Education is Technology

Had a rethink about social networking, being purposeful, rhetorically savvy, professional, all those things and am moving ed related content to http://9while9.tumblr.com and side blogs. Mind the dust, but like you, there’s a lot of hats to manage here: Lit, Comp, Advanced Tech, Web Dev, pedagogy, ed technology, innovation…Side blogs coming along shortly.

educationworld:

planetsedge:

gjmueller:

(Update: I asked too many questions already - but if you reblog your answer I’ll compile and share!)

• Code switching and rhetorical savvy. We can call it composition or IT or ICT
• interface awareness, interface literacy, interface fluency: the app mustn’t matter. The task, problem, method matter. They are independently on their way to this - switching games and game systems without a pause.

The games are teaching students how to play. They are overwhelmingly effective pedagogues. (At least among my community of learners, most of whom are significantly impacted by language-based learning differences.)

Is it verging on too late to teach fundamental computer (vendor neutral) literacy or computing? Can JIT instruction do it? A new computing curriculum, like the UK has in mind, for our very youngest?

Or, to put a finer point on it, do we need to figure out what game designers know about pedagogy and recognize that, if there’s learning to be done, we might want to start with us.

Open-Education Company Helps Develop Textbook-Free Associate Degree

Colleges following what the company calls the Textbook Zero model would offer a section using open-education alternatives for every required course and elective needed to earn the degree.

Open-education alternatives to textbooks are created by taking what professors expect students to master by the end of a course, then using those expectations as search criteria to find openly licensed materials. The materials, which can include textbooks, videos, and journal and newspaper articles, are then pulled together into a new product that is both inexpensive—or even free—and tailored to individual courses’ needs.

Rising textbook prices have been a growing concern for students in recent years, with seven out of every 10 students having skipped buying a course’s textbook because of the cost, according to a U.S. Public Interest Research Group survey. More than 30 percent of students have opted out of a course entirely rather than pay for required texts, according to a survey by Florida Virtual Campus.

“With open-education resources, everyone has access to materials on the first day of class,” said Kim Thanos, chief executive and the other founder of Lumen. “They’re not waiting on financial aid or loan checks to go through.”

(via gjmueller)

bogking:

In search of ambitious MA or BA education student with enthusiastic interest in two areas:

1. Instructional Technology, Information Technology, or Assistive Technology
2. Curriculum Development

We are collaborating via synchronous and asynchronous technology to produce:

1. A curriculum and curriculum proposal for secondary schools that shares as a common resource a relatively new, innovative technology
2. Curriculum Materials

We are committed to releasing truly free and open resources: all contributors will receive creative commons share alike attribution.

Please drop me an ask if you’re interested in coordinating, researching, communicating, guiding, shaping. Our short term goal is adoption in MD; we are looking to share with schools that serve without appropriate funding, development, or resources.

Signal Boost?

If you have old computers in your school, or have one with a lot of memory that can support virtual machines with a free virtualization platform like VirtualBox, Turnkey Linux @ http://www.turnkeylinux.org has a vast library of “turnkey” appliances: softwares that make installation and configuration a breeze for anyone with admin access to a computer.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/mahara: digital portfolio platform w/ social networking features. Great for faculty and students alike. Useful for transition services, IEP implementation.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/statusnet: microblogging for inside a campus. Useful for teaching precision and concision, net citizenship, audience awareness and rhetoric.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/elgg: social networking for campus - again, training for real world citizenship in the digital ages. Restrict to campus.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/etherpad: we use for real time collaboration in meetings and composition classes.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/ for the full catalog of turnkey appliances. There’s a lot of wiki options if you want to encourage authentic writing.

Are Raspberry Pis in your US school?

9while9:

Let’s make a community of USian schools using Raspberry Pi’s for classes or cocurriculars. Let us know you’re out there. (link above or embed below)

Authentic Assessments of Learning: Pedagogy and the Hacker Class

9while9:

On its face, PiStore for Raspberry Pi promises amazing things for school-age children. But, it’s full revolutionary potential is lost if you haven’t read “Hacker’s Manifesto” by the Mentor (1984) and the initial (amazing) chapter from Hackers & Painters (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html) (2004).

Calls for project-based assessment misses its mark. Our students thrive on authentic learning and assessment. The Mentor and Paul Graham knew this was best practice. Popham listens and makes the most compelling case for authentic assessment I’ve read in his seminal textbook Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know. The question, why aren’t educators following through?

