How Teachers And Students Benefit From Technology

by TechTree

The past decade has seen big changes in educators’ approaches to using technology. High school students now communicate with their peers and teachers via online forums. An aspiring multilinguist can connect with an online Chinese tutor on Preply and start learning over Skype in mere minutes. Smartphone apps provide game-like learning environments for children learning the basics of coding. Technology has the potential to revolutionize how classrooms function, a fact that has not gone unnoticed over the years by teachers and legislators alike. Determining how schools should best capitalize on that potential has been a process of trial and error, with some approaches proving, ultimately, ineffective.

http://www.techtree.com/content/features/12798/how-teachers-students-benefit-technology.html

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Online Academy filling niche for Pittsburgh school district

by Molly Born, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One of the major incentives for the creation of the Online Academy was saving money for the district. Nearly 700 city residents attend cyber charter schools, down about 90 from 2012. The district by law pays charter schools more than $14,400 for each resident who is a non-special education student and more than $30,500 for each special ed student. Like charter schools, cyber charters are public schools open to students from throughout the state. Until the district established the Online Academy, no full-time online program offered the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship, which grants eligible graduates up to $30,000 toward postsecondary education.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2017/05/01/Marking-achievement-a-challenge-at-growing-Pittsburgh-Online-Academy/stories/201704260186

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Apple, Samsung Flat as Mobile Market Grows Beyond Expectations

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

Despite gloomier predictions, the mobile phone market grew 4.3 percent worldwide in the first quarter of 2017, with No. 1 Samsung and No. 2 Apple declining slightly in their overall share of the market as Chinese manufacturers surged upward. According to a new report from market research firm IDC, Samsung saw no year over year growth from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017. It shipped 79.2 million units in each of those two quarters and lost a point of market share — from a 23.8 percent share of the worldwide market in Q1 2016 to 22.8 percent in Q1 2017.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/05/01/apple-samsung-flat-as-mobile-market-grows-beyond-expectations.aspx

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Survey: Teachers now use twice as much gaming and video in the classroom

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eSchoolNews

Annual survey reveals digital resources such as game-based environments and online videos have experienced increased use in classrooms. Teachers’ use of game-based environments and online apps has doubled in the last six years, according to the annual Speak Up survey released on May 5. The national report, From Print to Pixel: The role of videos, games, animations and simulations within K-12 education, reveals that in 2010, only 23 percent of surveyed teachers said they used games, compared to 48 percent of those surveyed in 2015. In 2010, 47 percent of teachers said they used online videos, and that jumped to 68 percent of teachers in 2015.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/05/06/survey-teachers-now-use-twice-as-much-gaming-and-video-in-the-classroom/

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New Workers, New Skills

by Marina Gorbis, EDUCAUSE Review

As the world of work undergoes transformation, new worker categories are emerging—people who, by choice or by necessity, are thinking about making a living in new ways and who are putting work into a very different context. At the Institute for the Future (IFTF), our team of ethnographers has been exploring these new worker categories while conducting in-depth interviews and observations in various locations around the United States. These workers span different levels of skills and different levels of engagement with work, from those who simply rent their assets (e.g., homes, cars) to generate income streams to those who work in new ways full-time. Such workers include micro-workers, dream builders, amplified entrepreneurs, and makers and hackers.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/5/new-workers-new-skills

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Brave New Work World

by John O’Brien, EDUCAUSE Review

I have experienced a few dramatic moments, epiphanies even, when it became clear that the world I thought I was inhabiting was changing in remarkable ways. As a faculty member, I once cancelled class because I was giving a paper at a national conference. I assumed I would be a hero. In my experience at that time, students loved nothing more than a day to skip class and catch up on all the work I was assigning. Instead, one of my working adult students called me up to read me the riot act. The conversation started with “I paid good money for this class” and went downhill from there. In this single moment, I realized the academy was heading into some decidedly uncharted waters.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/5/brave-new-work-world

