What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re an industry expert.
Use your company’s blog posts to opine on current industry topics, humanize your company, and show how your products and services can help people.
Tape cassettes. Can you remember the last time you saw or used a cassette? Well, a 13 year-old from UK was challenged by his father to give up his iPod for a Sony Cassette Walkman circa 1979 and share his thoughts and feelings on the progression of technology.
The youth’s reflection and observations of the experience are well worth the read. Being someone who has experienced both technologies it is interesting to hear how youth view some of these older technologies. Technology has truly changed how we think and act.
Hit the BBC article for the full read and probably a couple nostalgic chuckles.
One Laptop Per Child or OLPC initiative aims to provide low-cost laptops to the educational market. These computers feature a special, education-focused operating system designed to work with a School Server that can provide content distribution, homework collection, backup services, Moodle integration, and filtered access to the Internet. The main advantage of this operating system is a thorough and well researched educational foundation. According to Sugar Labs:
Based upon 40+ years of educational research at Harvard and MIT, Sugar promotes studio thinking†through demonstrations, projects, and critiques, as well as “studio habits of mindâ€, by developing craft, engagement, persistence, expression, observation, reflection, and exploration. In the context of sugar, studio thinking is applied not just to the arts, but to all disciplines.
Reflective practice involves students applying their own experiences to practice while being mentored by domain experts. In the context of Sugar, the expert could be a teacher, a parent, a community member, or a fellow student.
Not many people or educators have had a chance to explore the new OLPC XO or the Sugar operating system but now you can at least take the software for a spin on your Windows or Mac PC using Sugar on a Stick software and a 1 GB USB drive. The software offers many new and interesting options for educators looking to keep technology use in the classroom rooted in established pedagogy.
Visit Sugar Labs for more details and the download.
When I started this ETEC 533 class I had a strong feeling that the activities and readings would help me to discover new interactions between learning and technology and further develop my understanding of how the two can benefit each other. In hindsight, I must say this goal was achieved as I gained great insight into the current state of technology in the classroom and how future technologies could greatly impact all areas of education, not just science and mathematics. Throughout the course I have had the pleasure of analyzing a variety of technologies related to teaching and education and have generally grouped these major concepts together into three overlapping themes: internet-related tools, classroom tools and what these tools may hold for science classrooms in the future. In the following I will investigate each of these major themes, discuss their impact on my professional development as a secondary teacher and link this discussion to course materials. (more…)
A principal in BC became fed up with cell phones in his high school and decided to take matters into his own hands by buying a cell phone jamming device for $115 (with school funds) and installing in the school.
According to The Province his actions were rooted in reducing classroom management issues surrounding cell phones and administration/teacher time consumed by dealing with the common school rule infraction.
Students doing research found out that radio communications “jammers” are illegal for sale or use in Canada and the principal quickly pulled the plug.
In my ETEC 533 class we are discussing how embodied learning can be achieved by portable, hand-held and virtual reality (VR) technologies. As part of this module we were asked to research one or more of these topics and reflect on our findings. I chose to discuss and reflect upon the areas of virtual reality and haptics as these are areas that I am yet to see incorporated into the secondary classroom.
For my response I will use the following as a guiding question:
How could you use what is developed in these studies to design learning experiences for younger learners that incorporates perception/motion activity and digital technologies? (more…)
It appears Dell will be releasing some school-oriented possibly touchscreen notebooks. With names like School Bus Orange, Blue Ribbon, Red Apple and Chalkboard Black and a small desk-friendly footprint (roughly 10″x8″) and size (under 3 lbs) I think it is pretty obvious these will be marketed towards the education sector. Hopefully this means they will be somewhat durable with decent battery life as well. (more…)
According to Bielaczyc and Collins (1999):
“The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned.”
With this quote in mind I was asked in my ETEC 533 class to respond to the following:
In what ways do the networked communities you examined represent and depart from this characterization of learning communities? What implications does this have for your practice? (more…)
I am grateful to be teaching in the technology-infused, connected world we live in today. As an educator the internet offers a vast array of resources that can be easily implemented in your average secondary classroom to meet information, communication and technology (ICT) outcomes and course outcomes or simply making a difficult 
concept easier for students to “see†and understand.
The subtle intricacies of science and the natural world are often difficult to grasp, especially when dealing with concepts that are difficult or impossible to see using the materials or resources at hand. Curriculum topics such as ecology, weather, biology, physics and chemistry can all benefit from information visualization technologies or simulations that are freely available online. Not only are they excellent for reaching objectives but they are also pedagogically sound. (more…)
Wow, this has been a pretty busy module in ETEC 533. In this unit we have focused on looking at Technology Enhanced Learning Environments or TELEs and how technology can be used to support learning in a variety of ways.
The following are some of the examples we have looked at in our investigations and discussions:
Here are some of the projects and activities that have kept us engaged throughout the unit:
I must say there is a lot of research that support these efforts to infuse science education with technology. Practically it makes sense but I am glad to see there is a large body of research guiding new technnological additions to our classrooms. I think that our own TELE may be a lot of work, I am excited to try and replicates what the pojects above have tried to do. Essentially our goal, like theirs, is to use the affordances technology can offer the science classroom and leverage them into a valuable learning object. I am rally excited to see how it ends up!