4 Things to Know About the Gadget That Will Charge Devices in Seconds

by Abby Norman, Futurism

Donald Highgate, director of research at Superdielectrics Ltd. and his team have set out to make that vision a reality. Highgate’s team has created a material that amps up the potential of supercapacitors – devices that can both charge up and release their energy rapidly.  Their capacitance for storing energy is “super” because it’s both electrostatic and electromechanical. Therefore, supercapacitors (also called “ultracapacitors”) are kind of like a mashup of normal capacitors and a normal battery. Highgate has teamed up with researchers from Bristol University and Surrey University to create a supercapacitor that’s not just better than traditional batteries, but that could one day be superior to lithium-ion batteries. So how do they plan to do it? Here are four things to know.

4 Things to Know About the Gadget That Will Charge Devices in Seconds

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=37626

Global Boom in Private Enrollments

By Ellie Bothwell, Times Higher Education
One in three students globally is enrolled in private higher education institutions, according to research that reveals the huge growth and wide reach of private providers.  The analysis, the first study based on comprehensive data on the size and shape of private higher education internationally, finds that private institutions have 56.7 million students on their books, or 32.9 percent of the world’s enrollment. Times Higher Education logoWhile the U.S. has historically towered over the rest of the world in terms of the size of its private sector, the proportion of students in the country in private higher education stands at 27.5 percent, lower than the global average, and it now accounts for only a tenth of global private enrollment.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/08/survey-finds-global-boom-private-higher-education-enrollments

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=37596

5 questions principals should ask when hiring future-ready teachers

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Tech Edvocate

One of the hardest tasks that a principal has to perform is hiring teachers. I know that this may seem a bit far-fetched, but when you hire a new teacher, it is hard to determine if you are getting a star or a dud. This happens because teacher education programs don’t do an excellent job of consistently graduating good teachers. That’s why the task of hiring quality “future-ready” teachers is so difficult. We decided to make this task a little easier by developing a list of 5 questions that principals should ask when attempting to hire “future ready” educators. Let us know what you think.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/5-questions-principals-ask-hiring-future-ready-teachers/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=37261

Berklee College Expands Online, to Graduate Degrees

By Giovanni Russonello, NY Times
Berklee College of Music, already the world’s largest provider of online music degrees, will add graduate programs to its digital offerings this fall. It will begin with a master of music in music production and a master of arts in music business. The conservatory, whose main campus is in Boston, plans to add other degree programs in the future, and is already at work on an online graduate program in film scoring, though it has not announced when that will become available.

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=36855

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS RUSH TO TAKE CRYPTOCURRENCY AND BLOCKCHAIN COURSES

by JULIO GIL-PULGAR , Bitcoinist.com

Student demand for courses on Bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, is putting elite U.S. universities under pressure. Students from all disciplines are rushing to sign up for courses that cover technical concepts underlying Bitcoin and Ethereum, such as decentralized consensus, append-only ledgers, smart contracts, and zero-knowledge proof systems. Students are also seeking to gain working familiarity with cryptocurrencies through practical assignments. Nathaniel Popper wrote in a New York Times an article entitled “Cryptocurrencies Come to Campus,” describing the extent to which courses on cryptocurrencies are attracting students across elite institutions such as Cornell, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Maryland and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=36795

17 of the Best Science Apps for Elementary Students

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

At last count, there were over 80,000 educational apps available to teachers. There are apps for everything: literacy, STEM, productivity, audiovisual, etc. There are apps which improve accessibility for students with different learning challenges, i.e. text to voice, voice to text, etc. While many of these may be a dream come true for educators, the dizzying array of choices is also a nightmare. Teachers just don’t have time to filter through thousands of apps to find the one that works best for the needs of their students. To help, we started to create curated lists of the best apps in a variety of education related categories. In this installment, we will present the best science apps for elementary school students.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/17-best-science-apps-elementary-school-students/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=36715

Startup Of The Week: Quizlet

by Tomas Laurinavicius, Forbes

Meet Andrew Sutherland, the founder and CTO of Quizlet, the user-powered learning platform used by more than 30 million students and teachers each month. Andrew founded Quizlet in 2005 while a sophomore at Albany High School in California, originally building a simple website to help himself study French vocabulary. He studied computer science at MIT, which he left after three years to continue working on Quizlet. As CTO, Andrew is in charge of building the technology that powers more than 200 million study sets and allows millions of students to learn more efficiently. In 2012 and 2013, he was featured in Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 List for Education.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaslaurinavicius/2018/01/30/startup-of-the-week-quizlet/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=36589

With winter in full force, Indiana’s e-learning days come in handy

By Patience Wait, EdScoop

As the winter of 2017-18 continues to bring heavy snows and unusually cold weather, e-learning programs provide a way for schools to continue meeting their students’ educational needs. The state of Indiana, for example, currently has about 170 public and private school districts approved for e-learning days. “In the old days, school was just canceled,” said Holly Stachler, director of communications for the Indiana Department of Education. “But now, there may be no school on campus, but it’s [still] an e-learning day.” The option to provide internet-based instruction has been available to Hoosier schools for six years. Stachler said the formal program was initiated in the 2013-14 school year.

http://edscoop.com/with-winter-in-full-force-indianas-e-learning-days-come-in-handy

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=35949

Future is online for education

by HSY, the Star

Khan Academy is a free online course consisting of thousands of video courses on almost anything. The question is how can these videos help to revolutionise our education? The founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan, envisioned a future where students watched and learnt from videos with educational materials at home. Teachers would monitor each student’s progress. Some students are fast learners and others are slow. This is a system that enables everyone to learn at his or her own pace.

https://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/letters/2018/01/15/future-is-online-for-education/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=35899

What’s ahead on the edtech landscape in 2018

by  Richard W. Walker, EdScoop

John O’Brien, president and CEO of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association for higher ed IT leaders, thinks that 2018 may mark the beginning of real digital transformation in education. “I am convinced that this year we will see demonstrable developments at the intersection of higher education and technology,” he told EdScoop. “First, we’re convinced that 2018 will be marked by the shift from digitization to digital transformation. Whether we’re talking about enterprise technologies in general or teaching and learning in particular, we think the days of ad hoc innovations and one-off digital breakthroughs will — and should — be replaced by increasingly interrelated, interdependent and interoperable digital transformation experienced across campus divisions.”

http://edscoop.com/predictions-whats-ahead-on-the-edtech-landscape-in-2018

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=35279

HOW EARLY SHOULD KIDS BEGIN STEM EDUCATION?

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Current research results are in favor of early childhood experiences for students, especially those who are disadvantaged. This education is the great equalizer because it provides a rich, common foundation for children who may have diverse backgrounds and experiences.  Students are capable of learning far more than you think they can. Most teachers will tell you that children will rise up to the standard you set, so you may as well elevate the bar for learning. And that brings us to STEM education in early childhood. That’s right – early childhood is the perfect time to begin science, technology, engineering, and mathematics instruction.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/early-kids-begin-stem-education/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=35249