A Tech-Happy Professor Reboots After Hearing His Teaching Advice Isn't Working - Technology. By Jeffrey R. Young Michael Wesch has been on the lecture circuit for years touting new models of active teaching with technology. The associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University has given TED talks. Wired magazine gave him a Rave Award. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching once named him a national professor of the year. But now Mr. The professor's popular talks have detailed his experiments teaching with Twitter, YouTube videos, collaborative Google Docs—and they present a general critique of the chalk-and-talk lecture as outmoded. To be fair, Mr.
Then a frustrated colleague approached him after one of his talks: "I implemented your idea, and it just didn't work," Mr. It was not an isolated incident. Mr. Learning From an 'Old Fogy' Christopher Sorensen also teaches at Kansas State University, and he too has been named a national teacher of the year. "You could say I'm an old fogy," he tells me sheepishly. Mr. Meanwhile, when Mr. As Mr. OLPC Part 2: Nicholas Negroponte on the Mideast and the XO 3 Tablet—and Why He May Not Ever Have to Build It. Robert Buderi10/7/10 Nicholas Negroponte walked into the Starbucks holding some sort of thin, tablet-like computer. I couldn’t tell what model, because it was zipped inside a carrying case—but I was hoping for a prototype of the XO 3, the next-generation tablet Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child Foundation wants to create for children in the developing world for something like $75 per machine.
“That’s not an iPad?” I asked, hoping it was not. “It is an iPad,” Negroponte replied, crushing my hopes for an exclusive early look at the envisioned device. “We’re fast, but not that fast.” We met last Friday at the Starbucks in the Galleria Mall, here in Cambridge, MA, not far from OLPC headquarters. While the dimensions of the iPad and planned XO 3 are very similar, the differences between the machines—one for upscale consumers, the other for children in developing nations—are profound.
Getting Laptops to Afghanistan and Gaza We spoke first about efforts to expand OLPC’s reach. Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. Text messaging 'improves children's spelling skills' The pupils, who did not already use a mobile phone, were split into two groups. Half were given a handset to use for texting over weekends and during the school holidays over a 10-week period. The remaining pupils formed a control group. Academics then gave pupils a series of reading, spelling and phonological awareness tests before and after the study.
Pupils’ reading and spelling was also monitored week-on-week. The research, to be published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning next month, found evidence of a “significant contribution of textism use to the children’s spelling development during the study”. This study, which took account of individual differences in IQ, found higher results in test scores recorded by children using mobile phones after 10 weeks compared with the start of the study.
“There is no evidence that children’s language play when using mobile phones is damaging literacy development.” Going to Harvard from your own bedroom. 21 March 2011Last updated at 03:04 By Merlin John Imperial College in London is making its lectures available online "In the online world you don't need to fill buildings or lecture theatres with people and you don't need to be trapped into a lecture timetable," says Peter Scott, director of the Open University's Knowledge Media Institute. The Open University, the UK's open access university, which allows people to study from home in their own time, has been an international pioneer of degree courses online. The university, with more than 263,000 students in 23 countries, has become a record breaker on the iTunes U service, which provides a digital library of materials for university students and staff.
Instead of music or movies, Apple's iTunes U provides a download service for lectures and resources from universities around the world. There have been 31 million downloads of OU materials, more than any other university, representing roughly 10% of all iTunes U downloads. Consumer power. News - US unplugged: manifold benefits of disconnected learning. Credit: Alamy Screen sirens: Students who bring laptops to lectures perform less well than students who do not, research suggests Jeremy Littau is an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who focuses on media and technology. The topic became intensely personal when he noticed something interesting about the students in his classes. Those who brought laptops with them, purportedly for note-taking, seemed to be performing less well than students who did not.
And not only were they distracted; so were their nearby classmates. "There's a halo effect, where people are being distracted by what's on the screen," says Littau. Apparently, some were. When he started surreptitiously tracking the performance of the laptop users, Littau found out something else about them: they were getting lower grades. "There are some times in life when you have to unplug," he says. "Technology tools are just that: they are tools. Multitasking or minds wandering? Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits. And check out the classroom. Does Junior’s learning style match the new teacher’s approach?
Or the school’s philosophy? Maybe the child isn’t “a good fit” for the school. Such theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how. Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention.
“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. No one knows for sure why. Dr. To Justify Every 'A,' Some Professors Hand Over Grading Power to Outsiders - Technology. By Jeffrey R. Young The best way to eliminate grade inflation is to take professors out of the grading process: Replace them with professional evaluators who never meet the students, and who don't worry that students will punish harsh grades with poor reviews. That's the argument made by leaders of Western Governors University, which has hired 300 adjunct professors who do nothing but grade student work. "They think like assessors, not professors," says Diane Johnson, who is in charge of the university's cadre of graders. "The evaluators have no contact with the students at all.
They don't know them. They don't know what color they are, what they look like, or where they live. Western Governors is not the only institution reassessing grading. These efforts raise the question: What if professors aren't that good at grading? Professors do score poorly when it comes to fair grading, according to a study published in July in the journal Teachers College Record. An Army of Graders Ms. Ms. Hans Rosling's new insights on poverty. Universities too focused on research, says Willetts. 9 September 2010Last updated at 13:42 Scientists have strongly opposed cuts to research Science Minister David Willetts has said the research-teaching balance has "gone wrong" in universities, after defending cuts to science research.
Addressing vice chancellors, he said he was shocked by how little teaching was valued in lecturers' promotions. Universities that relegated the importance of teaching risked "losing sight" of their mission, he said. Earlier, he defended plans unveiled on Wednesday to "raise the bar" on science research funded by the taxpayer. On Thursday, during a speech on the future of higher education, Mr Willetts said: "It remains hard to shift the impression that what really counts in higher education is research. He told the Universities UK annual conference he had found a report "shocking" that suggested only one in 10 senior promotions in top universities was influenced by teaching. Science cuts row Continue reading the main story Analysis.