May+9,+2012

= = =Worthy of Note: May 9, 2012=



In This Worthy of Note ...
Teacher Appreciation Week Project Tomorrow/Speak Up Webinars Upcoming Event Cheating: Is it Getting Worse? What’s Happening to Open Education? Teaching over 2,000 students in one class! Social Media Gaming IT: What’s Happening There? Mobile Learning (including BYOD) Who Vets Curriculum for Non-print Resources Flipped Classrooms Online Public Charter Schools District-Run Virtual Schools Virtual Learning Higher Education/Corporate Partnerships Digital Textbooks, Cell Phones and such Consumer Media Habits Technology Awards Virtual Labs Curriculum and Common Core CISPA (Cyber Sharing & Protection Act) ALEC Other Resources

Teacher Appreciation Week
Teacher Appreciation Week 2012: 7th – 11th May We join you in celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week — face-to-face teachers, online teachers and all the teachers who provide supportive roles in schools. It is a perfect opportunity for us to show teachers how thankful we are for their support.

Rethink Teacher Appreciation Week (US DOE) … teaching is also incredibly hard—as intellectually rigorous as it is emotionally draining. Over the next five to ten years, at least one million teachers will be eligible for retirement, roughly one third of the work force. Schools are finding it increasingly difficult to draw talented folks into a profession that, in many cases offers: Read more….
 * the 50-50 chance they won’t last through their first four years,
 * the likelihood of underwhelming support and development,
 * a lifetime of low and moderate pay, and
 * the strong likelihood that they’ll reach a point where continuing to teach poses substantial financial hardship.

Project Tomorrow/Speak Up
Please help get the word out about "Speak Up for America's Future Teachers"! Speak Up 2012 for America's Future Teachers is a unique opportunity for America’s next generation of teachers to “speak up” about their views on their career choice and share their ideas about how to leverage technology within learning. Since the launch of the survey, students from more than 160 universities/colleges nationwide have submitted over 1,100 surveys.

And here is the just-published //Speak Up 2011// //report.// Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey – K-12 Students and Parents Connect the Dots with Digital Learning //Project Tomorrow, April, 2012 // This is the first in a two-part series to document the key national findings from Speak Up 2011. This report focuses on how today’s students are personalizing their own learning, and how their parents are supporting this effort. The ways that students are personalizing their learning centers around three student desires including how students seek out resources that are digitally-rich, untethered and socially-based. The key questions being addressed in this report include:
 * How are students personalizing their learning?
 * How are parents helping students to personalize their learning journey?
 * What are the digitally-rich, untethered and socially based learning strategies that facilitate this process?
 * How can education stakeholders support students as they seek to personalize their learning?
 * What are the gaps between administrators’ views of personalized learning compared to parents’ and students’ views?

Click here to download the PDF of the report. Read comments about it in eSchool News. Be sure to __Download Infographic__.

Webinars
Digital School Districts Survey Webinar // Converge, May 10, 2012, 2 p.m. Eastern / 11 a.m. Pacific, 60 minutes // Each year, the Center for Digital Education, in partnership with the National School Boards Association, invites all U.S. public school districts to participate in its annual Digital School Districts Survey.

This survey recognizes districts and school boards that are making exemplary use of technology to provide better communication, to support student learning and to track district results. This webinar will feature some of the ranked winners of the 2011-2012 Digital School Districts Survey. Each presenter will share how their district is utilizing technology to more effectively serve students, educators and the community.


 * //This webinar is available for on-demand viewing to registered attendees after the event. //**

Webinar Details New Method for Integrating Technology in Schools // Stephen Noonoo, THE Journal, May 08, 2012 // Education research group Project RED has launched a new replicable method for integrating technology in schools, to be detailed in an upcoming **webinar held May 15, 17, and 23.**

The new method is based on findings from a national research study conducted by the group in 2010, which surveyed technology programs in 1,000 schools, focusing on integration and academic results. The webinar will review the research and identify strategies used by districts that attribute academic success to technology.

