How BYOD/T is Getting Easier, How it’s Getting Harder I’ve written more posts on BYOD/BYOT (Bring Your Own Device/Technology) than Sylvia Plath penned woebegone prose, so I’m going to put all of you out of your misery and promise you this is the last one. It’s been just over five school years now that I’ve invited students to bring their own wifi enabled devices into the classroom to use for learning. The first couple of years were a whirlwind of learning for everyone involved, but I can say fairly that the dust has settled quite a bit in the time since. Has it gotten easier or harder, you ask? And another thing: “easier” and “harder” aren’t exactly the most appropriate words here, but they’re as correct as one can get. Equity My experience doing BYOD has always been in relatively affluent public school communities. Stakeholder Support In the first few years of this initiative, my part-time job was as communicator and, unfortunately, evangelist for why BYOD should at least be allowed in a classroom. Apps and Software Focus and Attention
Background of the Issue - Tablets vs. Textbooks - ProCon.org (click to enlarge image) Summary of reader attitudes towards print books and e-books. Source: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Reading Habits Survey, "The Rise of E-Reading," libraries.pewinternet.org, Apr. 4, 2012 Publishing for the K-12 school market is an $8 billion industry, with three companies - McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - capturing about 85% of this market. Proponents of tablets say that they are supported by most teachers and students, are much lighter than print textbooks, and improve standardized test scores. Opponents of tablets say that they are expensive, too distracting for students, easy to break, and costly/time-consuming to fix. 2012 marked the first time that more people accessed the Internet via smartphones and tablets than desktop or laptop computers. Students using tablets in the classroom. 43% of Americans read online books, magazines, or newspapers. Drawing of a child carrying an overstuffed backpack.
The future is here: New ed tech targets the brain Measuring and even changing a student’s brain activity was once a science fiction concept. But technology advances are pushing to market more products that use attention levels and plasticity of the mind to raise academic achievement. “I think it’s the direction we have to go in,” says Tom Kelchner, director of special education at Goose Creek CISD in Texas, a district of 22,000 students outside Houston. “We have to look at innovative approaches based on research to do something different for students who have reading and math deficits, and we feel these cognitive development programs are part of the answer.” Over the summer, the district began implementing the program Cogmed Working Memory Training from Pearson in special education classrooms. Measuring attention At the end of the study session, students can see where their attention was highest and lowest, and go back to the exact place where attention dropped. Tapping neuroplasticity
Should tablets replace textbooks in K-12 schools? - Tablets vs. Textbooks - ProCon.org "Last week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan declared a war on paper textbooks. 'Over the next few years,' he said in a speech at the National Press Club, 'textbooks should be obsolete.' In their place would come a variety of digital-learning technologies, like e-readers and multimedia Web sites... ... ...With strength and durability that could last thousands of years, paper can preserve information without the troubles we find when our most cherished knowledge is stuck on an unreadable floppy disk or lost deep in the 'cloud.' The digitization of information offers important benefits, including instant transmission, easy searchability and broad distribution.
You will soon be able to run any Windows application on a Chromebook Google, VMware, and NVIDIA were on hand at VMworld 2014 to show off a collaborative effort utilizing VMware Blast Performance and NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology. The result will be high performance virtual desktops and workstation-class graphics for Chromebooks. Imagine getting hardware-accelerated graphics, and at the same time, enjoying the flexibility of a virtual environment. With the flexibility of the Chromebook, manufacturers can design complex 3D models and share them with engineers around the globe. “We are breaking down traditional barriers to adopting virtual desktops and offering new economics for the delivery of graphics-intensive applications through the power of the cloud,” said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. Chromebooks featuring NVIDIA Tegra K1-processors will be among the first ones to get access to this technology. What do you guys think? source: VMware » See more articles by Robert Nazarian
Tablets vs. Textbooks - ProCon.org Tablets help students learn more material faster. Technology-based instruction can reduce the time students take to reach a learning objective by 30-80%, according to the US Department of Education and studies by the National Training and Simulation Association. 81% of K-12 teachers believe that "tablets enrich classroom education." Tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks on one device, plus homework, quizzes, and other files, eliminating the need for physical storage of books and classroom materials. E-textbooks on tablets cost on average 50-60% less than print textbooks. Tablets help to improve student achievement on standardized tests. Tablets contain many technological features that cannot be found in print textbooks. Print textbooks are heavy and cause injuries, while a tablet only weighs 1-2 pounds. Tablets help students better prepare for a world immersed in technology. On a tablet, e-textbooks can be updated instantly to get new editions or information.
