Showing posts with label Technology in Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology in Education. Show all posts

Thursday, January 5, 2012

12 Education Tech Trends to Watch in 2012

12 Education Tech Trends to Watch in 2012
Cross-posted from http://mindshift.kqed.org/
12 areas where we believe we’ll see significant adoption and innovation in the coming months.
MOBILE PHONES: Mobile learning is hardly a new trend, but we have now reached the point with near ubiquitous cellphone ownership among adults, and growing ownership among children. More than three-quarters of teens own a cellphone, and about 40% own a smartphone. As such, these mobile devices will help unlock some of the promise of “anytime, anywhere” learning opportunities.

BYOD (BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE): A related trend to mobile learning. More schools will grapple with their policies surrounding students bringing their own devices to school. They do so already, of course, although cellphones in particular are often required to be turned off or stowed in backpacks or lockers. It isn’t just cellphones that are brought from home now either. There are iPod Touches, tablets, laptops, e-readers, and netbooks, and schools will weigh whether or not students will be permitted or even encouraged to bring their own devices to school.

BANDWIDTH ISSUES: The FCC has made broadband access the focus of some of its efforts over the last few years, arguing for its importance to the U.S. economy and education. It’s pushing for better access across the board, but also recognizing the importance of high-speed Internet specifically at schools and libraries. Even those schools with broadband access may find their resources strained in coming months — with the increasing number of mobile devices brought to schools, tapping into the local network as well as with growing demands for streaming video content.

NATURAL USER INTERFACES: The last few year have brought about a number of important innovations in the ways in which we interact and interface with technology: motion-sensing as with the Microsoft Kinect, the touchscreen of the iPhone, the voice-activation of Siri. Just as the graphical user interface, the GUI, opened computer technologies to new populations (specifically non-programmers), these natural user interfaces will likely push those things further forward, increasing accessibility.

WEB APPS (HTML5): Despite the popularity of Apple devices — among consumers and in the classroom — an emphasis or reliance on native (iOS or Mac) apps excludes a lot of people. The demands for tools that can be used at home and at school, regardless of device, will lead to more Web-based education applications. Thanks to HTML5 technology, Flash, which is still used by a lot of educational content providers, will no longer be as ubiquitous.

DATA: “Data-driven” has been a buzz phrase in education for a number of years now, but much of the emphasis has been on standardized testing. With more “data exhaust” from our usage of technology and the Web, there’s a trove of information we aren’t really fully tracking when it comes to teaching and learning. 2012 will likely bring about a search for new analytical tools to account for just this (many sidestepping the question of whether or not teaching and learning can be quantified and analyzed this way).

ADAPTIVE LEARNING: Adaptive learning companies had an interesting year: Knewton and Grockit raised substantial investment, for example, while Carnegie Learning found itself critiqued in a New York Times story. With the promise of personalized learning — that is, instruction and quizzes aimed at a student’s specific needs and skills — adaptive learning is poised for widespread adoption, both at the K-12 and higher ed levels.

PRIVACY/SECURITY: There was an increasing realization in 2011 that many of the pieces of legislation that govern children and students’ online interactions are woefully out of date. As such, there will be increased scrutiny in 2012 to COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), CIPA (the Children’s Internet Protection Act), and FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Whether or not the government’s legislation and kids’ usage actually match up will be another thing entirely. Another major trend of the year, particularly in light of an increasing importance of data: user (student) control of their own educational data — that means both privacy protections and data portability.

OPEN LICENSING: “Open” may well be one of the big marketing terms we’ll hear in the coming months, and it’ll take some scrutiny to really evaluate what many companies mean when they adopt the label. That said, openly licensed content and openly licensed code is likely to be one of the most important trends in 2012: open source technology, open source textbooks, open educational resources, and open data.

PEER TO PEER: “Social learning” has gained a lot of attention in recent years as new technologies have offered ways for students to communicate and collaborate — whether they’re side-by-side in the classroom or thousands of miles away. The ability for learners to connect with one another will be one of the most important trends of the coming year. This isn’t just a matter of connecting learners with online resources or with online instruction. Rather, one of the big opportunities will be to create a space in which learners can help and teach each other.

THE MAKER MOVEMENT: The Maker Movement — encouraging people to make things by hand — may be one of the most important keys to improving STEM education in this country. That’s because it works outside the realm of standardized testing and all the associated hand-wringing. The movement, which includes efforts like Maker Faire and MAKE Magazine, may be the key to helping new demographics (or at the very least, “kids”) discover science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in an exciting and hands-on way. Building and tinkering and playing all offer powerful ways to learn and experiment. We need more of this — lots more.

GAMING: Game-based learning has been on the cusp of being “the next big thing” for a while now। Perhaps 2012 will be the year. With the flourishing of mobile technologies, with the promise of data and analytics, and with a realization that we can create new and engaging ways to move through lessons, we are likely to see an explosion of educational gaming apps this year. The big question, of course — with this as with every new ed-tech development: does this actually improve learning? When is a educational game fun? What makes it engaging? What makes it actually educational?
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Sunday, November 22, 2009

The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data - including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." Pranav in his presentation has a very interesting way of bringing the physical objects to Digital world and vice versa. This technology is truly amazing, and it will change the way we are living right now. Genius & Mind Blowing!!


Thursday, November 19, 2009

Technology in the Classroom" by Alan November

Here is an informative video by Alan November on the importance of Technology in the classroom. Alan tours his hometown of Marblehead, MA and comments on the historical global vision of his community. Alan challenges us to think about the emerging role of “student as contributor” and to globalize our curriculum by linking students with authentic audiences from around the world. Wonderful video with thoughtful commentary. Worth watching!


Find more videos like this on NL Connect

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Look Ahead to 2019

Microsoft Look Ahead to 2019: video concepts of A Glimpse Ahead, has put together a concept video of what the computers and mobile devices of the future might offer us, with a heavy emphasis on touch control, interaction and modular devices. This video shows its future vision, with a lot of natural user interfaces, mobile technologies, and more which is worth watching!

Monday, June 15, 2009

21st Century Strategies in ELL Classroom

Welcome to the ELL Blog! Here we will be brainstorming the different strategies and Web 2.0 tools to help facilitate the teaching and learning for student achievement. My hope is to share strategies and ideas by collaborating and building a learning community for all around the world.

Dr. Bob Marzano, CUE 2009 Keynote, Part I
Dr. Marzano spoke at the CUE (Computer Using Teachers) Conference in March 2009. Here Dr. Robert Marzano addresses the question What do we know about the effect of technology on student achievement?

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

(Cross-posted on educatorslog.in)


Kids today are often referred to as “digital natives”. They enjoy being able to express themselves through the many digital technologies that they are so facile with; technologies that they would enjoy putting to use for the purposes of learning (and school work) as well.

This video was created to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills and be better prepared to succeed in the century. It is just as important for parents to understand, and sync up, with their digital kids.

‘A Vision of K-12 Students Today’ was probably inspired by an earlier video ‘A Vision of Students Today‘ made by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University in which they share similar views (in similar fashion too) about their affinity for, and desire to use, digital media in higher education. This earlier post discusses Michael Wesch, his work on studying mediated cultures, and his popular channel on youtube.