What are the costs of not investing in ICTs in education? — from blogs.worldbank.org Michael Trucano, Sr. ICT & Education Specialist
From DSC:
Having studied economics, I appreciate what Michael is saying about the opportunity costs involved here:
What are the costs of not investing in ICT use in education?
Can we afford them?
To “appify” old media, we need a new approach — from gigaom.com
The publishing industry is keeping its formerly inky fingers crossed that mobile devices, including the seemingly ubiquitous iPad, will save its behind. With the mobile market still in its infancy, it’s a tad early to be calling definitive trends, but there is one interesting tendency underway that may endure long-term — and that is the “appification” of media content.
This “appification” is being driven by one question — what is it that the audience wants? And the answer resoundingly is this: don’t just replicate the brand, give us something different.
The Top 20 VC Power Bloggers Of 2010 — from TechCrunch
A lot of venture capitalists and super angels are not only active investors, but also active bloggers. Below is a list of the top 20 VC power bloggers as compiled by Larry Cheng of Volition Capital based on traffic data from Compete. The metric being used here is average monthly unique visitors during the fourth quarter of 2010.
Blackboard Mobile Learn 2.0 embraces multimedia, gets threaded discussions — from The Journal by David Nagel
Blackboard has also launched a new service to help institutions develop custom Mobile Central apps.
High Speed Ahead–– from CampusTechnology.com
Excerpt re: expanding WiFi coverage :
“WiFi is local; that’s the trouble with it,” said McCartney. “With the 4G network, users will have wireless coverage both indoors and while outside walking around between the buildings. That’s a whole lot of coverage that we didn’t have before.”
Besides the clear advantages of faster, more reliable Internet access, the 4G service helps Purdue’s faculty and staff deliver and use bandwidth-intensive applications and solutions to students in a more seamless fashion. Known for developing proprietary mobile technologies to enhance traditional college classroom experiences, the school’s latest developments include the Facebook academic application Mixable and a student discussion tool, HotSeat, which allows students to interact with their classmates and faculty using Twitter and text messages.
Another new application that was implemented in 2010 finds students making instructional use of video in the institution’s forensics classes, among others. The program and the material produced with it are bandwidth-intensive and difficult to manipulate on a traditional WiFi network. The new 4G access will help fill that gap. “To use this application solution, you have to be able to take video, deliver it and [watch] it,” said McCartney. “You can’t do that on 3G.”
With Purdue’s 4G tower activated since early-December, staff and students are already developing new applications that will have a “measurable and material impact on learning,” said McCartney, who added he expects more colleges to jump on the 4G bandwagon as the successful implementations are documented. “As a leading university, we have to keep up with the plumbing around here, and make sure that all of our services work as expected, and as advertised.”
Trends in Ed: 01.19.2011 – High-Tech Help — from EdLab at Teachers College, Columbia University by Angela Lee
Do you think you can survive completing an email, report, or business letter without the help of spell check?
This New York Times article sums up some of the most popular assistive technologies on the market. These tools are not limited to users with learning disabilities, but also extremely popular among general learners.
However, Michael L. Kamil, a consulting professor at the Stanford University School of Education and an expert on adolescent literacy and technology, warns that not every product is going to be useful, so before you spend $100 for a smart pen or $300 for an electronic learner, you should consult with the professional who has evaluated your learning ability.
Below is some of the most popular assistive technology we use today…
From the NYT article, for more information, see:
Donate your multimedia skills to philanthropic causes via Sparked.com — from Innovative Interactivity (II) by Tracy Boyer
Some of the current challenges include:
You can read more about Sparked’s initiative over at Beth Kanter’s blog.
From DSC:
This is a win-win situation for all involved…especially for folks just getting started in web design, graphic design, web programing, digital video editing, etc.
Carnegie authors featured in ISSOTL Journal
Carnegie is well represented in the Fifth Anniversary Issue of the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning.
Vuvox: A tool for digital storytelling — from Instructional Design Fusions by Dianne Rees
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Dianne mentions that Vuvox provides some helpful videos to get you started:
From DSC:
Steve Taffee makes some good points in his blog posting entitled, “What if your cloud evaporates?”
When vendors offering cloud-based apps and services suddenly no longer support or offer a product line or they begin charging for what was previously free, etc. — this creates a significant issue. Quoting Steve’s posting:
The off-again, on-again fate of the social bookmarking service Delicious led to considerable angst among its users, with the discussion among some educational technologists broadening to include all cloud-based services and scenarios of suddenly being without access to mission critical services.
This is another reason why I entitled this blog Learning Ecosystems — because all of the people, tools, and things that can contribute to our learning are often in a constant state of flux/change. So we are forced to adapt. However, this is easier said than done when suddenly 10,000 students can’t access application ABC or service XYZ on the cloud. This is a truly problematic situation. It won’t stop cloud computing from moving forward, but it would sure be helpful if vendors would be required to give some sort of “heads-up” to help us address this issue and find alternatives well in advance of having to make a switch.
From GetIdeas.org:
Australia’s New Higher-Ed Authority Calls for Fresh IT System — which links to “New higher education authority calls for fresh IT system” in CIO — by Rodney Gedda (Techworld Australia)
The federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), is designing a new core information system for a new higher education agency – the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) – which is scheduled to begin operating around mid-2011.
TEQSA will be an independent body with powers to “regulate university and non-university higher education providers, monitor quality and set standards”. Its primary mission will be to help students receive the best quality higher education at any provider.
At the core of TEQSA will be a new information management system in the form of a Web-based portal.
