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Gadgetbox - Apple vs. the textbook: Can education go paperless?
Apple's move into textbooks. Perhaps bumpy at first but with lots of potential. I have seen a lot of favorable thoughts with the Apple announcement. Here is a note from MSNBC I thought expressed a concern of many. Great article about the announcement that is balanced and not just fanboy worship that we get from many sites. ". Can Apple control quality and manage the educational boards? As soon as the iBooks Author tool was introduced, many Apple watchers who had previously witnessed the garbaging up of the iTunes App Store — with useless or redundant fart or flashlight apps — let out a collective sigh. How long until the shiny new corner of the iBookstore, where the textbooks will reside, is filled with hastily made, low-quality products, or worse yet, works of high quality that nevertheless contain misleading or unsubstantiated information."
Saturday, January 28, 2012
eBooks and Book News (weekly)
Friday, January 27, 2012
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 01/27/2012
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5 Ways Teachers Can Raise Standardized Test Scores | Education Is My Life
This teacher reflects on the practices he feels have raised test scores in his classroom. Test scores are a fact and until it is changed at the top, teachers in the classroom have to work within that environment.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/27/2012
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The Press Association: Brown wants global education fund
Move to global education fund but funding is hard to come by. This article implies it is easier to raise money for diseases than to educate people. That is sad. "All 193 United Nations member states are signed up to a Global Millennium Goal for primary school education to be accessed by every child by 2015, agreed at the New York Millennium Summit in 2000. In the current funding set-up, countries with the biggest out-of-school populations, such as Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are not eligible for grants from the World Bank's Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Despite being the leading worldwide education fund, the GPE recently failed to raise a pledges target of 2.5 billion US dollars (£1.6 billion) over three years and has been criticised for a lack of flexibility in allocating grants.".
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Anonymous Goes After World Governments in Wake of Anti-SOPA Protests | Threat Level | Wired.com
Conversation has moved from SOPA to ACTA, an international treaty supposedly supported by the enetertainment industry. Hackers are targeting governments and businesses in opposition to SOPA and now are targeting those in support of this new treaty which does not require legislative approval in most countries.
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Expanding ICT in sub-Saharan Africa is a great thing. How far will $1million go when the Internet is so expensive in many parts of Africa. But it is a start for this joint partnership announced at Microsoft's partners in learning conference in DC this past November.
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Integrating text to speech is great but it should be in every e textbook for every student. At least this is a start. ".HMH is proud to be the first to offer text-to-speech functionality with every online social studies student edition for grades 6-12,” to said Melissa Counihan, Vice President, K-12 Literacy and Social Studies Segment Management, HMH"
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India Shining - Bharat Drowning | GroundReport
India is upset over a recent international test that put their 15 year olds second from the bottom in test scores. ".Comparing scores, it’s estimated that an Indian eighth grader is at the level of a South Korean third grader in math abilities or a second-year student from Shanghai when it comes to reading skills."
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MPAA chairman Chris Dodd expresses regret over pro-SOPA strategy, calls for compromise | The Verge
Understand one of the leaders behind SOPA and you'll know that this is not going away any time soon.
"Dodd blames the bills' reduced support on a slow timeline that allowed opposition to mobilize, but also on a strategy that ended up making the anti-piracy effort seem specifically about helping Hollywood. His own efforts were also limited by a law that prevents him from lobbying Congress directly within two years of leaving office."
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 01/25/2012
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Circus Physics | Classroom | Circus | PBS
Circus physics videos from PBS. (Hat tip to Richard Byrne for this great set of videos.) There are 8 short videos that use circus performers to teach physics concepts.
Edu app news: apps, ebooks, and sites for your classroom #mlearning 01/25/2012
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PowerSchool Parent - Pearson School Systems
We will enable this next year at our school but PowerSchool parent is an app with many downloads. This is the link to the itunes store.
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(Good) Free App of the Day! LEGO App 4+ - Educational Apps For Kids
My son loves everything Lego including this cute (free) app.
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Pocket Schedule - Classes, Exams & Assignments - BlueTags
This app is a top paid app in the iTunes store. It is a new one to bit the charts.
