Dave McDivitt on using InQuizitor in School

“I heard quotes like, “this game is awesome even though I don’t know the answers.” But what continued to happen is that student after student kept taking the quiz over and over again. Which obviously exposes them to material again and again.”

Author: Dave McDivitt, 18th April 2008

Full article available here.

‘Hybrid’ courses show promise

One educator demonstrates that blending face-to-face and online instruction can lead to better student grades and understanding.

“Hybrid courses,” or courses that deliver part of their instruction in a traditional lecture manner and part in an online environment, are becoming increasingly popular among schools and colleges. Proponents of the concept say it capitalizes on the benefits that both face-to-face and online learning can provide—and now, there is some evidence to suggest that hybrid courses can help students learn more effectively.

Brian McFarlin, a professor at the University of Houston’s Laboratory of Integrated Physiology, decided to conduct an experiment in one of his classes to observe the strengths and weaknesses of hybrid courses.

Author: Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News, 3rd April 2008

Full article available here.

Intel unveils new Classmate PCs

New low-cost laptops, now targeted to U.S. schools as well, have larger screens and more storage

Intel’s new Classmate PCs–slated to go on sale this month for between $300 and $500–reflect the company’s growing efforts to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in developing countries, a battleground for technology companies because of the millions of people there just coming online.

But the target market for these low-cost laptops has expanded to include kids in the United States, too, as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down machines.

Author: eSchool News staff and wire service reports, 3rd April 2008

Full article available here.

Technology Immersion Turns Around Texas Middle School

Take a Title I urban school with fewer than 50 computers for some 850 students and a staff that wasn’t strong in technology. Add an ambitious plan to roll out a new technology program that gave a laptop to every teacher and student. Sound like a recipe for problems? Actually, it wasn’t.

The school, Marvin Baker Middle School, part of the Corpus Christi Independent School District in Texas, faces challenges familiar to many urban schools. The student population is diverse; the mobility rate is rising; and 80 percent of students receive a free lunch. However, Baker also houses the district’s Athena Program for gifted and talented students; about a third of the school’s students are part of that program.

Author: Linda L. Briggs, T.H.E. Journal, 27th March 2008

Full article available here.

Google Goes to School: Google Tools for Educators

“Like many educators new to the use of technology in the classroom, using Google as a search tool quickly became a staple in my classroom. Over the past year, Google has stretched their search capabilities to include an abundance of open source web applications tailor-made for teachers. In fact, they’ve called this new suite of tools Google for Educators.

The web application found within Google for Educators allow teachers and students to:
– collaborate with their colleagues
– monitor and participate in discussions
– publish videos
– create PowerPoint presentation and web sites
– manage photos
– monitor online data. Google has gone the extra mile by providing teachers’ guides and exciting examples of classroom teachers using Google Tools to support the use of technology as a mindtool. Those best practices demonstrate how Google applications, when are used alongside meaningful classroom instruction, can literally change the face of classroom instruction.”

Copyright © 2008 Education World

Author: Brenda Dyck, Education World®, 29th February 2008

Full article available here.

A tiny revolution

It’s smaller then a textbook and cheaper than many software packages. George Cole visits two schools using the first in a new breed of mini laptops

Arrive at the entrance to St Mary’s RC primary school in Grangetown, Middlesborough, and you’d think a bomb had gone off. In fact, around half the school has had to be demolished after a devastating arson attack last October causing almost £1m worth of damage. Currently without hall, ICT suite or library, its 150 pupils and 19 staff are crammed into half of the building that is being repaired and refurbished.The school only moved back from other premises in January. “One of my first reactions was, how on earth are we going to do ICT?” says ICT co-odinator Janet Lawrence. “We have a totally integrated ICT curriculum – we use it in maths, history, geography, science, for example.” But good can come out of adversity and the school’s plight resulted in donations from various companies, among them 25 Asus miniBooks from the ICT suppier, RM.

These mini laptops have caused a stir in the education sector, not least because they offer many features found on full-sized laptops, including built-in wireless networking. Their low cost (£169) is partly down to their use of open source software like the Linux operating system and free software packages such as Open Office. This does away with many software licensing costs incurred when using Microsoft Windows. So what are they like in practice?

Author: George Cole, The Guardian, 18th March 2008

Full article available here.

21st Century Technology

I recently read an article in THE Journal about 21st Century technology in the classroom. The article focused on how the gadgets that are now available to kids are not the problem but the lack of manners that kids, and adults for that matter, have with the use of them.

Author: Dave McDivitt, 15th March 2008

Full article available here.

Expect the unexpected

Since September I’ve been using a set of handheld devices, Nokia N800’s, in my classroom. The idea has been to link the N800’s, the Uniservity Learning Platform, via the Smartboard to create a new classroom environment. This has led to many challenges. Tasks which appeared to be obvious and easy have proved to be impossible, new ways of working have emerged.

For instance, take Bluetooth technology. The children very quickly realised that they could send each other information via Bluetooth and that such sending would be impossible for the teacher to monitor, especially if there N800 was set to silent. There is now a steady stream of Bluetooth information across the classroom. Some of this is curriculum based, much of it is not. Pictures, text, drawings, applications, games all move seamlessly around. We now have a set of class rules, which we have agreed upon, about what is proper use of a device during lessons.

