Articles in the Educational Technology category

The week in blogs

Many years ago, when I was a college senior in Southern California, I took a child development class connected with a wonderful campus preschool that was all the things you would expect a ‘70s-era preschool to be – discovery oriented, child centered, creative, and fun.  It guess you could call it “open classroom” as well,  seeing as the kids had the run of a multi-room former home; of course it helped, in terms of classroom control, that – in addition to having a wonderful director – there was a ratio of roughly one college student helper for every two children.

Flip ahead two years, and I was one of the teachers in a Head Start program for minority students in Boston’s South End. This was also “open classroom,” but by necessity: There was some structural problem in one classroom that forced us to combined two classrooms of 20-some students each into a mega-class of four teachers and more than 40-something children.

Yes, it was bedlam. There were just too many students – and too much noise – for much real learning to occur.

I thought about those two schools this week after reading about an experimental elementary school in Brooklyn founded by a former principal and Harvard graduate student who was trying to replicate the small discussion groups at Phillips Exeter Academy. This is analogous to my California school. But, according to a New York Times story on the project and Joanne Jacobs’ subsequent blog, instead of organizing several small groups (which may not have been possible) the founder put 60 first graders in a class with four teachers, and the results were …. yes, as the Times strongly implies, bedlam. The same thing I experienced in Boston.
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Lawrence Hardy|January 15th, 2011|Categories: Assessment, Curriculum, Diversity, Educational Research, Educational Technology, Governance, Leading Source, Policy Formation, School Buildings, School Climate, Student Achievement, Teachers, Urban Schools|

New tablets unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show, going on this week, is filled with tablet devices to compete with Apple’s iPad.

The Los Angeles Times noted in their reporting of the show, “It’s raining tablets. Hoping to nip away at Apple Inc.’s iPad and the $20-billion market it now controls, dozens of manufacturers are unveiling more than 80 touch screen computers.”
So what does this mean for the education world?  

More companies will be developing educational software and apps for tablets as this market expands. Additionally, an increse in competition in the tablet market will help reduce the cost of these devices, making tablets more affordable for schools to purchase.

Alexis Rice|January 7th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Technology|

Take the challenge

BoardBuzz recommends you check out Challenge.gov, a U.S. Government website that empowers the public to bring their best ideas to address our nation’s most pressing challenges. The site has a section devoted to education challenges and some of these challenges have prize money involved!

Alexis Rice|December 29th, 2010|Categories: Announcements, Boardbuzz, Educational Technology, Federal Programs, Student Achievement, Teachers|

Google promotes education apps

BoardBuzz has witnessed the growth in educational software. In 2009, U.S. schools and colleges spent an estimated $4.6 billion on educational software.

Bloomberg is reporting that Google is working with educational software companies to create a marketplace for online learning programs.

Already educational games and instructional tools are being offered in the Google Apps Marketplace, Google’s online store that launched in March. Google is now hoping to expand this by creating a marketplace just for education and getting more educational software developers involved.

“If we can provide access to education apps to our 10 million users in thousands of schools, then that would be a win all around,” said Obadiah Greenberg, Google’s business development manager for education, in an interview with Bloomberg.

Alexis Rice|December 28th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Technology|

Are eBooks catching on?

Mobile eBook devices are gaining in popularity.

A new report from Aptara (the second annual one) highlights the growth in the eBook market, but also notes the struggles as this emerging technology evolves.

The report surveyed more than 600 publishers across the trade, professional, and educational markets, revealing that “while 64 percent of publishers are offering titles in an eBook format, the majority of publishers are struggling to maximize eBook profits.”

Key findings in the report include:

“The main eBook production challenge facing publishers is eReader/content format compatibility issues, the same as in our first survey. Even with a nearly universal eBook format standard (EPUB), today’s highly fragmented eReader market makes quality eBook production a moving target.”

“A widespread inability to calculate return on investment (ROI) from eBooks – confirming that most publishers are not employing scalable digital workflows, but rather retrofitting print production process and forgoing significant cost savings.”

“Only 7 percent of publishers are implementing enhancements in their eBooks, suggesting there’s not broad awareness of the EPUB standard’s inherent and existing support for links and A/V enhancements.”

BoardBuzz thinks while there are challenges, eBook publishing will continue to expand.

Alexis Rice|December 9th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Technology|

Celebrating Computer Science Education Week

This week is Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) which recognizing the critical role of computing in today’s society and the need to bolster computer science education at all levels.

What is your school district doing to advance computer science education?

A great resource to check out is the Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Project’s (SMarT) website, which is designed for local school board members and other district personnel who have questions or are looking for ways to improve their science, mathematics, and technology education programs.

