Thursday, December 25, 2014

Access, Innovation, Collaboration Are the Future of Educational Technology

As the year ends, I am republishing the Opinion Drive-thru's seven most viewed posts of 2014.  This is #7.

In Age Of Custom-Tailored Ed Tech, Teachers Shop Off The Rack
The survey found teachers just as likely to rate as "effective" general purpose tools like Google, Wikipedia, and Prezi, as they are products built specifically for the education market.  A key factor in that effectiveness rating was not the brand or the product, but whether the teacher had a say in choosing it. If so, that teacher was 30 percent more likely to call it effective.

10 Ways to Teach Innovation
Form teams, not groups. Innovation now emerges from teams and networks—and we can teach students to work collectively and become better collective thinkers. Group work is common, but team work is rare. Some tips: Use specific methods to form teams; assess teamwork and work ethic; facilitate high quality interaction through protocols and critique; teach the cycle of revision; and expect students to reflect critically on both ongoing work and final products. 

What is the future of technology in education?
The future is about access, anywhere learning and collaboration, both locally and globally. Teaching and learning is going to be social. Schools of the future could have a traditional cohort of students, as well as online only students who live across the country or even the world. Things are already starting to move this way with the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs).
What does the SAT measure? Aptitude? Achievement? Anything?
All these years later, we know the test never really did measure anybody’s aptitude to do well in college. The College Board, which owns the SAT, tried over the years to defend the test’s ability to predict college success, but eventually gave up on it by dropping the word “aptitude” from the name and just calling it the SAT. Numerous studies have shown that high school grades are a better predictor of high school success than any college admissions exam.

Simple Yet Effective
Social media provides educators with a wealth of tools that can be used to engage students and enhance learning. Unfortunately many schools are either too focused on sustaining their testing factories, implementing an array of top-down mandates, or are influenced by the perception and stigma that accompanies social media tools. 

The Rise and Fall of the Word, “Microcomputer”




Thai Jasmine (Smile..smile...Smile..) via Compfight cc

No comments:

Blog Archive