Monthly Archives: July 2011

10 Major Mobile Learning Trends to Watch For

July 29, 2011 | 12:00 PM | By

TB

Mobile devices in education are becoming more ubiquitous.

Technology has been used in the classroom for decades now. But with the advent of cloud computing and the proliferation of smaller, more portable computers and Internet-capable devices, it’s now possible to bring the classroom into the technology instead. Mobile learning, focuses on learning through mobile devices, allowing learners to move about in a classroom or remotely learn from the location of their choice. The movement has gained a lot of steam in recent years, and despite some criticisms, isn’t likely to fade fast – especially as new technologies that make mobile learning more practical continue to emerge and the popularity of remote learning opportunities like online colleges continue to grow.

While the applications of mobile learning are growing all the time, Online College has highlighted some of the major trends here, showing the changes in how we teach, learn and interact in educational environments.

  1. Location-based integration. Mobile learning has taken to the streets, with technologies that allow for seamless integration with a wide range of locations. One of the best uses of this technology has been within museums, where visitors can use a mobile device to listen to information about items in the museum’s collection. The American Museum of Natural History in New York is one museum with an especially rich mobile tool, guiding users turn-by-turn to the best pieces in the museum’s collection and enhancing the experience of visiting. Of course, mobile integration isn’t just for museums. Some colleges are using it to create high-tech tours for visiting students and their families. With millions of smartphone users and the number growing larger each year, this trend is likely to grow as more businesses and organizations work to enrich the patron experience.
  2. The domination of ebooks. Amazon is one of the biggest retailers of books, but in the past year, their sales of ebooks has outstripped that of traditional books. The same holds true for bookselling giant Barnes and Noble. The ebook is steadily becoming a popular part of everyday life for many Americans, and the digital book is slowly making its way into the classroom as well. Some states, like California, have proposed replacing student textbooks with ebooks. Not only could it be a big money saver, it may help eliminate the problem of student textbooks becoming quickly outdated as new discoveries are made, something every teacher and child can appreciate.
  3. Cloud computing in schools. Cloud computing is a big buzzword these days, with tech companies like Microsoft and Apple pushing their devices and applications — and schools haven’t ignored the hype. Schools are increasingly looking to cloud computing as a way to provide access to information and to close budget gaps. An inexpensive solution, cloud computing is becoming the norm everywhere from grade schools to grad schools, perhaps because it is not only simple to use, but mobile as well. Information on the cloud, whether for lesson plans or class projects, can be accessed from anywhere, anytime and on any mobile device. In an increasingly mobile world and classroom, cloud computing is more than just a trend, and is likely to become the standard in information management over the next decade.
  4. Bring-your-own-device classrooms. Since most kids these days already have access to a mobile device, schools are seizing the opportunity to turn these gadgets from distractions into learning tools by incorporating these devices into classroom lessons and projects. From mobile phones to laptop computers, teachers and students are increasingly bringing technology to the classroom, and in many school districts, it’s being put to good use. Numerous studies have highlighted the benefits of one-to-one computing programs in raising test scores and increasing college attendance, but with many districts strapped for cash and unable to provide devices for each student, this isn’t always a possibility. The solution may be found in asking students to bring their own devices to class, cutting back on the number of mobile devices the school needs to provide while still enhancing the learning experience.
  5. Online collaborative learning. There aren’t a lot of places these days that are devoid of an Internet connection, and many people can now access the web from, well, anywhere they can get a cell phone signal. Schools are embracing the web as a learning tool in a variety of ways, but one particularly exciting one has been the growth of online collaborative learning. This can mean a variety of things, but in many cases it involves students each participating in a project on the web. Numerous classrooms have taken to collaboratively blogging about projects and ideas in the classroom. Others have produced their own podcasts. Still others ask students to work together to create a multimedia website. These kinds of projects not only help students learn to work together, but educate them on technological tools they’ll need to use in their academic and professional lives. The popularity of these kinds of lessons isn’t likely to fade anytime soon. Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech, mobile, Mobile Learning