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Future Ready summit tackles how to plan for tomorrow’s ed tech

By Ann McMullan, eSchool News

A recent regional summit brought superintendents together to discuss the future of education. 43 school district leadership teams from states up and down the West coast and Hawaii gathered together on May 4 and 5 at the Computer History Museum in northern California for this year’s seventh Future Ready Schools Regional Summit. Despite a focus on using technology to prepare for education’s future, discussions about specific devices or applications were completely absent. Instead, the agenda—the same for all Future Ready Regional Summits— focused on each of the seven gears of the Future Ready Framework that are essential for any school district technology plan: curriculum, instruction, and assessment; professional learning; technology, networks, and hardware; budget and resources; data and privacy; use of time; and community partnerships. The Future Ready Summit in Northern California was the seventh out of thirteen Regional Summits scheduled for 2015.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/05/08/future-ready-160/

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Oregon Trail and the true value of immersive gaming in the classroom

By Suzi Wilczynski, eSchool News

What is it about Oregon Trail that had such a profound impact on us that we clearly remember the experience years later? Part of the answer lies in the way in which social studies is often taught. Despite the best efforts of teachers, history classes cover so much material that often the only choice is to focus on major events, dates, and important people. Not surprisingly, many kids find that sort of rote memorization boring and never truly engage with the material. That affects both comprehension and retention. Long after the test, students might remember the date of the Battle of Hastings, but the context and significance is often lost. Oregon Trail stemmed from the realization that kids learn more when they are learning about real people doing real things. Deeper learning happens when teachers show life and culture. If history is taught in this way, students can learn to analyze, categorize, process and communicate, and evaluate the motivation behind an action.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/05/07/immersive-gaming-839/

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Two bills aim to bring online schooling to all Maine students

BY NOEL K. GALLAGHER, Press Herald

Following the opening of two virtual charter schools in Maine, state officials are trying to find a way to offer a state-sponsored version that would offer online texts and courses for all Maine students. But testimony on two virtual education bills Thursday highlighted the disagreements over how best to do it. “I think almost all Maine schools are (already) accessing online content to some extent,” said Rep. Brian Hubbell, D-Bar Harbor, sponsor of one of the bills, L.D. 39. Hubbell’s bill would have the Maine Department of Education work to develop state-backed online learning resources and possibly create a state-sponsored virtual school. It also requires the state to partner with New Hampshire, so Maine students could enroll in that state’s online school, the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, by this fall.

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/05/07/two-bills-aim-to-bring-online-schooling-to-all-maine-students/

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Online learning promises flipped classes, shared courses

By PHIL ATTINGER, Sebring News-Sun

Teachers and community leaders got a basic understanding this week on how teachers could become more like facilitators and school districts might start sharing courses. Lorie Layfield, online education teacher with the Highlands County School District, told the District Schools Advisory Committee that area high schools have spent three years teaching a workplace technology application and online etiquette course. It teaches students how to operate in an increasingly digital world, Layfield said. All students are required by state law to have completed a least one online course for graduation. Layfield said course completion rates have been good: 677 out of 785 students. There is a move to add to the online course offerings with a civics course.

http://www.newssun.com/news/article_62d00f3e-fc66-50ce-9bd2-14d7184dfe38.html

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Smithsonian Dives Deeper into Online Learning: What Now for Associations?

By Samantha Whitehorne, Associations Now

The Smithsonian’s strategy is definitely something for association learning and meeting teams to have on their radars as they plan upcoming events and education offerings. First off, associations will face additional competition as more well-known institutions like the Smithsonian offer content taught by well-known experts to an audience that many associations typically engage and market to: college-educated lifelong learners. How will your organization make its offerings stand out among a new set of competitors that may have a highly recognized name and brand, and how will it keep these online learning opportunities from eroding its onsite meeting attendance?

http://associationsnow.com/2014/05/smithsonian-dives-deeper-online-learning-now-associations/

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