Schools and Tech #22: Tech Integration vs. Education Reform

SaTP22.mp3 Listen on Posterous News of the Week: 1) Later school start times and Zzzs to A'sA growing body of evidence demonstrates that growing bodies benefit from more sleep. When districts push back the start of the school day, good things happen. KB2) TeacherMate - http://www.innovationsforlearning.org/about_teachermate.php  RL3) Monterey College of Law Pilots iPad Programs for Students and Faculty As the centerpiece of a new mobile computing initiative, Monterey College of Law in California is distributing Apple iPads to all students enrolled in a supplemental curriculum program that helps them prepare for the state's bar exam. All entering first-year students signed up for the program within the first week, as did 70 percent of the remainder of the student body. CT4) Oregon State Physics  Class Experiments in Space Design Oregon State University is trying out a new type of classroom for its introductory physics courses, which typically have 75 to 100 students. The space, introduced in spring 2010, replaces rows of desks with round tables and covers the walls with giant interactive whiteboards. CT5) A triple short shot of news from today’s SJMerc. Bay Area virtual school for at risk, L A Teacher Assessment, FB.  CT (Related note - “A decade later, Pa. cyber schools go viral” - but the state's 11 digital academies have mostly failed to meet state testing standards. http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_15924871?source=rss ) 6) Internet may phase out printed Oxford Dictionary By SYLVIA HUI, The Associated Press, Sunday, August 29, 2010; 6:43 PMLONDON -- It weighs in at more than 130 pounds, but the authoritative guide to the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, may eventually slim down to nothing. Oxford University Press, the publisher, said Sunday so many people prefer to look up words using its online product that it's uncertain whether the 126-year-old dictionary's next edition will be printed on paper at all. KB7) Anya Kamenetz , blogger, thinker, author, and staff writer for Fast Company has publisher a prescient probe into where future education may lie.  Titled DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the future of Higher Education it reviews some interesting applications and developments alrady underway as well as analyzes why traditional educational models fail with this generation.   If you don’t know what DIY stands for then you are not of this current generation! 8) http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/08/5-ways-tech-startups-can-disru.php5 Ways Tech Startups Can Disrupt the Education SystemMain Topic:Confusing Tech Integration with Instructional Reform by Larry Cuban (whose blog is worth checking out - http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/ ) - a word of caution against jumping wholesale into the technocentric education revolution. CTEndorsements Cammy: Caffeine freeware for Mac (click a tiny icon in menu bar to keep mac from going to sleep) Permalink | Leave a comment  »