Weekly News Roundup

July 29, 2011 | 11:13 AM | By

Flickr:WilliamC

  • The National Science Foundation announced this week that it was kicking off a new program called Innovation Corps to help transform promising academic research projects into viable startups. Starting this fall, the NSF will provide 100 science and engineering projects with $50,000 in funding and will enroll them in a crash course on entrepreneurship, taught by Stanford’s Steve Blank.
  • Digital textbook (and former academic tablet) maker Kno released the results of a study this week in which it found — no surprise — that college students are unhappy with high cost and cumbersome weight of textbooks. The attention-grabbing stat may be that 25% of college students surveyed said that they’d be willing to give up sex or dating to never have to carry textbooks again. More troubling, 45% said they’ve had to cut back on buying food in order to afford their textbooks. According to the survey, 71% of students said they’re interested in digital alternatives to print.
  • Akademos announced that it will launch a new educational textbook app, and its first partner will be the OER textbook provider Flat World Knowledge.
  • The research collaboration platform Mendeley left beta this week with the official release of Mendeley v1.0. Mendeley allows you to gather and organize your research notes and build bibliographies, as well as interact with other researchers and academics.
  • Evernote Peek, a nifty app that turns your iPad cover into a flashcard study system, had its first update this week. It now supports audio clues (and to help showcase the new functionality, Evernote has created a couple of new notebook with French and Spanish phrases and bird calls). The app now also lets you share your notebooks, great for group study sessions.
  • Khan Academy has launched a new exercise system, offering more exercises for students to practice the concepts they’re learning via the site. Khan Academy’s John Resig outlines some of the development on the back-end that went into re-engineering the exercise framework.
  • DonorsChoose.org has announced the grand prize winner of its recent Hacking Education contest: Michael Nutt, who developed a dynamic email signature that updated with DonorsChoose classroom projects, was handed his trophy by Stephen Colbert.
  • Group-buying site Groupon offered a special deal this week to the residents of its hometown Chicago where a $12 deal went towards buying low-income students in the city back-to-school supplies, including glue, erasers, markers, pencils, notebooks and the like. According to the Chicago Tribune, about 85% of the district’s 409,000 students come from low-income families. Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech

The Flip: Why I Love It, How I Use It

July 28, 2011 | 3:00 PM | By

Flickr: Mike Baird

By

I love the flip. I do. And I realize by saying this I’m making a controversial statement. I believe if used judiciously, in the right context, the flip can free up valuable class time and provide the background knowledge that is fundamental for students to then go forward and wrestle with higher order thinking.

The flip that I’m talking about is the flipped classroom or reverse instruction.  It’s called the flip because, essentially, it reverses traditional teaching. Instead of lectures occurring in the classroom and assignments being done at home, the opposite occurs. Lectures are viewed at home by students, via videos or podcasts, and class time is devoted to assignments or projects based on this knowledge. It’s different from traditional homework because students know that we won’t spend the next class period going over the content they’ve engaged with at home. Instead, we’ll use it as a springboard into deeper discussion and activities. Brilliant.

As much as I like the flip, I don’t believe that it’s the savior of education (or the epitome of evil) as some would suggest. The point of the flip is to capture more of the time when teacher and students are together for deeper learning — to create more opportunities to apply knowledge and skills to challenging in-class assignments. Bottom line: it’s not always the right instructional choice, it’s only one tool in our educational repertoire. But it can be a powerful one.

Bottom line: It’s not always the right instructional choice, it’s only one tool in our educational repertoire. But it can be a powerful one.

Some believe that the flip is somehow designed to replace teachers.  I think that’s only possible if you think the most important, or sole, job that I perform in my classroom is content dispenser. I don’t believe that at all.

As a teacher, my job is to facilitate my students’ acquisition of skills and understanding.  I do that using different kinds of content. I also challenge them, encourage them, believe in them,  love them, and offer correction when necessary.  The most important thing I do in my classroom is show students how to dig deep, solve problems, and reflect carefully on the constant stream of information that inundates us all. At the same time, I’m modelling important learning skills that they’ll need for the rest of their lives. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Flipped classroom, Shelley Wright

New Educational Apps of the Month

July 28, 2011 | 1:00 PM | By

At the end of month, we review some of our favorite educational apps that have been released or updated over the last thirty days. (Read our previous months’ reviews.) Below you’ll find a mixture of iOS, Android, and Web-based apps.

  • NASA VISUALIZATION EXPLORER

NASA’s latest iPad app, the NASA Visualization Explorer (iTunes, free) brings some of NASA’s research to the tablet. Developed in conjunction with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the app includes visuals straight from NASA’s satellites. The app includes high-resolution movies and still, as well as short stories and interviews helping to explain the material and the steps NASA takes in its research. NASA says it plans to update the app with two new science features per week.

