Last month, the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) published a report arguing schools and districts should go the way of other industries and hire a Chief Privacy Officer to oversee their organization’s privacy policies and practices.
But the reality is that Chief Privacy Officers in K-12 education are about as common as unicorns.
Two years ago, Denver Public Schools created a new role, the Student Data Privacy Officer, after the Colorado legislature passed a law to promote student data privacy and transparency.
Only 33 percent of parents surveyed by the Learning Assembly said their child’s school did an excellent job using technology to tailor instruction.
Insufficient Modeling of Best Practices
A survey from Samsung found that 37 percent of teachers say they would love to use technology but don’t know how, and 76 percent say they would like a professional development day dedicated to technology.
implementations should start with the “why” and then address the “how.” Trainings should first model the best pedagogical approach, and how technology fits into this approach to support a learning objective. How to effectively use and troubleshoot the tool itself is also important, but it’s not the only factor.
How teachers integrate technology into their own teaching practices can have a dramatic impact on the results, even when they’re all using the same edtech tool. Videos that focus on scaling and modeling best practices (produced by places like the Teaching Channel and The Learning Accelerator) can help teachers and schools do this.
Teachers face initiative fatigue: They are constantly being asked to implement new programs, integrate new technologies, and add on layers of responsibility.
take the time to learn from the challenges of other schools, and recruit a coalition of the willing.
Real-World Usability Challenges
Relying on multiple devices (remote, clicker, iPad, computer mouse) to launch or navigate technology can be difficult. Additionally, teachers may start to use a tool, only to realize it is not flexible enough to meet their original needs, fit into the constraints of their particular school or classroom, or allow them to integrate their own content or supplemental resources.
The Right Data to Track Progress
Sometimes tech implementations fail because the products themselves don’t have the right depth of data for teachers or a workable interface. And sometimes they fail when eager IT directors lock down hardware and networks for security purposes in a way that makes the tool far less valuable for instructors.
Anchor allows users to record and edit podcast episodes, all through an app on their cellphones. The service distributes and uploads episodes to streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and provides analytics following publication.
“Traditionally, it’s write, write, write, write, write, and if you’re not a strong writer, you may start to think you’re not good at an English class in general.”
Podcasts that require scripts similarly encourage students to explore writing formats that stray from the traditional essay.
“When it’s just my eyes seeing it, it’s one-on-one and I’m the safety net,” Stevens said. “Even when you open it up to their classmates, they realize ‘OK, I’m going to be judged by them,’ and then you open it up to the internet. It’s a big deal.”
Last spring, cinematic arts and broadcast journalism teacher Michael Hernandez introduced his 11th and 12th graders to podcasting to teach them speaking skills that could be necessary for upcoming college or job interview.
zSpace is a technology firm based in Sunnyvale, California that combine elements of virtual and augmented reality in a computer. zSpace allows people to interact with simulated objects in virtual environments as if they are real.[1][2][3]
Give your students the chance to learn science in an engaging and effective way with Labster’s virtual labs.
Labster offers students a true-to-life lab experience at a fraction of the cost of a real lab.
You can supplement your teaching with virtual labs to prepare your students for the wet lab, to help them understand difficult concepts, to engage them with your science course, and more.
n our virtual lab simulations, students work through real-life case stories, interact with lab equipment, perform experiments and learn with theory and quiz questions.
Thanks to engaging 3D animations, students can explore life science at the molecular level and look inside the machines they are operating. https://www.labster.com/why-choose-labster/
Coiner of the term “Digital Native” and author of seven books and over 100 essays, Marc has spoken in over 40 countries, and his writings have been translated into a dozen languages. He currently promotes a new civilization-level alternative in global education, championing an emerging new “Real-World-Impact Education” paradigm that more directly benefits students and the world in which they live.
Previously in his career Marc taught French, mathematics and music and headed an alternative school in New York City, worked as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (and was its first Product Development Director), and founded and ran a computer game company. Marc holds an MBA degree from Harvard, with distinction, and a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Yale.
his new education plan would work in practice. What would it take to get there from here?
interview with Christopher Loss, one of the editors.
What role does technology play in some of the convergences that occur or are happening?
There’s a great essay in the collection by June Ahn, which deals with the idea of technology as a key mediating source and mechanism for the creation of various kinds of convergences between and among different sectors (my note: K12 and higher ed).
Americans like to see themselves as among the best in the world in education. But lately, the education leaders have been looking abroad for ideas, I think. What can we learn from countries that do have closer links between K-12 and higher ed?
Remember that a blockchain is an immutable, sequential chain of records called Blocks. They can contain transactions, files or any data you like, really. But the important thing is that they’re chained together using hashes.
reading and writing some basic Python, as well as have some understanding of how HTTP requests work, since we’ll be talking to our Blockchain over HTTP.
Others have likened habitual Facebook use to a mental disorder, comparing it to drug addiction and even publishing magnetic-resonance images of what Facebook addiction “looks like in the brain.”
For abstainers, breaking up with Facebook freed up about an hour a day, on average, and more than twice that for the heaviest users.
research led by Ethan Kross, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has found that high levels of passive browsing on social media predict lowered moods, compared to more active engagement.
Maxwell Foxman