Charlottesville Chooses Windows Tablets
Charlottesville Virginia introduced Windows tablets this month at its secondary schools. They selected the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 model, a Windows 7 tablet with a 10.1-inch display, protective case, stylus and rollup keyboard.
SmartTech Roundup
On the edu-innovation calendar, we’re shifting from the market-focused ASU summit to the Sundance of edReform, the NewSchools Venture Fund-Aspen Institute Summit. There’s a big overlap between the two but there’s more innovation at ASU and a stronger equity focus at NewSchools. Rahm Emanuel, Sen. Michael Bennet, Harvard’s…
Automating AND Humanizing Education for The First Time In History
While many parents and teachers lament over the amount of time today’s youth spend on video games, the truth is that these high-tech “toys” can be used to revolutionize education and training. Think of it this way: The games our kids are playing take them into a highly immersive, interspatial, 3D world. They learn how a wide variety of tools operate, including sports, futuristic vehicles, and various machines. They develop sophisticated strategies and tactics they can use to accomplish goals and win the game.
Good Work: Serving Ideas
Think of the young people that go to Washington DC as the Cognitive Corps—working in service of an idea or ideal. Advocacy work is an attempt to make a difference at scale. If there is any success, it will be delayed gratification. But for the right cause, it is work worth doing.
Online Learning is the Parent Trigger
Despite the inefficient way things are set up here in America, learning is no longer place-bound, it's an anywhere, anytime service. Even where choice-to-the-course is limited, access to informal learning resources is exploding--a simmering Khan Mutiny. There will be a long difficult struggle over the stream of public funding that supports education, but it will inevitably follow students to the best option--and that's a big parent trigger.
Staff Picks: Digital Annotation, Data & StumbleUpon
Tom Picks “Digital Annotation: Don’t Just Own a Book, Possess It” Tom says, “I’ve been looking a digital highlighting companies and wasn’t convinced this was an important category, but Adam Renfro makes the case in ‘Digital Annotation: Don’t Just Own a Book, Possess It.'” Karen Picks…
Marysville WA Wins School Architecture Prize
Congrats to our neighbors to the north in Marysville WA for winning the Learning by Design Grant Prize. They worked with DLR Architects and Architects of Achievement and created a spectacular new campus.
Setting the Story Straight on Essay Scoring
There was lots of press on the OpenEd-led Automated Student Assessment Prize (ASAP) this week. Unfortunately, most of it was written by reporter skeptical that an algorithm cluster can score their writing. The results are pretty clear--the scoring engines are pretty good, certainly good enough to play a role in supporting better state tests and more classroom writing.
Ed Leaders Meet in CA for NewSchools Venture Fund Summit
Education entrepreneurs, funders and leaders meet in San Francisco, Calif. May 1-2, 2012 for the NewSchools Venture Fund (NSVF) Aspen Institute Summit, produced in partnership with NBC News. The summit, which is invitation only, will feature more than 100 speakers, more than 20 session and new opportunities to connect with other attendees.
What I’m Seeing: Apps Reinventing Learning Experiences
There are apps that are reinventing the learning experiences. Here's a few examples of how video is revolutionizing teaching, how apps are making science more engaging, and how mobile technology helps students navigate higher ed.