Mobile Learning Proves to Benefit At-Risk Students Digital Tools Teaching Strategies Wireless Reach/Qualcomm As we explore the potential of mobile learning, especially as it relates to reaching out to disenfranchised students, the most recent results from Project K-Nect seem that much more relevant. The pilot program based in North Carolina, which we covered here on MindShift, was designed to make math more engaging for low-income kids with the use of mobile phones in Onslow County School System. This is just a math program. In its third year, the program has more than proven successful. By the end of the fall 2010 semester, 89 percent of the Algebra I students reported they are more motivated to learn math compared to 76 percent at the beginning of the semester. 90 percent of the Project K-Nect students in Algebra I and 100 percent of the Algebra II students demonstrated proficiency on their end of course exams. And this is just a math program. Related Explore: Mobile Learning, Project K-Nect, Qualcomm, Wireless Reach
Online video lessons flipping classrooms left and right In soothing tones, he explains everything from chemistry to credit default swaps, from algebra to economics, to about 2 million students a month, imparting roughly 200,000 lessons a day. And Salman Khan never loses his voice. As an educator, he's just now finding it, as the improbable creator of a free, Web-based video library whose pitch-perfect approach to bedeviling concepts has vaulted him into the education reform conversation — in Colorado and worldwide. "It's weird for me," says the 34-year-old Khan. That task has expanded a bit since he first lashed together an online algebra lesson to help a cousin. Using technology to reach schools and homes around the world as either a stand-alone curriculum or a supplemental tool, the nonprofit Khan Academy (khanacademy.org) has doubled its users from over just three months ago and increased its audience 10-fold over last fall. Actually, the celebrity part is coming — and quickly. He also recently appeared on "The Colbert Report."
100 Apps for Tech-Savvy Teachers Are you a teacher now or studying to become one in the future? Have you been looking for a handy list of digital apps that will help you organize your life inside and outside the classroom? Well, you have come to the right place. With the world around us becoming more technologically advanced every day, developers are creating apps designed specifically to make your life as an educator easier. Check out our 100 helpful apps below! If you’re pressed for time or you simply don’t want to scroll through them all, click on the category you are looking to skip ahead to: Classroom Learning Communication Tools Personal Organization Reference Teaching Tools Classroom Learning 1. 4 Dice: Fraction Games “The goal of the game is to hit the target by working backwards Jeopardy style by giving the answer first. - Justin Holladay, math teacher and game developer. Download: iOS 2. 5 Dice: Order of Operations - Justin Holladay Download: iOS 3. Download: iOS 4. “Allows kids to practice math facts in an engaging way. 5.
iPads For All: One Sales Team's Story - Global-cio - Executive insights/interviews Level 3 just gave iPads to its entire North American sales team, and IT packed them with apps customized to their jobs. Level 3 Communications just gave iPads to its 1,300 North American salespeople and sales engineers. IT didn't take away their laptops, but it did load the iPads with software to do all the most important things in a salesperson's life: offer price quotes, build and make presentations, send email, look up customer records, check products. Level 3's sense of urgency is a reminder of just how fast tablets are moving into mobile workers' lives. 2011 was the year of pilot tests. 2012 is the year companies will roll out iPads by the thousands to entire sales and service teams, packing them with purpose-built business applications, not just generic email, browsers, and off-the-shelf productivity apps. Level 3, which sells telecom and network services, provides iPads with cellular connections so salespeople are always connected, but much of the app also works offline.
Getting to Know a Digital Textbook by Terence W. Cavanaugh When I switched to open source digital textbooks, I created a series of activities to help students better learn how to use the textbook in digital form. I added a textbook item to the course menu. Then I adapted the textbook to be available in a few formats, providing access to the book not only online, but also so that it would be available to them in downloadable versions in ePub and AZW so that they could be read offline and on ebook readers and smart phones. The students learn more about digital textbooks through an activity I call, "getting to know your textbook" (see lesson below). As an online option for text-to-speech, students are shown how to use University of Washington’s WebAnywhere ( Students are shown how they can use note-taking software as an option to collect information from a book. Lesson/Activity: Getting To Know Your Digital Textbook OBJECTIVE(s): 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 4. a. b. 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Is Technology Making Your Students Stupid? - Technology By Marc Parry Multimedia—dangerous! Online research—depthless! Classroom screens—dubious! If you're looking for a contrarian take on technology, Nicholas Carr is your man. Now the 51-year-old, Colorado-based writer has published a new book, The Shallows, which warns that the Internet is rewiring our brains and short-circuiting our ability to think. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. The other is the study by James Evans that was in Science magazine a couple of years ago. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A.
3 Must-Have Technology Tools For Your Classroom Classrooms need more than just chalk and a few notebooks. There’s a plethora of technology out there but how do you choose what’s right for you? What’s the best technology for your particular classroom? Here are a few examples of helpful technology perfect for teachers young and old. eReaders Teachers are finding that the addition of eReaders, or electronic books, are providing a different level of knowledge enhancement. Public schools are perpetually under strict budget limitations; the addition of an eReader for each student seemed impossible. Amazon’s Kindle eReader has led the way into many school districts; executives at Amazon realized the untapped educational applications and began offering textbooks through the Kindle platform. For example, a teacher may only use one or two chapters from one particular niche textbook; if the school district had to purchase this physical textbook for just a few chapters, the administration would never approve of the investment. Wi-Fi Tablets
Product Tour - SoapBox GoSoapBox is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive student response system for educators to use in their classrooms. Leveraging web-enabled devices, teachers digitally engage students to conduct formative assessment and gain insight into student comprehension that was never before possible. Know Who's Confused GoSoapBox's intuitive Confusion Barometer lets students indicate whether or not they are getting it. No More Wasted Q&A Time Time is scarce during class. Only interested in Q&A? Make Class Lively with Real-Time Polls GoSoapBox offers dead-simple, customizable polling. Create Quizzes for Easy Formative Assessment Create a Quiz in GoSoapBox and download a grade report later. Tailor GoSoapBox to Your Style We built GoSoapBox to be remarkably malleable. Students Can be Anonymous Sometimes it's better for students to interact anonymously. Download Activity and Grade Reports We make it easy to download graded spreadsheets and reports on class activity. Get Started Now
learning as a way of being Mobile learning in developing countries in 2012: What's Happening? | A World Bank Blog on ICT use in Education In recent chats with officials from [an un-named country], I learned of the desire of educational policymakers there to leap frog e-learning through m-learning. This made an impression on me -- and not only because it succinctly was able to encapsulate four educational technology buzzwords within a five-word "vision statement". In many ways, this encounter helped confirm my belief that a long-anticipated new era of hype is now upon us, taking firm root in the place where the educational technology and international donor communities meet, with "m-" replacing "e-" at the start of discussions of the use of educational technologies. My 'evidence' in support of this observation is admittedly anecdotal (and personal), and, contrary to standard operating procedure here at the World Bank, not gathered in any sort of rigorous way. So the topic is generating increasing heat in many quarters ... is there any accompanying illumination to help guide us in our related decisions? Some final comments: