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Smarter Choice
By: Sheryl Lane     

 

With the advancement of technology, educators’ are facing new challenges in a dynamic learning environment, having to cope with emerging Advanced Education Tools some of which familiar to their students. And when students are so smart – what’s more challenging than “Smarter Classroom”?

 

How Surface Computing May Transform the Classroom

By: Eric Durrand 

In what seems like a shock and awe campaign from Microsoft, it has unveiled at the end of last month the new and unexpected Microsoft Surface.
 

Sufrace is a new kind of computer, a computer embedded in a coffee table, without a mouse or a keyboard, interacting with users using multi-touch technology. 

By: Eric Durrand

Course Management Systems have been around since the mid-1990s, becoming popular in colleges around the world as a convenient way to disseminate reading materials to students, and fostering discussion and exploration beyond the classroom walls. In recent years, however, these solutions have evolved into complete Virtual Learning Environments; often offering not only reading materials, discussions and live chats, but also self-assessment quizzes, an online gradesbook, student portfolios, and distance learning functions.

Perhaps because of the wealth of options, covering every aspect of learning, many K12 schools see the Virtual Learning Environments as a replacement or a threat to traditional classroom teaching, and fail to implement even a more balanced approach. "Blended learning," is a term used nowadays to connote a combination of classroom learning with online tools - and it is becoming more popular in schools around the country.

What we saw at the Tech-Ed 2007 Conference in California
By: Eric Durrand

Podcasting, distance learning, and educational web solutions were "all the rage" in March's Tech-Ed 2007 in Ontario, California. Tech-Ed is an annual conference featuring the latest technologies destined to change education in and out of the classroom. This year, we have seen some fascinating new technologies.

As educators from all over the country walked in and out of technology classes, vendors set up the impressive exhibit hall with over 130 booths and displays. Companies like Podandgo and Tegrity showed educators how schools can easily create and manage their own podcasts and videocasts to supplement classroom experience, while Apple held classes demonstrating how easy it is to create podcasts using GarageBand3, an application which is part of the new iLife. Just record, drag and drop images in the right place for illustrations, and publish through iTunes. Apple also revealed iTunes U, a program in which colleges can manage a complete collection of course recordings, and make it available online as podcasts for students or the general public. Universities like Standford, UC Berkley, Harvard, and The Fuqua School of Business at Duke, are already using the program, some offering free access to multiple recorded courses!

By: Eric Durrand

  YouTube, you think, is that web site where people post silly videos of themselves or their pets, and not an educational tool. It's where you can see people juggling, amateur moviemakers trying to break into the public consciousness, and funny videoclips of teenagers lipsynching popular songs. But a quick search of YouTube's hundreds of thousands of video clips will reveal many educational videos, from popular How To guides to K12 teacher groups focused on recorded lessons and instructional videos. There is even this amusing videoclip explaining to students of the I.S. 109 school of Queens, NY why they have to tuck their shirts in when they come to school.

    The truth is, video sharing online has great educational potential. Posting lesson summaries in video form is extremely easy to do, if you have a web cam. You can also post recordings of fun scientific experiments, interviews, or selected clips from educational TV programs you might show in class. Video, perhaps more than any other medium, has the power to engage, enlighten, and fascinate your students. And by using a popular medium like YouTube, one of the most popular web sites of all time, you are fitting into your students existing habits and surrounding, making it easy for them to access your material, and projecting a more updated image for your class or school.  

How OLPC made a $150 laptop a reality.

By: Eric Durrand

Children are much quicker in mastering new technologies than adults generally are. In schools around the country, programs exist in which students teach their teachers about computers and the internet. Young children intuitively grasp, through trial and error, the workings of new machines, and through that experience, some experts claim, they “learn how to learn.”

A child who has access to his own computer will generally spend time mastering it, and through it, via Internet, will gain access to vast resources of human knowledge unavailable in any but the most complete libraries.

But the restrictive cost of laptops had made impossible, until now, a vision of laptops as universally accessible and affordable. Until now, because One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization based in Cambridge, MA, has succeeded in mass producing a laptop that will sell for about $150. Compared to even the a low-end Dell laptop, which sells for around $500, the new laptop will be mass produced and shipped only as part of government programs, usually in 3rd world countries.