  • WRECK THIS APP

Wreck This App (iTunes, $4.99) takes Keri Smith’s bestselling Wreck This Journal and turns it into an iPad app. For those unfamiliar with the title, Wreck This Journal encourages creativity through destruction, if you will, by encouraging people to paint, tear, poke holes, and scribble, challenging what it means to be creative within the pages of a journal. Wreck This App takes this concept and digitizes it, so users can doodle, scribble and deface the app.

Of course, you’re not really wrecking the app the same way you wreck a printed journal, as you can erase your digital marks and tears and then wreck the app again and again.

  • KONA’S CRATE

Kona’s Crate (iTunes and Android Market, $.99) is an incredibly fun puzzle game available for iOS and Android devices. The game requires you maneuver a jetpack in order to deliver crates to Chief Kona.

How is this educational you ask? Well, recently Angry Birds has received a lot of attention for its use of physics and for its educational potential, and while I haven’t seen physics teachers rush to use Kona’s Crate in the classroom in the same way, I’d contend it offers a similar sort of physic-oriented play, forcing users to think carefully (and move quickly) about motion and thrust.

  • POP-IT

The creation of the artist Raghava KK, Pop-It is an interactive children’s book that aims to teach teach open-mindedness while exploring the relationships between kids and their parents (iTunes, $1.99).

The parents in the book are gay, but when you shake the app, the parents become lesbians or straight couples. In an interview with Mashable, Raghava said that “It’s a metaphor for shaking from one perspective to another. The relationship between parent and child does not change if they have two moms, two dads. I’m challenging the concept of family.”

  • SUMMER OF SECRETS

We’ve covered the gaming studio Silicon Sisters before here on MindShift, with its work building video games for girls. The studio has just released its second title, School 26: Summer of Secrets (iTunes, $2.99). The theme of “social mastery” continues in this game, as the main character Kate and her friends navigate the social pitfalls of tween and teen life.

“Our first School 26 game was about fitting in at a new school. Now that Kate has a network of friends, Summer of Secrets is more about being yourself and seeing the impact of your choices,” says Silicon Sisters co-founder Kirsten Forbes. “As you play, the game tracks your decisions and presents you with a personality profile based on your playing style. So while you’re helping Kate sort out all of these secrets, you’ll also learn something about yourself.”

Have any favorites that we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Can Learning How to Blog Change Makeal’s Life?

July 28, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By

How can learning to blog make a lasting impact on a 12-year-old boy living in a rough, East Oakland neighborhood?

In the second installment of MindShift’s My Education series, which examines whether technology in learning can have a lasting impact on low-income kids through the perspective of one child, the question focuses on Makeal Surrell, a sweet-natured kid who lives with his two sisters and his aunt/guardian a few blocks from Elmhurst Community Prep (ECP) middle school.

Last year, Makeal missed more than 20 days of school, partly due to being sick from asthma. But since he started an after-school blogging apprenticeship with Google, through the Citizen Schools enrichment program, his absences have declined. During the spring semester, Makeal and his classmates were bussed once a week to the Google offices in San Francisco, where they were taught by Google employees all about blogging. By the end of the semester, Makeal had published his own blog about his favorite subject: skateboarding.

Or at least a little about skateboarding. During the spring semester, Makeal published eight posts consisting of mostly videos, photos, and a couple of short written entries. And though he started with three skateboarding-related posts, he moved onto other subjects that interested him: movie reviews and rap videos.

And that was the point — to get Makeal and his classmates a medium for their self-expression, as they learn technical skills like how to create a blog and upload content.

“The idea is to give them confidence as they move through school and potentially enter the workplace.”

“The educational environments … that have most impact will be the ones that create opportunities for kids to create digital media literacies that we all recognize as important and that have social implications, educational implications and civic implications, as well,” said S. Craig Watkins, author of The Young and the Digital in a recent interview. “So we have to equip kids with skills that help them not just to consume, but to become architects of their information environment.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Citizen Schools, digital-divide, Elmhurst Community Prep, extended learning day, Google, project-based-learning

How to Make Google+ Friends with Facebook and Twitter

July 27, 2011 | 2:59 PM | By

Attempting to lasso your social networking tools? There might be a chance.


A browser plug-in shows how easily the “big three” social networks could coexist. In just a couple of weeks, Google’s new social network, Google+, has drawn an estimated 20 million users. For some, it offers the chance to “do a reset” on Facebook by starting over without the legions of unwanted friends they’ve acquired on Facebook.

— www.technologyreview.com