6 Entertaining Games Made Entirely in Microsoft Excel Excel — your friendly (and perhaps most dreaded) office tool. But it's not just for spreadsheets anymore. Believe it or not, you can turn the data-analyzing, number-cruncher into one unbelievably cool game. The Microsoft software has a few secrets up its sleeve; many people have managed to design new games or recreate classics like Monopoly from its offerings. Below, we've highlighted six games made entirely in Microsoft Excel. Note: For most of these games, you'll need to enable macros. You may have heard of the addicting game 2048 by Gabriele Cirulli. In 2048 two tiles of the same number can merge into a new tile that equals the total value of the two. The geniuses at Spreadsheet1.com built an Excel version that allows you to play the game, and track your moves to help analyze your strategy. But what if you want to play this game and be discrete at work? To download this sneaky version, click here. 2. In four days, Canadian accountant Cary Walkin created Candy Number Crunch Saga. 3. 5.
Track & Rate Skills Directly in Google Drive Track & Rate Skills Directly in Google Drive One of my favorite tools for providing feedback in Google Drive is Kaizena, which allows you to leave voice comments on documents. Today Kaizena launches an enhanced feature: tags. Here is a summary of what these new features in Kaizena can do: Track and rate skills - tags can be rubric criteria, common core standards, your local state, region, or country’s standards, learning objectives or outcomes…anything. Voice comments saved educators time while enabling better student outcomes, and tags continue this legacy: Better student outcomes Knowledge of strengths and weaknesses is a prerequisite for improvementTransparency: showing the evidence behind a rubric score builds trust between educators and students Save time Re-use your feedbackGet rubric criteria out of your head as you read Like this: Like Loading... About Jennifer Carey My name is Jennifer Carey and I am a student and educator of the human condition.
Advanced Level Projects with Scratch: Fun with Fractals In his book Program or Be Programmed, author Douglas Rushkoff describes computer programming as an essential literacy for the 21st century. It makes sense, as we recognize the importance of teaching students to communicate by listening and speaking, and we go to great lengths to teach reading and writing. Now, in an increasingly digital world, we should ensure that our students have experience using and making programs. In our previous tutorials about elementary and intermediate level Scratch, we practiced programming by using code to draw 2D geometric shapes commonly covered in elementary mathematics curriculums. There is an interesting example of recursion found in nature called a fractal. Here's How A Quick Review Visit scratch.mit.edu. 1st Challenge: Basic setup and variable creation. 2nd Challenge: Make three custom blocks for drawing fractal art. The "Make A Block" feature allows you create custom procedures that you can reuse in your Scratch projects. How It Works (Click to enlarge.)
Twitter for Teachers: A Quick Start Guide Technology is a growing part of the classroom, with tablets and smart TVs quickly integrating themselves into the curriculum. But fast-paced change – and the fact that students are often miles ahead of both teachers and parents when it comes to the latest apps and social networks – can intimidate even the most tech-savvy teacher. Here’s a quick-start guide for teachers who are looking to incorporate Twitter into their classroom as a learning tool, without getting lost in the millions of tweets sent every day. There are a variety of ways that teachers can use Twitter to augment their student’s time in the classroom, a number of which we outline below. To broadcast On the simpler end of the spectrum, Twitter can be used as a secondary, online bulletin board. You could also use Twitter to broadcast links to additional reading that expands on the course content, or your own thoughts and opinions to help students understand complex topics. To learn To discuss Resources for teachers
Save This List! 21 Top Websites for Social Studies Teachers Every day on our Facebook page, teachers post "Helpline" questions and receive resource recommendations, lesson and classroom management ideas, career advice, and so much more. Recently, a high school teacher asked readers to suggest their favorite sites for teaching social studies. The list was so awesome, we just had to share it! 1. iCivics icivics.org 2.
Cracking The Code To Teams: What Educators Can Learn From Programmers | EdSurge News While so many educators devour books on leadership and attend lots of conferences, their efforts often fall short when they try to achieve game-changing goals with teams. What if the secret lies with programmers? What if they’ve cracked the code on achieving big goals with teams and it’s a matter of educators learning their strategies? The secret is an organized approach to work programmers call “scrum.” Once you get past the name, you’ll realize it’s a process that has a lot to offer educators. How Does It Work? Scrum is a team-based approach many software engineers take to develop products. During daily “stand ups,” each team member shares three things: (1) actions taken yesterday; (2) actions to be taken today; and (3) any obstacles thwarting today’s actions. Takeaways for Educators 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What Could This Look Like in Schools? Students: Student leaders, such as athletic team captains, club and publication leaders, and others, can develop sprint goals with their teams.