Technology isn’t going to replace teachers anytime soon

by John Sarkar, Times of India

There is this constant and misguided thought of technology as a replacement for teachers. Technology acts in one of two ways. One, it helps students in ways that teachers alone would not be able to, for example, on Toppr experts solve doubts for students at 4am, unthinkable without the platform. Two, technology amplifies the effect of teachers. A good teacher can now reach millions of students where he was earlier limited to the seats in his classroom. While technology will help an increasing number of kids learn better with less dependence on teachers, a teacherless future is very far away.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/people/technology-isnt-going-to-replace-teachers-anytime-soon/articleshow/63546486.cms

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=38444

Snow days might mean extra school for some

by Alexandra Radovic, Campus Current

AACC professors may choose to extend their classes for two extra school days in May to make up for time lost to snow. The college has built-in make-up days on May 7 and 8 between the end of the usual semester and final exam week, which begins on May 9. Since the semester began on Jan. 17, AACC has closed the campus on school days for two full days; opened late four times; and closed early once. The college is not requiring professors to hold classes on May 7 and 8, however. Instead, they may opt to cover missed class content via Canvas, the campus online learning management system. “There needs to be a continuum of learning even if there is an interruption in the academic calendar,” Dr. Michael Gavin, AACC’s vice president for learning, said. That’s why professors have been required to use the Canvas system since last fall, he said. Even so, some professors have said they can only cover content appropriately by meeting for additional in-class hours.

Snow days might mean extra school for some

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=38434

How EdTech Leaders Can Model EdTech Best Practices

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

First, leaders can get serious about privacy and security. This means that they frequently change their passwords, use two-step authentication where it is available, and avoid falling for phishing schemes. Students and other stakeholders will know—sometimes in subtle ways (if they see a prompt for a far-overdue security update) and sometimes in not-so-subtle ways (if a leader has experienced identify theft)—if educational leaders are taking privacy and security seriously. Second, leaders need to demonstrate strong information literacy skills.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/how-education-leaders-can-model-edtech-best-practices/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=38424

Survey: To get more women in STEM, hire more female faculty

by Roger Riddell, Education Dive

A recent CDW survey of 300 college women that examined both those majoring in STEM and those who left their STEM major suggests a lack of female role models, including instructors, in these fields is a primary deterrent to their pursuit. Among the survey’s findings are that 63% of female STEM majors question their abilities, close to 50% say their gender resulted in harder experiences, and 20% aren’t sure they’ll remain in STEM majors through graduation, Ed Tech: Focus on Higher Ed reports. Along with providing more female role models, researchers say the image of scientists, engineers and others in STEM fields needs to be broadened beyond negative stereotypes like that of the male “Dungeons and Dragons” nerd.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/women-stem-female-faculty-role-models/439955/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=26086

Using Robotics to Prepare Students for the Future

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

In today’s’ technology-driven world, it’s important now more than ever to prepare students for the future. Teaching robotics to young students throughout their schooling can increase their ability to be creative and innovative thinkers and more productive members of society. By teaching our students the basics of robotics, we can open a whole new world to them and exciting opportunities that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. Industries such as the drone industry have grown dramatically and rapidly in the last couple of years. The Economist has reported that more than 15,000 drones are being sold in the US every month. Growing industries such as these are going to need people who can come up with new and innovative ideas, and be equipped with the knowledge to design and create the technology needed.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/using-robotics-prepare-students-future/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=26071

Clicking Your Way to Flipping Your Class

by Quentin Vicens*, Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

‘Flipping the classroom’ has become a popular endeavour among faculty and instructors¹, ²– it’s a refreshing and most welcome way to change the way we teach. In the process of flipping a class, especially for the first time, ‘clicker’-based peer instruction represents a powerful solution to engaging students in order to promote learning. Why does flipping a class make sense? In a nutshell: students don’t need an instructor to access content and ‘go through the book chapters’, especially when the internet is available 24/7 – but they do need an instructor to help them digest, process, criticize, and know how to apply that information. From a ‘sage on the stage’ in the traditional lecture, the instructor turns into a ‘guide on the side’, whose job is not merely to deliver complicated matter but to promote learning and ensure mastery of key concepts.