Upcoming Event
8TH ANNUAL ONLINE LEARNING INSTITUTE THE 8TH ANNUAL ONLINE LEARNING INSTITUTE on June 27th at the Omni Hotel in San Diego is a unique day-long learning event, ** sponsored by **ETLO**, **ISTE** and **SREB. It includes keynote presentations and remarks by:
 * **Dr. Chris Dede **, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education
 * **Curtis J. Bonk, Ph.D **., Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University
 * Remarks by: ** Leslie Fetzer, **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> SREB/iNACOL 2012 National Online Teacher of the Year

Cheating: Is It Getting Worse?
Cheating in The 21st Century Classroom (Infographic) // Mohamed Kharbach, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2012 // Cheating in the classroom has become such a serious issue now than any time before. Unfortunately, Students are having recourse to technology and their mobile appliances to fool their teachers and get higher grades. What is even worse is the fallacy that is pervasive among teens today that cheating is necessary for a better scholarly achievement. Again the question here is whose fault is it? Is it the teacher’s responsibility to sensibilize his or her students to the dangers of developing a culture based on cheating or are we to hold schools and other decision makers accountable for this educational failure? Anyway, things might be way complicated but it is definitely clear that more parts are implicated in this other than just teachers and school authorities. Families, curriculum designers, peer culture to cite but some all have a finger in the pie.

Here is a great infographic that sheds more light on cheating and includes the different ways students use to cheat in the classroom. Read and share the knowledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Research: Spread of smart phones leads to rampant cheating //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Dennis Carter, eCampus News, April 11, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Studies published by academics at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and by education technology website Common Sense Media showed that constant sharing between friends – pictures, videos, and text messages – didn’t stop during class.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">And even after using web-accessible smart phones to share tips and answers with friends during tests and quizzes, one in four students said they didn’t consider it cheating.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The research findings were compiled and published in an infographic by Online-Education.net, a California-based marketing company.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Twenty-six percent of high school students saved information from their notes and textbooks in their phone and accessed those digital files during exams, and more than half of student respondents said their classmates did the same.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Plagiarism Detectives at Work (plus 5 Top Plagiarism Detection Applications) //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">K. Walsh, Emerging EdTech, May 7, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A brief introduction to this increasingly essential category of education technology.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Most plagiarism detectors work in similar ways. The document that needs to be checked is uploaded into the system and scanned. It is compared to a database of documents that are compiled in several ways. The plagiarism detector crawls through the Internet and compiles articles, journals, books, and other sources. Added to this are client uploads. This allows for a huge compilation of different types of documents. The scan compares the uploaded document to the other documents in the system. Once the scan is complete, results are given to the user so that they know the exact areas that were flagged for plagiarism. Read more….
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">How do plagiarism detectors work? **

What's Happening to Open Education?
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Harvard, MIT Partner on Free Online Platform //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ian Quillen, Education Week Digital Education, May 2, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new online teaching and learning partnership and platform that, if all goes according to plan, will grow far beyond the two institutions based in Cambridge, Mass.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The new open-source EdX is an expansion upon the MITx platform used by MIT to deliver online versions of its courses through video and text instruction as well as Web-based student collaboration. The idea is not only to open free courses to anyone willing to enroll, but also offer the platform to any institution wishing to host its own courses there, according to the EdX website. The two institutions will retain ownership of the not-for-profit platform, but invite others to contribute to its content and maintenance.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">It's unclear whether any K-12 institutions (presumably secondary schools) could contribute their own online course content to the platform

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Read about it here in //The New York Times//, May 2, 2012.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Education learning management system trends //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Craig Weiss, E-Learning 24/7 Blog, April 27, 2012 // Many in the education market are still in love with open source systems, such as Moodle. However, they often do not realize – until it is too late, that “free” isn’t really free because customization has to constantly exist, support, among other things.

That is why there is an uptick in the number of commercial systems available in the education sector.

With that come trends. He describes six trends.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ideas and the Public Space //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ruth Reynard, THE Journal, April 25, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The concept of sharing ideas to grow knowledge is not new to education. What is new is how large these communities of learners can now be and that so many can participate regardless of space or time.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The author discusses pros and cons of Open Education Resources.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">MOOCs: Two Different Approaches to Scale, Access and Experimentation //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Phil Hill, e-Literate, April 27, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Referencing two former related articles he wrote, the author describes MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) and how they work. He quotes notables as George Siemens, Stephen Downes and David Wiley.

