students might even save up to 50% on the cost of textbooks by buying them electronically. As an example, he said a complete set of textbooks for several courses in a single curriculum and a Kindle device, sold at perhaps half its retail price, might cost $1,600, compared with $2,000 for the traditional textbooks alone. Read more at www.computerworld.com |
The new guidelines’ author, privacy lawyer Kathryn Dalziel, said schools had been encouraged to use information technology but were given little clear advice about privacy. Privacy commissioner steps in over pupils’ privacy
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Fears that schools are breaching pupils’ privacy have sparked intervention from the privacy commissioner.
New guidelines issued yesterday include advice about the use of CCTV cameras, the recording of pupils’ personal enrolment details, posting pupils’ photographs on school websites and sharing information about pupils with third parties. |
Schools were increasingly responsible for a huge amount of information, Ms Shroff said. Keeping the information safe was critical to ensuring the trust of parents and pupils.
Though people often used examples of young people posting personal details on social networking sites to argue that they cared little about privacy, workshops run with teenagers showed the opposite, she said.
“Contrary to what some people are saying, we find that … they definitely express concern and they want to keep control over their information.” Read more at www.stuff.co.nz |
Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges |
Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges cannot survive.
The real force for change is the market: Online classes are just cheaper to produce. Community colleges and for-profit education entrepreneurs are already experimenting with dorm-free, commute-free options. Distance-learning technology will keep improving. Innovators have yet to tap the potential of the aggregator to change the way students earn a degree, making the education business today look like the news biz circa 1999. |
Another example of students innovatively using consumer technology to great effect. US students take stunning images of Earth from space on a shoestring |
MIT student Oliver Yeh spends less than $150 on a camera, a phone, a coolbox and a weather balloon to take photographs |
An American science student has captured images of the curvature of the Earth after sending a balloon into space on a shoestring budget. |
Oliver Yeh spent less than $150 (£93) on a secondhand camera, a GPS-enabled mobile phone, a weather balloon and a polystyrene coolbox which he launched from a field in Massachusetts as part of a science project. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk |
Is consumer technology reaching the point where it is cheaper to issue electronic reading devices rather than books? | Universities Pilot Amazon.com’s Kindle DX in the Classroom |
| To save paper and test electronic reading devices in the educational setting, seven universities are testing Amazon.com’s Kindle DX this fall. |
“I think part of the strategic vision for IT at the university is to try to move students’ educational experience closer to the way they live, which is increasingly digital,” Barlow said. “Certainly there are sustainability aspects to this that are important also. We’re very interested in seeing how electronic textbooks will play out in this pilot.” |
She said the university didn’t experience any barriers to implementing the technology and the students have been very excited about using the Kindle DXs. Read more at www.govtech.com |
Companies using online learning frequently report savings of between 30 and 60 per cent. Online learning is taking off, but it is still not clear if it can compete with a classroom full of peers and the immediacy of face-to-face learning. |
While conventional face-to-face learning is growing, online education is doing even better. Various factors are increasing demand for online learning services. It is cheaper than face-to-face learning for a start. Companies using online learning frequently report savings of between 30 and 60 per cent. It is also more convenient. Students have the ability to dip in and out when it suits them, which makes it particularly attractive to time-starved professionals. Further, geographical location is irrelevant, making courses that were once limited to a metropolitan or regional audience available to a broader set of consumers. Read more at cio.co.nz |
Mobile Cell Phones: Key To Learning Of The Future? |
Today’s learners — of all age groups — use their mobiles in nearly all their daily activities. Mobile media enable learners to access information and learning support whenever they need. “The students of the future will demand the learning support that is appropriate for their situation or context. Nothing more. Nothing less. And they want it at the moment the need arises. Not sooner. Not later. Mobiles will be a key technology to provide that learning support,” says Dr. Specht, who is professor for Advanced Learning Technologies of the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies (CELSTEC) at the Open Universiteit Nederland. Read more at www.sciencedaily.com |
The UK have produced a graphic video of the dangers of texting. What audiences should they be shown too?
News networks have been buzzing about this graphic public service announcement — currently being shown in the UK — about the dangers of texting while driving. Aimed at teen drivers, this disturbing and graphic video shows what happens when a young girl loses her focus behind the wheel while text messaging a friend and a multi-car crash ensues. |
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Schools’ narrow e-teaching focus worries expert