A Home for Educators with an Appetite for Raspberry Pi

gonzotech:

Moodle-based home base for middle and secondary-school teachers working with, or considering working with, Raspberry Pis in the classroom. Browse freely as guest. Please be enthusiastically encouraged to create an account (top right corner of the site. Please help populate this site with content. The goal is to be a welcoming and encouraging environment to inspire authentic learning with the Raspberry Pi.

Note: This project began as the Raspberry Pi curriculum project, which aims to produce a middle and secondary school standards-compliant curriculum that relies on the Raspberry Pi as a common resource. Keep that in mind when you see pedagogy resources on the site: they’re intended for hardware and software engineers who want to help create an open curriculum but are looking for a pedagogy primer.

Single Sign-On: If you create an account, you also have access to Mahara. It’s there so we can really share useful profiles and do focused social networking and forum-ing.

Please, where-ever you are in the world, and whatever your relationship to the Raspberry Pi, there’s a place for your contributions at http://badsville.ignorelist.com/moodle.

Look for “Request a Course” if you have content in mind that doesn’t seem to have a place yet.

Signal boosts so appreciated. Questions?

signal boost

Minnesota Bans Free Online College Courses

thinksquad:

You know what would be terrible? If someone figured out a way to make the very best college courses available for free online to anyone who wanted them.

Oh wait! Someone did! Coursera, a California-based startup, offers dozens of free courses from top American universities (think Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, Duke). They don’t grant degrees. They just take material that was previously available to handful of uber-achievers who happen to have more than $100,000 to spend on tuition and make it available for free to everyone with an Internet connection. Here’s what Coursera says about their goals:

We hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.

Naturally, they must be stopped.

Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.

Well done, North Star State.

bogking:

I’m hoping others will contribute to this list of potential outside readers for students looking to STEM fields, particularly CS or software engineering or hardware engineering after secondary schools. In anticipation of Common Core adoption - and in the interest of best practice - I’d like IT courses to promote reading across the curriculum. This is intended to be a list of readings beyond assigned reading and research. What’s missing? (I’ma try to embed the etherpad - if it doesn’t work, please click the no-hassle link). If you’ve never used etherpad before, it’s a breeze for collaboration. You may consider clicking the human silhouette and setting a name for yourself, and perhaps the color wheel to choose a color for your contributions; neither are necessary. Hope the embedding works.

gjmueller:

3-D Printers Spread From Engineering Departments to Designs Across Disciplines

Colleges and universities are finding more and more uses for 3-D-printing technology, which has grown in sophistication and fallen in price in recent years. Some proponents argue that nearly every discipline could benefit from the ability to easily create objects from customized designs. “We want this for humanities, for social sciences, for bio people, for law school, so what’s interesting about 3-D printing is that it touches on all these areas,” says Hod Lipson, a professor of mechanical engineering and of computing and information science at Cornell University, who is creating a 3-D-printing course for nonengineers.

photo via flickr:CC | freelancing god

bog-king:

OK, I’ve worked with the Raspberry Pi long enough to know two things, at least:

1. It’s a powerhouse of a computer for $35, perfect for a media center, a coding station, or linux cert preparation. It even makes a fine web app server.
2. I know what’s needed besides the credit-card sized unit itself.

So here’s the list, for the best prices I could find: Assuming composite video rather than HDMI:

• 7” TFT Color LCD car rear view camera monitor ($36.60, amazon.com)
• OEM HTC USB Traver Charger Adapter (includes USB micro cable) (powers the raspi) ($4.44, amazon.com)
• 7’ Cat5e cable ($1.18, amazon.com)
• Kingston 8GB Class 4 SDHC Flash Memory Card (for your boot os) (4 gig would be a good fit, but 8 gb is a better price) ($5.64, amazon.com)
• 4-port powered USB Hub (Raspi has 2 USB 2.0 ports; this may be unnecessary for you) ($13.72, amazon.com)
• Logitech MK320 Keyboard and mouse, wireless desktop (compact; single dongle for both input devices) ($24.10, amazon.com)
• RCA male/male high quality composite video cable, 6 foot (I can’t find cheaper at amazon; microcenter should have appropriate quality cables for less) ($4.70, amazon.com)
• Power supply for TFT Monitor ($2.92, amazon.com)

Total amazon cart: $84.20 without shipping. Add the cost of the Raspi, $35 + shipping, and you have a computer capable of xbox quality HD graphics with roughly P3 processing power.

If you find this helpful, please consider donating an item from the wishlist for my advanced technology high school lab: items donated will be shipped directly to our nonpublic school to my attention: http://amzn.com/w/2HCRCUNAGAY6D

Did you find this helpful?

bog-king:

Look at all the distro’s it supports! (Conflicted about that apostrophe.)

http://live.learnfree.eu/support