The two branches of MOOCs are described by Clark Quinn in his Learnlets blog (February 29, 2012):

The Stanford model, as I understand it (and I haven’t taken one), features a rigorous curriculum of content and assessments, in technical fields like AI and programming. The goal is to ensure a high quality learning experience to anyone with sufficient technical ability and access to the Internet. Currently, the experience does support a discussion board, but otherwise the experience is, effectively, solo.

The connectivist MOOCs, on the other hand, are highly social. The learning comes from content presented by a lecturer, and then dialog via social media, where the contributions of the participants are shared. Assessment comes from participation and reflection, without explicit contextualized practice.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If this topic interests you, here are two other informative articles: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">MOOCs and Content Stores //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Viplav Baxi, April 26, 2012 //

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Scaling the MOCC //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Viplav Baxi, April 23, 2012 //

Teaching Over 2,000 Students in One Class!
'Supersizing' the College Classroom: How One Instructor Teaches 2,670 Students //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 29, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">You will have to read the whole article to get a good understanding of what is happening here. Exciting!

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">In October, Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, got a quirky request on YouTube. A hyperactive instructor in a plaid jacket posted a video inviting her to do a Skype interview with his "World Regions" geography class at Virginia Tech.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ms. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate often compared to Nelson Mandela, might have ignored this plea were it not for how the video ended. The camera pivoted from the instructor, John Boyer, to an auditorium filled with some 3,000 students. They leapt from their seats, blew noisemakers, and chanted her name as if the Hokies had scored a touchdown.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">It worked. Read on….

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Social Media
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Social media and video games in classrooms can yield valuable data for teachers //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Nick Pandolfo, Heckinger Report, April 25, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A paper released earlier this week by the Brookings Institution addresses how social media, blogs and video games are improving education by increasing access to people and information in various forms, including Twitter feeds, blog posts, videos and books. These tools are also increasing people’s ability to share information with networks and contribute their own thoughts.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">As It Graduates From Network To Platform, Edmodo Now Serving 7M Users, 80K Schools <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If you don’t know about Edmodo, it’s time to learn. Founded in 2007, the company is almost old school, yet, in spite of the influx of new education-focused startups, Edmodo continues to press forward. This is largely due to due to its appeal as a social learning platform for K-12 education — one that has earned it the “Facebook for the classroom” moniker — meaning that Edmodo enables teachers to share to share content, manage projects, assignments and notifications, distribute quizzes and events — both among students and colleagues. But the real key, and where it departs from being synonymous with an “educational Facebook,” is that all this collaboration and classroom management takes place within a network that it completely private and secure.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">How Blogs, Social Media, and Video Games Improve Education (Download the free paper.) //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Darrell M. West, Brookings Institution, April 24, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The appearance of collaboration tools such as blogs, wikis, social media, and video games has altered the way individuals and organizations relate to one another. There is no longer any need to wait on professionals to share material and report on new developments. Today, people communicate directly in an unmediated and unfiltered manner.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Read comments about this paper in eSchool News.

Social Networking Simplified (Infographic) //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Mohamed Kharbach, ////<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">The world of social media is such a vast one that you can easily get lost trying to figure out the best networking tools that can work for you. As teachers, this task is even harder for we need to choose ones that have an educational potential and make sure are pretty much safe for school use. I know there is no social network that is safe for students but the right and proper use is what determines the degree of its safety.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Today I am sharing with you an interesting infographic that you can share with your colleagues. It covers some of the top social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Google Plus. It states their pros, cons, statistics and many more. This graphic is not exhaustive for at least they should have included Pinterest yet it is worth sharing because of what it has on other networks.

Introducing Google Drive... yes, really // Official Google Blog // Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist. Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.

30 Ways Colleges Are Using Google+ Right Now // Jeff Dunn, Edudemic, April 24, 2012 // Social media resources like Google Plus offer a great opportunity for growth in education through collaborative work, communication, and camaraderie. Many of today’s universities have recognized this incredible potential, and have put G+ to work on campus. We’ve discovered more than 30 great ways universities are currently using Google Plus, along with several ideas for the future.

How to Decide Which Social Network You Should Use // Jeff Dunn, Edudemic, April 22, 2012 // You don't have time to monitor Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Orkut, LinkedIn, wait, Orkut? Exactly. There are literally kabillions of social networks out there just screaming to get you in as a user.