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1557

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=26057

Adapting to Online Collaborative Learning

by Akanksha Sharma, ATD

Online collaborative learning is one strategy that enables employees to work in groups, which may be geographically dispersed but interconnected, to foster a culture of productive learning and build an active learning community. Benefits include: learning through online communities of practice; active learning and sharing of expertise; breakdown of knowledge silos; meaningful connections with different points in a discussion; participants who are encouraged to reflect and expand their learning horizons, because they have time to consider all responses behavioral competencies such as teamwork, cooperation, communication, and problem solving; easy-to-manage content and organizational knowledge; access to recorded interactions, which makes it easy to monitor and assess various aspects and check understanding of concepts covered.

https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2016/04/Adapting-to-Online-Collaborative-Learning

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=15556

Study: Most K-12 online learning content does not meet needs of students with disabilities

by KU Today

Online education is growing rapidly, reaching millions of students every day. However, a Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities at the University of Kansas study has found the majority of online educational products are not designed to meet the needs of students with disabilities and struggling learners. Sean J. Smith, professor of special education and a co-principal investigator with the center, has authored “Invited In: Measuring UDL in Online Learning.” The report analyzes how six popular vendors of online learning products meet the principles of Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, the concept that education should be designed to meet the needs of all students. It also provides a tool that K-12 school districts across the country can use to evaluate online education programs they are using or considering for their students.

http://today.ku.edu/2016/03/22/ku-study-finds-majority-nations-k-12-online-learning-content-does-not-meet-needs-students

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=15553

North Alabama system letting students customize classes

by Associated Press

A north Alabama school system is allowing high school students to customize their education in a way that seemed impossible a decade ago. The district, Hartselle City Schools, will expand those opportunities next year when it adds a law component to its system of academies, school officials said. The academies are subject-specific disciplines that offer elective classes students can take to start their freshman year. The academies give students who may not plan to attend college an opportunity to earn certification in certain vocations. For those seeking higher education, it’s an opportunity to earn college credit while gaining hands-on experience.

http://www.ccenterdispatch.com/news/state/article_8cc0e6b4-100f-5689-acc7-603120ae88ad.html

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=15551

How collaboration is just a modern LMS away

By Michael Lafreniere, eCampus News

Today, the software is a web-based application commonly known as an LMS. With an appropriate LMS, video delivery, conferencing integration, and white board integration with digital inking capabilities, a teacher can collaborate with colleagues and students through the broadcast of synchronous instruction and learning activities online and in-class. The teacher can facilitate collaborative, shareable, personalized note-taking spaces, as well as track student engagement across multiple sections—class and student level insights that assist the teacher much like intentional formative assessment. At the end of the course, the same data collection can be used in the creation of student portfolios of learning outcomes, which are ideal for course and program improvement, as well as, accreditation.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/collaboration-lms-math-377/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/uf7muPiDLTM/

Watch out Watson: Here comes Amazon Machine Learning

By Liam Tung, ZDNet

AWS developers who want to extract meaning and forecasts out of their data now no longer need other hosted machine learning platforms. Public cloud giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday unveiled its first product for machine learning – simply called Amazon Machine Learning – to make it easier for AWS developers to extract value from the troves of transactional and operational data their hosted systems collect. The move by Amazon follows IBM’s recent launch of hosted Watson Analytics and Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning, with all three now looking for ways to help developers embed machine learning intelligence into their apps. Google’s own machine learning offering, Prediction API, was launched in 2012.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/watch-out-watson-here-comes-aws-machine-learning/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/81vg8MP0HkE/

Hands on with Office Online and Dropbox: A surprisingly smooth combo

by Ed Bott, ZDNet

Microsoft has been expanding the reach of its Office franchise over the past year, releasing apps for iOS and Android, occasionally even at the expense of its Windows division. But the latest Office expansion comes inside the browser, where anyone with an Office.com account, free or paid, can now link Dropbox accounts for seamless creation, viewing, editing, and sharing of online Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/office-online-and-dropbox-together/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/SX_8ImACy7w/

Why You Should Try Video Feedback With Students

by Scott Hayden, Edudemic

Using video is an efficient use of time and allows you to provide visual examples to illustrate points in more detailed verbal feedback. Securely stored and shared to your students from the cloud eg inboxing or tweeting links from Dropbox OR shared from your Hard Drive. YouTube can be used (ease of access) where you can adjust the settings to Private so no-one but your student can see it. Once students send you work you can assess wherever you are using any video recording device. See the link below for more.

http://www.edudemic.com/video-feedback-with-students/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/b0Qvv5lrSBI/

How Is The Internet Changing Education?

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

The internet has brought great things to education. Research is easier, for sure. And online learning is bringing education options in varying ranges of affordability to a much wider audience. The handy infographic linked below takes a look at how educational power is shifting away from the hands of the institutions and more into the hands of students.

http://www.edudemic.com/internet-education/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/A1dYX8aHVGY/

What the 26 Billion-Thing Internet of Things Portends for IT

By David Nagel, THE Journal

The rapid growth of interconnected devices making up the Internet of Things will wreak havoc on data security, storage, servers, networks and end user privacy, according to a new report. There will be 26 billion “things” making up the Internet of Things within six years, according to a report released by Gartner. The implications for IT are profound — in particular for data center operations. “IoT threatens to generate massive amounts of input data from sources that are globally distributed,” said Joe Skorupa, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, in a statement released to coincide with the report.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/03/18/what-the-26-billion-thing-internet-of-things-portends-for-it.aspx

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