Author: Phillip Griffin, 24th February 2008

Full article available here.

Kids use latest technology to help one another excel

LINCOLN MIDDLE SCHOOL There’s a video on YouTube that has generated nearly 1,000 views since it was posted last August. It isn’t the latest impressive basketball dunk or footage of pirates versus ninjas, but rather an instruction on adding fractions using different denominators.

The lesson on lowest common denominators is led by “Billy Billy,” a pseudonym for eighth-grade Lincoln Middle School student Aleya Spielman, whose voice in the video guides her fellow classmates how to solve a particular type of problem.

Author: Melody Hanatani, Daily Press Staff Write, 26th February 2008

Full articel available here.

Hi-tech growth strains schools

Digital projectors, interactive whiteboards and video cameras — today’s teachers are embracing an expanding array of pricey electronic gizmos aimed at enhancing the learning process.

The problem is, funds for nontraditional classroom fare are limited.

Oak Grove School Foundation, administered from an office in South China, is attempting to meet teachers’ needs, including those involving electronics, with a series of mini-grants.

But an increased number of requests for electronic instruction devices has staggered the Foundation as its administrators seek for ways to pay for it all, according to Foundation Grants Committee Chairman Bernard Huebner.

Huebner said he sees the value of the technology, but is at a loss to know how the Foundation, the state government and other entities can keep up with the trend.

“Do we want to invest this much into a medium where the medium itself has a built-in obsolescence to it?” he asked. “But I don’t know that there’s a good alternative. I don’t come to you with answers.”

The program serves 35 high schools with a range that includes Greenville, Richmond, Jackman and Livermore Falls.

In 2007, over half of the requests the Foundation received were for digital equipment, up from 36 percent in 2006, which in turn was a large increase over the previous year.

This year, requests included a dozen digital projectors ($500 each on Amazon.com), four interactive whiteboards ($2,000), six video cameras ($100-$500), and various other gadgets. Up until the past couple of years, requests for more standard classroom fare, such as art supplies or books, had dominated, Huebner said.

“Clearly, teachers feel they need this stuff, partly because they can use it to teach, partly because kids live in a digital world,” he said.

Oak Grove each year normally sets aside $45,000 to disburse in mini-grants of up to $1,000 each. In 2006, the program’s total requests hit a record value, more than $60,000. But in 2007 Huebner saw this figure increase to $94,000.

Perspectives among educators and state officials were mixed.

Kenneth Coville, principal of Carrabec High School, which had applied, and won, several mini-grants for digital technology for its classrooms, said Oak Grove helps fill a vital role in upgrading the state’s classrooms.

“I think that there has been a big uptick in the investment in digital technologies,” Coville said. “However, I think the perspective of Oak Grove is at the edge of budgeting — the leading edge of new technology or new techniques that wouldn’t be proven enough to be included in the budget.”

Coville said that the Foundation and other similar programs are bearing the brunt of the results of what he characterizes as the “very narrow approach” of the state in administering its laptop program. Pushed by former Gov. Angus S. King, the laptop program in 2001 began as a $37.2 million project that brought national and international exposure to Maine.

The program, which costs roughly $10 million a year, according to Department of Education Coordinator of Educational Technology Jeff Mao, fell short of expectations that it might grow beyond seventh- and eighth-graders to include all high school students as well.

But Coville’s criticism of the program centered on the fact that it does not provide funding for other forms of digital technology that certain students might find more useful.

Another advocate of infusing the classrooms with more digital technology is Don Siviski, the superintendent of the Hall-Dale School District, which serves Hallowell and Farmingdale.

Siviski, who also serves as the chairman of the technology committee of the Maine School Superintendents Association, said that digital technology is a necessary investment if educators are to prepare students to compete in a global market.

“The jobs that these kids are going to fill haven’t been invented yet, and they’re all going to be tied to technology,” Siviski said, adding that the United States is ranked somewhere in the middle of global rankings for the quality of its education. “I don’t think the premise is related to the cost of education. I think it’s related to the cost of not doing something.”

Although Maine has been losing students at the rate of 3,000 to 4,000 per year, the state has boosted its education funding from $730 million in 2004-05 to $977 million in 2007-08 — an increase of 34 percent, according to Department of Education spokesperson David Connerty-Marin. The proposed education budget for 2008-2009 stands at over $1.02 billion, though it is likely to be cut.

Digital technology may be expensive, and it may be seeing increased popularity, but it is not the driving force behind the massive budget increases, Connerty-Marin said.

“The law (Legislative Document 1, passed in January, 2005) requires the state to provide up to 55 percent of the cost of education,” he said. “And that has driven the increases.”

Connerty-Marin said once the state reaches that percentage, education funding will level off to a 2 percent to 3 percent annual increase.

Mao agreed with his assessment.

“I don’t think I would say that the increased demand for technology is necessarily an increased demand for funding,” he said. “But I do think that there’s an increased demand in general.”

Mao listed several initiatives — other than the laptop program — that provide funding for technology, including a distance learning program that allows educators to teach to students in remote classrooms via video conferencing.

“Technology has really changed dramatically just in the past 10-12 years,” he said. “The consumer world and the corporate world are faster to accept and embrace new things (but) education is always a little slower, probably because the dollars are limited.”

Author: Joel Elliott, Morning Sentinel Staff, 18th February 2008