A New Web 2.0 App Store Just For Educators // Jeff Dunn, Edudemic, April 19, 2012 // If you’re like me, you’re always looking around for a new way to discover educational web 2.0 tools. Sure, Edudemic does a solid job of keeping you abreast of what’s new, fun, and happening’ in the world of education technology… but we’re no app store. Lucky for you (and us), there now is an edtech app store! Well, it’s more like an app directory but you get the point.

Pinterest Infographic Reveals Stunning Growth (Infographic) // Internet Marketing Business Blog // The online world is paying attention to Pinterest. Pinterest is growing fast. How fast? See this infographic.

Gaming
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Using Gamification To Transform Your Learners from Angry Birds into Learning Ninjas //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Jeanette Brooks, The Articulate Blog, May 1, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Have you been hearing the word “gamification” at conferences and webinars lately? Me too! And the people saying it aren’t just the ones sitting around playing Doodlejump or Words With Friends.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">I often talk with course developers in the e-learning community who are asking important questions about gamification, like: Do learners really benefit from games? Can games improve my learners’ skills or recall? Or is gamification just another fad that costs money and time but doesn’t impact a course’s learning outcomes?

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Karl Kapp’s new book, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, unpacks those questions.

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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Experts push gaming as a ‘serious’ element of higher education ====== //<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Dennis Carter, eCampus News, April 10, 2012 // <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Educators overcome misconceptions, with professors embracing video games as a legitimate learning tool.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Some major universities, such as the University of Wisconsin (UW) Madison and Michigan State University (MSU), offer programs on serious gaming and the design of education-friendly simulations.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">And Excelsior College, an online institution based in New York, is hosting a panel of gaming experts from academia and the business sector during a national summit on serious games in higher education that begins May 11.

IT: What's Happening There?
Don't Dictate, Facilitate // Timothy Chester, Campus Technology, May 1, 2012 // In response to rapid technology shifts, IT's role on campus is changing. How CIOs adapt to the new reality will determine whether their organizations remain viable and valuable, or see their relevance slowly diminish.

Mobile Learning (including BYOD)
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Groups advocate for mobile learning, 21st century education //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">eSchool News, May 1, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Two working papers from educational technology stakeholder groups advocate for mobile learning and its ability to expand educational opportunities to students of all circumstances.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in collaboration with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), released “Turning on Mobile Learning in North America” and “Mobile Learning for Teachers in North America: Exploring the Potential of Mobile Technologies to Support Teachers and Improve Practice.”

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The papers are part of UNESCO’s larger Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning, which scans the globe to provide concrete examples of how mobile technologies, thanks largely to their ubiquity and affordability, can respond to unique educational challenges, supplement and enrich formal schooling, and make learning everywhere more accessible, equitable and personalized.

Readying Your Campus for Mobile Learning and BYOD: A Guide to Strategy and Planning // Converge Magazine // Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs are cropping up across the country as a way for schools to reap the benefits of 1-to-1 computing in challenging economic times. But schools need a robust, secure network foundation to support this kind of always-on learning environment. Bandwidth needs will likely increase dramatically as students and staff access digital content and interact online. More people and devices accessing the school network leads to changing security and access control issues as well. Read this handbook to establish what questions to ask as you consider a mobile learning initiative for your school.

One-to-One 2.0: Building on the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) Revolution // Converge Magazine, February 5, 2012 // This Center for Digital Education handbook shares the advice of school administrators and technical officers who are currently implementing a BYOD strategy, and provides checklists to help guide schools on the path to BYOD.

Conquering Today’s BYOD Challenges (free white paper) // Tech&Learning, April 2012 (Aruba Networks) // Today's growing demand for anytime, anywhere network access has expanded to include the use of personal mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, e-readers and more. This Bring Your Own Device phenomenon is changing the way IT organizations address network access security. For IT organizations, BYOD means supporting a variety of devices and their operating systems, and maintaining an expected level of service. To keep costs low, it must be easy to securely onboard new devices and quickly identify and resolve problems. This paper discusses the benefits and considerations associated with BYOD, and how organizations can effectively deploy a unified access management solution for any wireless, wired or VPN network.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Welcoming Mobile: More Districts Are Rewriting Acceptable Use Policies, Embracing Smartphones and Social Media in Schools //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Heather Chaplin, Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning, April 6, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">No longer afraid of giving kids access to the Internet and using mobile technologies for learning, a growing number of school districts across the country are developing digital media policies that emphasize responsibility over fear.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Read other current feature articles on Mobile Learning in SPOTLIGHT on Digital Media and Learning blog

