Category: Learning

ISTE Top 10 Edtech Priorties for 2010

Dwayne Harapnuik 1 Comment

It is the season for all sorts of predictions for the upcoming year. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) offers the following:

  1. Establishing technology “as the backbone of school improvement” for student learning, professional development, and administration;
  2. Integrating technology to prepare students for careers and keep students engaged;
  3. Increasing federal funding support for technology through Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT);
  4. Keeping educators up to date on the latest technologies to help them be more effective in their teaching environments;
  5. Increasing support for pre-service education technology programs to help produce more technologically adept teachers;
  6. Using technology to “scale improvement” and “accelerate reform”;
  7. Ensuring universal access to broadband services, which ISTE described as “critical so that students and parents have access to school assignments, grades, announcements and resources”;
  8. Developing systems and strategies that will help educators use assessment data to improve student learning;
  9. Investing in research and development focused on “innovation in teaching and learning”; and
  10. Promoting “global digital citizenship” through technology-based, cross-border collaboration.

ISTE’s complete “Top Ten in ’10” with explanations.

Horizon Report 2010 Preview

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The pre-release of the 2010 Horizon report is now available and ACU has two mentions in the prestigious report that looks to that identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative inquiry on college and university campuses within the next five years.

This years report points to the following predictions:

Time-to-adoption: one Year or Less

  • Mobile Computing
  • Open Content

Time-to-adoption: Two to Three Years

  • Electronic Books
  • Simple Augmented Reality

Time-to-adoption: four to five Years

  • Gesture-Based Computing
  • Visual Data Analysis

While these predictions are interesting in themselves almost all except for the Visual Data Analysis all are somewhat or totally dependent on Mobile Learning.

More to come…

The full report will be released by the end of January.

Innovation Starts with a Focus on Creativity

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In the book Out Of Our Minds, Ken Robinson makes and thoroughly supports the argument that creativity, and the subsequent innovation that is spawns, is fundamentally hindered by our educational system.  Robinson refers to septic focus of education and the fundamental problem and develops the following four points to effectively support this position:

  1. For historical reasons, education is preoccupied with academic ability. This is based on the deep seated assumptions in Western culture about intelligence.
  2. Academic ability promotes particular forms of intellectual activity. They are important, but they are very far from being the whole of human intelligence.
  3. The results have been beneficial in many areas and disastrous in many others. There is a tragic narrowing of intelligence, divisions between arts and sciences, and a profound waste of creative capacity. Very many people leave education never realizing their real intellectual capacities.
  4. In the new world economies, this waste of human resources is potentially disastrous. The abilities that are now most needed are being left to waste despite the massive expansion of education and the pressure to raise standards. Organizations and communities are paying the price.

Robinson isn’t just critical of the system–he provides many worthy recommendations. Most of these recommendations take into account the following three priorities:

Identifying – providing systemically for the identification and development of creative strengths and abilities of all individuals in the organization.

Facilitating – providing for the conditions with the organization as a whole through which creative processes are actively supported and encouraged.

Employing – harnessing creative outcomes to the core objectives of the organization.

Clearly, we have a long way to go.

Mobile Internet Report – Morgan Stanley

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http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/mobile_internet_report122009.html

Morgan Stanley – Institutional Services via kwout

The Morgan Stanley reports in the following three different formats can be accessed directly from their site.

  1. “The Mobile Internet Report Setup”– a 92-slide presentation that excerpts highlights of the key themes from the report
  2. “The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes” – a 659-slide presentation that drills down on thoughts covered in “The Mobile Internet Report”
  3. “The Mobile Internet Report” – a 424 page report which explores 8 major themes in depth and includes the two aforementioned slide presentations + related overview text

While I have only had the time to go through the smaller 95 slide report setup it looks like Morgan Stanley has done really good job at addressing the key issues with the mobile internet. I am looking forward to finding some extended time to have a thorough look at the full report.

Apple iPod Touch in K-12

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http://blogs.twincities.com/yourtechweblog/2009/12/east-metro-schoolchildren-use-apple-ipod-touch-in-class.html

East-metro schoolchildren use Apple iPod Touch in class – Your Tech Weblog via kwout

Julio Ojeda-Zapata offers some excellent perspectives on using iPod Touches in primary school in his Twin Cities Pioneer Tech Test Drive column.

Watching the student and teacher video clips, which make up the majority of this post, truly reveal the potential we have for learning engagement when we use technology appropriately.