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Audiobooks.com Launches a Spotify for Books
Awesome! "For $24.95 a month, the service will give users unlimited access to its library of 11,000 audio books through its website and an HTML5 mobile app. Though Amazon-owned competitor Audible has a monthly membership, it relies on a credit system that gives users access to a certain number of books per month depending on the fee. Audiobooks is the first service we can find that is streaming books using a monthly model. "
Learning about Learning: Research and Edreform News and Views 01/25/2012
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IQ Drops When You’re In a Group | Psych Central News
IQ is linked to social context. Does this mean mainstreaming is wrong? Right? Depending on who you are? ". Provocative new research discovers small-group dynamics can lower the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. In the study, researchers determined IQ is significantly linked to social context."
IQ depends upon social context? If this research is proven to be true it could change how we measure and understand IQ. "“This study tells us the idea that IQ is something we can reliably measure in isolation without considering how it interacts with social context is essentially flawed,” said coauthor Steven Quartz, Ph.D. “Furthermore, this suggests that the idea of a division between social and cognitive processing in the brain is really pretty artificial. The two deeply interact with each other.” . -
News | New research shows stress can make you pile on the pounds
Are all of your teachers gaining weight? maybe it is a sign of deeper problems or a toxic work environment. I have seen it happen and believe it. Of course, are you stressed because you are heavy or are you heavy because you are stressed? " Research has found the answer. Apparently stress is the biggest cause of overeating for more than half of the country’s adults."
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Sloan-C’s Definition of 'Online Course' May Be Out of Sync with Reality ~ Stephen's Web
How do you determine what an online course is? I love Stephen Downes' tongue in cheek thought on how this is being defined. great points.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/25/2012
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This app is interesting not onky because it is a very simple free text editor bit it is open source "charityware." I cannt recall hearning the term charityware but they have a suggested charity they would like you to donate to if you like the app. That is a great idea.
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Google is open sourcing Google Sky Map for Android. ".Today, we are delighted to announce that we are going to share Sky Map in a different way: we are donating Sky Map to the community. We are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in an exciting partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects. Sky Map’s development will now be driven by the students, with Google engineers remaining closely involved as advisors. Additionally, we have open-sourced the app so that other astronomy enthusiasts can take the code and augment it as they wish."
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Gadgetbox - Apple vs. the textbook: Can education go paperless?
Apple's move into textbooks. Perhaps bumpy at first but with lots of potential. I have seen a lot of favorable thoughts with the Apple announcement. Here is a note from MSNBC I thought expressed a concern of many. Great article about the announcement that is balanced and not just fanboy worship that we get from many sites. ". Can Apple control quality and manage the educational boards? As soon as the iBooks Author tool was introduced, many Apple watchers who had previously witnessed the garbaging up of the iTunes App Store — with useless or redundant fart or flashlight apps — let out a collective sigh. How long until the shiny new corner of the iBookstore, where the textbooks will reside, is filled with hastily made, low-quality products, or worse yet, works of high quality that nevertheless contain misleading or unsubstantiated information."
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Japan Reviews Disaster Plan Amid New Quake Concerns - WSJ.com
Japan has work to do. This is heartbreaking indeed. From the Wall Street Journal. ".Underscoring the risks facing Japan, a new research institute investigation has determined there is a 70% chance of a magnitude-7 earthquake striking the Tokyo metropolitan area within the next four years, and 98% over 30 years. The March 2011 earthquake was a magnitude-9."
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Finnish Miracles & American Myths : 2¢ Worth
David Warlick's reflection on the miracle of Finland's flourishing education system is a great read.
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Sloan-C’s Definition of 'Online Course' May Be Out of Sync with Reality ~ Stephen's Web
How do you determine what an online course is? I love Stephen Downes' tongue in cheek thought on how this is being defined. great points.
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North Sanpete School District In Utah Sued Over Student's Suicide
Sad, but this is happening. I do have to wonder that if it was that bad should the parents have moved him? The parents are suing the school for notbprotectingz their child from bulkying and false accusations. I was bullied. Simple answers dont exist.
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Expect the FTC to take a closer look at Google who will be tracking your activity across all their products as of March 1st with no choice to ot out. what are they doing with google apps for ed?
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Apple's First Quarter Earnings: The Unbelievable Numbers
Apples envious numbers have everyone talking. ".Big test looming? Grockit is a social study tool that’s customizable and connects you with friends on Facebook. Study guides are available for middle school, high school, college and graduate students — from the SAT to GRE. The program has some hefty research behind it, too. Experts in curriculum design who’ve worked for Apple and Houghton Mifflin helped create some of the lesson plans on the app. Study solo or connect with study partners on Grockit. Let your Facebook friends know you’re studying on Grockit and boast about the latest badges you’ve earned on the site."
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