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Web 2.0 Is Over, All Hail the Age of Mobile //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Hamish McKenzie, Pando Daily (blog), April 27, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">On April 9, 2012, Web 2.0 lost its mantle as the most important Internet paradigm. We are now starting the Age of Mobile. Google and Facebook’s Internet dominance is no longer guaranteed. They face a threat from below and an army of smartphone-touting masses that sees little distinction between the piece of hardware in their hands and the Internet world it opens up.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Just one opinion.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Mobile Learning: Effective Anytime, Anywhere Education // eSchool News, 2011-2012 // // eSchool News // has assembled this collection of stories from their archives, along with other relevant resources, to help you make sound decisions about how best to deploy mobile learning in your schools.

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning This is a Website that is worth bookmarking. It is a resource of free educational Web tools and mobile apps for educators. Mohamed Kharbach from Canada prepares this Website and another one, too: The Best of Mobile Technology. There are lots of good resources and good Infographics here.

Mobile Relevance: Moving More Quickly on Implementation // Mary Grush, Campus Technology, April 18, 2012 // Mobile implementations bring relevance to the institution for students and other campus constituents. But many colleges and universities over think their mobile strategies, causing needless delays in deriving value from their mobile projects. Tim Flood, a seasoned leader of mobile initiatives including Stanford University's iStanford project, points out some of the unique requirements of mobile implementations, and urges institutions to move more quickly on mobile.

Who Vets Curriculum for Non-print Resources?
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Maintaining Content Standards in a Digital World // Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal, April 9, 2012 // A textbook follows an arduous process to get approval for use in the classroom. So who vets the curriculum when a teacher can simply pluck a learning object off a virtual shelf?

Even though non-print-based learning objects have been in the classroom for years, the shift to digital content has gotten more attention lately. One development that's made the difference is the Apple initiative to introduce its iBooks textbooks for iPads, generating a notable amount of buzz. That and President Obama's announcement that he believes every student in every state should have an all-digital curriculum by 2017. The US Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission have jointly issued a "playbook" to help guide district efforts to prepare for that transition. Florida already has committed to going all-digital by 2015, while San Diego has distributed 78,000 digital textbooks to its students.

Diane Ravish outlines edtech’s promise, perils // Laura Devaney, eSchool News, March 16, 2012 // Technology offers incredible potential for education, but it also presents certain perils that all education stakeholders must take care to avoid, said noted education historian and NYU professor Diane Ravitch on March 16 at the Computer-Using Educators (CUE) conference in Palm Springs, Calif.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Textbooks have been “plagued by a regime of silence and censorship,” and for years, educators have wondered how to expose students to true versions of the events they read about in their textbooks, she said.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“So what do you do? The answer is technology,” Ravitch said. For instance, educators can show videos depicting historical events or portraying scientific phenomena without editing.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“Technology is too big, too various, too wide open, and far too much for them to monitor,” she said. “It’s free, and they can’t make you edit out the controversial stuff—they can try, but I think it might be too hard.”

Flipped Classrooms
[|The Flipped Classroom: Increasing Instructional Effectiveness in Higher Education with Blended Learning Technology] // Converge Magazine, February 16, 2012 // Download this issue brief to find out what all the buzz is about flipped classrooms and how this emerging model can improve the classroom experience for your instructors and students.

Online Public Charter Schools
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">K12 powered Florida Virtual Academy opens for enrollment //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">EdTech Times, April 24, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">One of Florida’s first online public charter schools has officially opened in Osceola County. As of April 17th, the Florida Virtual Academy is accepting applications for the 2012-2013 school year. The tuition-free school will initially serve students in grades K-9 and plans to add high school grades in the future.

District-Run Virtual Schools
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Virginia's First District-Run Virtual School Approved //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ian Quillen, Education Week, Digital Education, April 27, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The Carroll County, Va., public school system became the first in the state to operate an independent virtual school Thursday after the state board of education unanimously approved its request to operate its online primary school as a stand-alone entity, according to a report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The K-8, Virtual Virginia Academy has already operated for two years as an extension of the rural district's brick-and-mortar schools. The school, managed by Herndon, Va.-based K12 Inc., has reached 400 students since its launch, according to the school's website, including some public school students outside the county district, who have to pay an annual fee to enroll.

