Preschoolers played online games for a year — and became kindergarten-ready

by Kirsten Clark, Courier-Journal

Karen McLean didn’t want her twins to fall behind in kindergarten. “Kindergarten is not like it used to be,” said McLean, who is a literacy coach for New Albany-Floyd County Schools. “It’s not playtime anymore. It’s academic learning.” That’s why McLean enrolled Andrew and Marcus in Upstart, an online preschool program billed as a way to prepare children for kindergarten “in just 15 minutes a day, five days a week.” Andrew and Marcus were two of roughly a hundred Floyd County 4-year-olds to participate in a pilot program that brought the software to the Hoosier state, where lawmakers hoped it would be a game-changer for the state’s roughly 27,000 low-income children without access to quality preschool.

http://www.nearshoreamericas.com/e-learning-latin-america-solution-talent-shortage/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=30245

New guide designed to help Colorado educators combine online courses with traditional teaching

By MARISSA PAGE, Chalkbeat Colorado

A new guide released Monday seeks to help Colorado schools successfully introduce blending learning, a growing practice combining traditional classroom instruction with online coursework. The Colorado Blended Learning Roadmap, commissioned by state lawmakers, urges school officials to consider three main priorities: effective teacher training and increased support; flexibility in school policies to support the model; and access to quality technology and other tools.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/25/colorado-blended-learning-roadmap-online-courses/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=30230

Why Apple Is Investing So Much in AR and VR

by Kate Murphy, Campos

What’s Apple going to do with the company’s patents and technology? No one knows, but Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed enthusiasm over AR in particular. “Unlike virtual reality, which closes out the world, AR allows individuals to be present in the world but hopefully allow an improvement on what’s happening presently,” he told the Independent in February. “With AR you can, not be engrossed in something, but have it be a part of your world, your conversation. That has resonance.” Earlier this summer, Apple launched ARKit, a tool that adds augmented reality capabilities to iOS. A soon-to-launch app developed using ARKit called A R Measure, is a good example of what this means to consumers. The app will allow you to measure real-life objects by superimposing virtual measuring tape over the item when you look through your phone screen.

http://blog.campos.com/higher-ed/2017-consumer-trend-analysis-ar-vr-ai

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=30215

What Makes A Successful Online Learner

By Elana Goodwin, ULoop

Nowadays, there are a lot of different opportunities online to continue your education, take classes, or earn a degree. However, you shouldn’t necessarily consider becoming an online learner an easy feat — here are some characteristics and abilities you’ll want to have in order to be a successful online learner.

http://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/208702/What-Makes-A-Successful-Online-Learner

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=16627

Home Connectivity and the Homework Gap

by Leila Meyer, THE Journal

In 2013, President Obama launched the ConnectED initiative with the goal of connecting 99 percent of K-12 students in America with access to broadband Internet in the classroom by the year 2018. As of 2014, nearly one quarter of American households still did not have Internet access, according to a March 2016 Issue Brief from the Council of Economic Advisers . Low-income households are far less likely to have Internet, “with just under half of households in the bottom income quintile using the Internet at home, compared to 95 percent of households in the top quintile,” according to the report.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/07/28/home-connectivity-and-the-homework-gap.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=16642

A Father’s Fear Leads To Online Learning Platform

by Matt Hunckler, Forbes

Fear can be a powerful motivator for parents. Of course, for most parents, fear motivates them to keep their children close. Tony Leonard, however, was terrified that his daughter would never leave home. His daughter was a struggling nursing student, and Leonard was afraid that she would fail her NCLEX exam. Leonard had statistics on his side too. There are over 500,000 nursing students who sit for the exam every year, and about 50% fail on their first attempt. There are 2.3 million who have graduated from nursing school and never passed the exam. And as Leonard commented in his recent pitch to a full auditorium, in Indianapolis, “I don’t know how many baby boomers we have here, but we’re going to need more nurses.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthunckler/2016/08/01/a-fathers-fear-leads-to-online-learning-platform/#679981dc6d58

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=16612

Hacking Diversity

By Kristin Majcher, Technology Review

Anyone with Internet access and a computer can learn how to write a few lines of code these days. Free tutorials and information from sites like Codecademy, which has been used by more than 25 million people, offer widespread access to instruction. They might even be able to break down barriers for groups traditionally underrepresented in technology, including women, blacks, and Hispanics. This open-access model does seem to help—Codecademy says 34 percent of its users are women, for example, nearly double the percentage of female graduates from university computer science programs in the United States.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/539111/hacking-diversity/

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Obama’s Internet initiative a US necessity

News and Observer Editorial Board

Heading toward the end of his second term, President Obama is rightly gearing up an important initiative to help lower income people gain access to the Internet. This has broad implications for people of all ages who might otherwise be left out in the cold with regard to a “connection” that most Americans take for granted. The Internet is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity, for kids who want to do their homework, for people who want to find jobs, for access to emergency contacts, for families who want to communicate with each other.

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article28613368.html

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Liberty to offer online law master’s degrees

BY JESSIE POUNDS, Daily Progress

The Liberty University School of Law plans to offer online master’s degrees this fall, according to an announcement from the school. The plan is for juris master degrees in American legal studies and international legal studies, as well as a master’s of laws degree in international legal studies. The typical qualifying degree for lawyers in the United States is the juris doctorate, which Liberty offers on-campus. The American Bar Association’s accrediting arm recently granted permission to Liberty to implement the degrees. The bar association accredits only juris doctorate degrees, so its role in granting permission is only to make sure those degrees won’t pull away resources or interfere with a school’s existing law degree program.

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/liberty-to-offer-online-law-master-s-degrees/article_ab5faf6c-33e1-11e5-b95d-5fd45f3e8087.html

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STEM vs STEAM: A Look At Half-Brain Teaching

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. Teach coding, get girls interested in all of these subjects. However you slice it, there’s a lot of focus on the logical and analytical brain functions these days. Many schools are cutting the ‘extras’ like art and music. While I firmly believe that students need to be well rounded and really need subjects like those to be considered more than ‘extra’, and while there are many people fighting to keep these programs in schools, you can’t deny that the international economy and jobs outlook is demanding more focus on STEM. But does that mean we should drop all focus on the other stuff? The handy infographic below takes a look at why focusing on the skills of half our brain is not enough.

http://www.edudemic.com/stem-vs-steam-graphic-need-sides-brain/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/8Y7YdwxE6m8/

How To Become A Better Online Researcher

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

When we ‘research’ things now, we generally aren’t referring to spending time in a library – or even referring to spending time online accessing specific library or school research databases. The word ‘research’ largely refers to the act of typing words into your internet search bar and seeing what the Wise Old Web tells you. There is so much information out there, and while a web search isn’t necessarily a bad thing (and we’d encourage you to head back to the ‘ol library to see what resources they have to offer you), there are definitely some things you can to do get the best search results possible out of a simple web search.

http://www.edudemic.com/better-online-researcher/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/YeDvPPGRXp8/

MIT offers a dozen photography classes for free via its OpenCourseWare website

by Felix Esser, Imaging-Resource

MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known across the globe as a powerhouse of technological invention and home to some of the most incredible brains in the world. A little less known is the fact that the MIT also teaches a number of photography classes, some of which have now been made available to the public. Via the MIT’s OpenCourseWare website, select photography classes are now accessible for free. The classes available include both undergraduate and graduate level courses, such as “Introduction to Photography,” “Documentary Photography and Photojournalism,” or “Computational Camera and Photography.”

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/07/25/mit-offers-a-dozen-photography-classes-for-free-via-its-opencourseware-webs

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