con?:with the advent of personal assistants like Siri and Google Now that aim to serve up information before you even know you need it, you don’t even need to type the questions.
pro: Whenever new technology emerges — including newspapers and television — discussions about how it will threaten our brainpower always crops up, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker wrote in a 2010 op-ed in The New York Times. Instead of making us stupid, he wrote, the Internet and technology “are the only things that will keep us smart.”
Pro and con: Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis.
con: Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Geneva, wrote in 2011 that we may have lost the ability for oral memorization valued by the Greeks when writing was invented, but we gained additional skills of reading and text analysis.
con: A 2008 study commissioned by the British Library found that young people go through information online very quickly without evaluating it for accuracy.
pro or con?: A 2011 study in the journal Science showed that when people know they have future access to information, they tend to have a better memory of how and where to find the information — instead of recalling the information itself.
pro: The bright side lies in a 2009 study conducted by Gary Small, the director of University of California Los Angeles’ Longevity Center, that explored brain activity when older adults used search engines. He found that among older people who have experience using the Internet, their brains are two times more active than those who don’t when conducting Internet searches.
the Internet holds great potential for education — but curriculum must change accordingly. Since content is so readily available, teachers should not merely dole out information and instead focus on cultivating critical thinking
make questions “Google-proof.”
“Design it so that Google is crucial to creating a response rather than finding one,” he writes in his company’s blog. “If students can Google answers — stumble on (what) you want them to remember in a few clicks — there’s a problem with the instructional design.”
The differences between the most popular 3D printing technologies, including: fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereolithography (SLA), digital light processing (DLP), and selective laser sintering (SLS)
How to understand a 3D printer specifications chart
What 3D printing resolution quality mean in 3D printing
How educators at universities, high schools, and colleges around the world are using the Form 2 to empower students and conduct research
large corporations are designed to work with sustaining technologies. They excel at knowing their market, staying close to their customers, and having a mechanism in place to develop existing technology. Conversely, they have trouble capitalizing on the potential efficiencies, cost-savings, or new marketing opportunities created by low-margin disruptive technologies.
The Department of Geography & Planning, School of Public Affairs and Northland Community and Technical College announce, Dronetech RoundtableonWednesday, October 11 from 1-2:30 p.m. in the Atwood Alumni Room.
Learn about Unmanned Aircraft Systems UAS (Drones) and their future impact for tomorrow’s workforce from leading industry partners. See how you could use drones and geospatial technology in your career and enhance your competitive edge. Various drone platforms will be on display.
Presenters:
• Greg Emerick, Co-Founder, EVP Sentera. Sentera is a leading designer, developer and manufacturer of software, sensors and UAVs (Drones).
• Jonathan Beck, UAS Instructor/Program Manager, Northland Community and Technical College (NCTC)
**NCTC, in partnership with St. Cloud State’s Geography & Planning Department, earned a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to advance education in geospatial information technology and unmanned aircraft systems.**
Setting cell phone expectations early is key to accessing the learning potential of these devices and minimizing the distraction factor.Liz Kolb September 11, 2017
Ten is now the average age when children receive their first cell phones
develop a positive mobile mental health in the first weeks of school by discussing their ideas on cell phone use, setting up a stoplight management system, and establishing a class contract
What do you like to do on your cell phone and why? (If they don’t have one, what would they like to do?)
What are the most popular apps and websites you use?
What do you think are inappropriate ways that cell phones have been used?
What is poor cell phone etiquette? Why?
How can cell phones help you learn?
How can cell phones distract from your learning?
How do you feel about your cell phone and the activities you do on your phone?
What should teachers know about your cell phone use that you worry we do not understand?
Do you know how to use your cell phone to gather information, to collaborate on academic projects, to evaluate websites?
How can we work together to create a positive mobile mental health?
Using a Stoplight Management Approach
Post a red button on the classroom door:the cell phone parking lot. Post a yellow button on the classroom door
Post a green button on the classroom door
Establishing a Class Contract: Ask them to brainstorm consequences and write them into a class contract.
Oculus Connect, starting Wednesday in San Jose, California. Facebook’s Oculus VR division promises discussions on how health care, movies and video games are adapting to this still nascent technology. One panel will explore how the disability community can benefit from VR gear and presentations.
Over the summer, Apple and Google announced new technologies called ARKit and ARCore, respectively, that are designed to help iPhones and iPads or any device powered by Google’s Android software marry computer-generated images with the real world.
A $2.99 app, Star Guide AR, highlights stars and constellations in the sky once you point your phone at them. Another, Ikea Place, previews furniture in your home with a tap. Walk around your living room and you can see the furniture you placed while looking through the screen on your phone. So far, both are available only for the iPhone.
App developers I spoke with say they’re excited by augmented reality and believe it may help spur people to buy VR systems as well.
organized in partnership with Heather Moorefield-Lang, who will serve as moderator for the opening panel and as the closing keynote speaker: “There has been a lot of talk about makerspaces in libraries over the past four years. If you are unsure what makerspaces are, think of them as creative locations for tinkering, collaborating, problem solving, and creating in a library or educational space. No matter how many maker learning spaces you may visit, you will quickly notice no two are the same. Each librarian and makerspace delivers their own brand of service to their individual community. Attendees will investigate how librarians with makerspaces can create new partnerships and collaborative efforts in and with their communities, offering further services and methods to meet patron needs.”
Joining Heather for the opening hour will be: Dr. June Abbas, PhD, a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Oklahoma, Norman campus; Leanne Bowler, Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh; Kristin Fontichiaro, clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan School Information; Kyungwon Koh, assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Library and Information Studies.
When do you believe technology enhances learning, and when do you believe
it does not?
How has technology impacted your own learning?
Does your school, library, or organization have a specific learning philosophy that guides ed-tech purchases and implementation? If yes, what is that philosophy?
More than 450 responses were received (those that agreed for their answers to be
shared publicly can be seen at http://www.modernlearning.com).
For the purposes of this report, “educational technology” (often abbreviated as “ed tech”) is assumed to refer principally to the use of modern electronic computing and other high-tech, mostly Internet-enabled, devices and services in education.
When it becomes a distraction.
● When there is little or no preparation for it.
● When just used for testing / score tracking.
● When used for consuming and not creating, or just for rote learning.
● When “following the education trends: everyone else is doing it.”
● When the tech is “an end rather than means” (also stated as, ”when I don’t have a plan or learning goal…”). We found this very significant, and it is the focus of Observation 6.
● When there is a lack of guidance in how to effectively use new ed tech tools (“when there is no PD”). This is the focus of Observation 4.
● Finally, when it “gets in the way of real time talk / sharing.” Forgetting that the tech “cannot mentor, motivate, show beauty, interact fully, give quality attention, [or] contextualize.” Also: ”outcomes related to acquiring the skills and attitudes cannot be enhanced by technology.” As mentioned in the introduction, this would be missing the “human factor.” One respondent
captured this as follows: “3 reasons tech innovation fails: Misunderstanding Human Motivation, Human Learning, or Human Systems.”
reduced their isolation by helping them to connect with their peers;
● allowed them to feel part of larger educational movements;
● afforded them opportunities to become contributors.
Networked information technology has rendered the words “teacher” and “student” more ambiguous. YouTube tutorials and social-media discussions, just to cite a couple of obvious examples, have made it abundantly clear that at any given moment anyone—regardless of age or background—can be a learner or a teacher, or even both at once.