Virtual Learning
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Next Generation of Online-Learning Systems Faces Barriers to Adoption //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Nick DeSantis, Wired Campus, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 1, 2012 // More colleges are experimenting with online-learning platforms to meet the growing demand for higher education and to increase revenue in the face of budget cuts. But the next generation of online-learning systems faces several barriers to adoption, according to a new report.

Chief among them are professors’ desires to customize what they teach and their reluctance to use prepackaged course material.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Google Apps for Education: When will it Replace the LMS? //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Audrey Watters, e-Literate, April 26, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">History professor Jonathan Rees called it an “uncharacteristically subtle post.” When he posted an excerpt from his university’s report on its Blackboard usage, he didn’t have to say much: “I think all I want to do here is point out that all the things professors use Blackboard for here most (as well as a few of the things that not many people use Blackboard for) can be done for a lot less money than whatever our Blackboard license costs. Sometimes they can be done for no money at all.”

Higher Education/Corporate Partnerships
If Consultants Ran a College ... // Goldie Blumenstyk, The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 30, 2012 // ... what would it look like? The University of North Texas at Dallas, which is reinventing itself with the help of Bain & Company, might provide some answers. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Goldie Blumenstyk, a //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Chronicle // reporter, explains why the institution is one to watch.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Also by Glodie Blumenstyk on this topic on April 29, 2012: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Business Advice Meets Academic Culture

Digital Textbooks, Cell Phones and Such
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">New Partnership of Barnes & Noble and Microsoft Will Promote Digital Textbooks //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Katherine Mangan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 30, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Barnes & Noble is spinning off its college-textbook and digital divisions into a new subsidiary, bolstered by a $300-million investment by Microsoft, which is aimed at turning more college students on to electronic textbooks.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The partnership, which officials announced on Monday as the two companies were settling a patent dispute, isn't likely to change the day-to-day operations of the nearly 700 campus bookstores that are managed by Barnes & Noble, said Jamie Iannone, president of Barnes & Noble Digital Projects. But he said it should "accelerate the adoption of e-reading in the college space."

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">When Cell Phones Are the Book: some observations on e-readers //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Natalie Houston, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 26, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This is one British Literature teacher’s observation of students using e-readers. Over the past few years, increasing numbers of students in my classes have been using e-readers of different sorts. But this semester marks something of a turning point in that trend, as I’d estimate at least half of my students in each of my two literature courses this semester have been using e-readers. Read on to see what she says about cell phones.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">University looks to remove barriers to open textbooks //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Dennis Carter, eCampus News, April 25, 2012 // <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">University of Minnesota officials have adopted popular parts of open textbook initiatives from across the country.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The University of Minnesota (UMN) has introduced the campus’s Open Academics textbook catalog, an online repository of textbooks with an open license that lets students read the books for free online, or order a printed version for a fraction of the usual textbook cost.

Consumer Media Habits
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Study: Young Consumers Switch Media 27 Times An Hour //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Brian Steinberg, Advertising Age, April 8, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A recent study found that consumers in their 20s ("digital natives") switch media venues about 27 times per nonworking hour—the equivalent of more than 13 times during a standard half-hour TV show.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The study of consumer media habits was commissioned by Warner’s Time Inc. and conducted by Boston's Innerscope Research. Though it had only 30 participants, the study offers at least directional insight into a generation that always has a smartphone at arm's length and flips from a big TV set to a smaller tablet screen and back again at a moment's notice.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The rise of e-reading //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Lee Rainie, et al, Pew Research Center, April 4, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">One-fifth of American adults (21%) report that they have read an e-book in the past year, and this number increased following a gift-giving season that saw a spike in the ownership of both tablet computers and e-book reading devices such as the original Kindles and Nooks.[|1] In mid-December 2011, 17% of American adults had reported they read an e-book in the previous year; by February 2012, the share increased to 21%. Read more…

Technology Awards
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">SIIA Announces CODiE Award Winners for Education Technology Industry //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Karen Billings, SIIA, May 8, 2012 // SIIA announced the winners of the 2012 CODiE Awards in education technology during a reception and dinner at SIIA’s annual Ed Tech Industry Summit. Overall, 29 winners were recognized for their products and services deployed specifically for the education technology market.