Alexis Rice|December 7th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Technology|

How technology is improving education

Don Knezek, the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, shares on Mashable the eight ways technology is improving education:

1. Better Simulations and Models
2. Global Learning
3. Virtual Manipulatives
4. Probes and Sensors
5. More Efficient Assessment
6. Storytelling and Multimedia
7. E-books
8. Epistemic Games

Alexis Rice|November 22nd, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Technology|

CPE launches new website to help understand data and statistics

Are the students in your school district ready for college? What percent are enrolled in prekindergarten? What is the racial and ethnic makeup of your schools?

The answers to such questions are critically important to determining the best education for your students. With that in mind, NSBA’s Center for Public Education has launched a new website, www.data-first.org, designed to guide school board members, administrators, and the public on how to find out important facts about their schools–in real, everyday situations.

The website, which is part of a larger project funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was designed to explain how different types of education data can help school boards produce real improvement in schools. The data can be used to empower school board members and others to use solid evidence and facts to make tough decisions.

“Lots of people get scared by data,” said Patte Barth, the Center’s director. “The point of the Data First site is to help board members become more comfortable with using data in order to understand and improve schools and students’ achievement.”

Data First allows users to take a quiz on their data literacy, guides users through the questions they should ask, and even allows users to submit their own questions about data. Members of the media and general public can also use the website’s features to analyze information about their local schools.

As part of the grant, the Center’s staff has been working with several state school boards associations to train school board members to find and use data to improve student learning and school operations.

For more information, visit www.data-first.org or contact the Center at centerforpubliced@nsba.org.

Joetta Sack-Min|November 22nd, 2010|Categories: Data Driven Decision Making, Educational Technology, School Board News|

ED releases final version of national ed tech plan

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Last week, the Department of Education unveiled its “National Education Technology Plan“—a broad document that outlines how schools can best use all types of technology to provide students with more individualized learning experiences, offer more professional development opportunities for teachers, and use technology to improve district management processes and operations. It’s big and exciting and quite daunting, but what does it all really mean for schools?”Board members and school leaders can look to this document as a way to expand their thinking about technology’s role in their own districts,” says Ann Flynn, NSBA’s director of education technology programs.

The plan centers on five categories: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure and productivity. For example, teaching literacy is one way that these practices might be applied to classrooms: young students could play computer games and watch videos to learn the alphabet and sound each letter. Older students, meanwhile, could link to an online workshop to improve their writing skills.

Flynn added, however, that districts must make sure they have the money to support staff training as well as the technology infrastructure.

“While technology should be transparent across a district and naturally embedded in the vision and budget for delivering particular content or a service, school leaders must ensure that the essential underlying investments in both technical and human infrastructure are supported in districtwide budgets to ensure the promise of those investments,” she said.

Karen Cator, the director of the Education Department’s Office of Educational Technology, answered questions about the plan and its challenges in the October issue of ASBJ. Also read more in School Board News.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Naomi Dillon|November 15th, 2010|Categories: Educational Technology, Leading Source, Policy Formation|Tags: , , |

NSBA supports new National Ed Tech Plan’s focus on learning

The U.S. Department of Education unveiled its final National Education Technology Plan on Nov. 9, designed to transform the use of technology and student learning in classrooms nationwide and create an “engaging state-of-the-art, cradle-to-college school system.”

NSBA supports the plan and is pleased that it will help school leaders expand students’ learning to create more personalized and engaging experiences. NSBA’s Director of Education Technology, Ann Flynn, says the plan also emphasizes the importance of data and shows how technology can be used to improve management and productivity.

The plan “articulates a vision for the use of technology in K-12 education that makes it essential and no longer an optional ‘add-on’ to learning and productivity,” says Flynn. “Far too many districts still think about ‘if’ they can afford to invest in technology, rather than thinking about how to do things differently and what impact not having those resources can have on their students.”

The plan identifies goals in five areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and creativity. Using those goals, students will have more individualized learning experiences and will be assessed at intervals to ensure they are meeting career- and college-ready standards. Teachers will have better tools for professional development and more opportunities for collaboration and support.

The plan, which is supposed to be in place by 2015, was written with input from a range of education groups, including NSBA, and school officials over an 18-month period.

“Our nation’s schools have yet to unleash technology’s full potential to transform learning,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said at the announcement. “We’re at an important transition point. We need to leverage technology’s promise to improve learning.”

Karen Cator, the director of the Office of Educational Technology, said in an interview for the October 2010 issue of American School Board Journal that the plan would help further President Obama and Secretary Duncan’s goal to have the world’s highest per capita college graduation rate by 2020. That would mean increasing the percentage of Americans with a degree from a 2-year or four-year school from 39 to 60 percent of the population in the next decade. Read more from that interview in ASBJ’s archives.

“We want to see teachers and students fully empowered to teach and learn with the best possible content, tools, resources, access to experts near and far, and the best simulations, cognitive tutors, adaptive environments, and embedded assessments so that we have a more productive and efficient education system,” Cator said.

Joetta Sack-Min|November 12th, 2010|Categories: Educational Technology, School Board News|
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