All of the education technology nominated products and services were first reviewed by a group of tech-savvy educators from across the nation, whose evaluations determined 128 finalists. SIIA members then reviewed these finalists and voted to select 29 CODiE Award winners, listed here by category, company, and product/service.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Adaptive Curriculum Named Best STEM Solution in the 2012 EdTech Digest “Cool Tool” Awards for K-12 Education //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Business Wire, April 27, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Adaptive Curriculum, a web-based concept mastery solution that strengthens math and science performance by helping students build a deep understanding of core concepts and skills, has been recognized as the best STEM solution in the 2012 EdTech Digest Awards. //EdTech Digest// is an online publication covering the latest technologies helping to move K-12 education forward, and the companies dedicated to making a difference in students’ futures.

Virtual Labs
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">virtuallaboratory.net <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A non-profit company in Colorado, the goal of virtuallaboratory and BeSocratic is to help students to recognize, confront, correct, and expand their understanding of subject or a technique.sense. Check out some of their virtual labs.

Curriculum and Common Core
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">10 Steps for migrating your curriculum to the Common Core // Achieve3000 // Download the free white paper. Implementation of the Common Core State Standards presents a number of challenges for districts, administrators, and teachers as they are forced to adapt from existing state standards to new, more demanding criteria.

Based on interviews with leading K-12 experts and curriculum developers, this paper identifies 10 critical steps and strategies to ensure successful migration.

CISPA (Cyber Sharing & Protection Act)
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">[|CISPA A New Internet Harnessing Law ?] (Infographic) //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Mohamed Kharbach, ////<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Just four months ago the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) was making all kinds of news online and only after it was cancelled that the buzz died out, now there is another law that is making the rounds again among internet users. This one is called CISPA (Cyber Sharing & Protection Act ) and it has already passed in congress in the House.

CISPA allows the US Government and businesses to cooperate together in sharing information on cyberthreats. Well, I personally do not see any wrong in such an act if it is meant only to share sensitive information on cyberthreats but refuters claim that the act is too vague and will allow too much information to be shared to the government.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">House Passes Controversial Cybersecurity measure CISP //<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">David Kravets, Wired, April 26, 2012 // The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, sponsored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland), passed on a vote of 248 to 168.

Want to find out who supports CISPA and who does not in Washington? Check here.

ALEC
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Revealed: Full List of ALEC's Corporate Members //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Alex SeitzWald, Think Progress, May 5, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If you are interested in knowing the full list of ALEC sponsors, they can be found here.

Other Resources
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Exploring the Khan Academy’s use of Learning Data and Learning Analytics //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">E. Walsh, Emerging EdTech, April 22, 2012 // <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">More than just a popular producer of excellent tutorials, Khan Academy is also leveraging data to enable teachers to assess progress and focus on individual student needs.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Khan Academy is a free web site where students can access thousands of tutorial videos covering hundreds of subjects. The site is becoming a premier teaching and learning resource for educators and students, and their work was recently featured in this “60 Minutes” piece. The site has delivered over 140,000,000 video lessons //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">…read more. //

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">10 Must-Have Bookmarklets for Teachers // Mohamed Kharbach, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2012 // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">A bookmarklet is " a sort of small applet that is stored as a URL of a bookmark in a web browser. This applet can provide as much functionality as a standard browser plugin provides." Think about them like add-ons and extensions that we install on our browsers.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">What is great about bookmarklets is that they are less resource-intensive meaning that they do not eat up your computer resources such as processing power, and memory as plugins do. They also provide a variety of functionalities from translating to socialising.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Bookmarklets are also cross- browser and work on all kinds of browser versions even the newest ones. They are very easy to install and use, just click on any link, hold down your mouse button and drag and drop.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">There are in fact several useful bookmarklets that teachers and students can use. Some of these bookmarklets are listed below. Just keep in mind that most of the social networking websites have their own bookmarklet that you can drag and drop into your toolbar. So if you use a certain service on a daily basis, then you better search for its bookmarklet that might be provided in their homepage.

Google Web Search - Classroom Lessons and Resources Lessons from Google to teach students better search skills.

TEDEd Lessons Worth Sharing TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED's, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student.

Read comments about TEDEd in //eClassroom News// here: New education platform from TED could help power ‘flipped learning’.