A framework for integrating technolgy

where it all began

We don't need to fix Excel. We need to fix you.

Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, Louis Soares, Louis Caldera

As I was reading the new book by Diana Laurillard, I thought of a couple of statements, one , 'if you put technology first, then learning comes second', and that's not what education is about. Secondly, my signature line of my email address which has been around for over 20 years 'Learning in the Driver's seat, Technology turning the wheels'.

Frank Lebowitz

lessons from Curt Bonk

Text your mother, she worries about you

benchmarks

The MITS Freedom Stick is a portable, use-anywhere accessibility solution. Install this software package on any 4gb USB Flash Drive (full) or 2gb USB Flash Drive (lite) and you create a set of tools for your students that they can carry in their pockets which will make any Windows computer highly accessible.

danah boyd

Ontario's distance learning portal

a chart comparing the two

Is that Frank Oz?

doing assignments, exams, study strategies, etc

Taking another look at yesterday's future

I have already moved to another country ...

Michelle Kazmer

communication communication communication

Mr. Sorensen has heard increasing questions about whether the lecture—his preferred method—is an effective way to teach. One study he saw found that students in after-class interviews remember only 20 percent of the material. Yet he still champions the approach.

All of which is a way of saying something that is probably obvious to others who are less digitally obsessed: you can follow someone on Twitter, friend them on Facebook, quote or be quoted by them in a newspaper article, but until you taste their bread, you don’t really know them.

a debate

There is plenty of evidence of what works and what doesn’t, such as regular and challenging interaction between instructor and students, efficient student administration, interactive and well structured materials, etc. We don’t need to build a bureaucracy around this, but there does need to be some mechanism, some way of calling institutions when they fail to meet these standards. However, we should also do the same for campus-based teaching.

Rebecca McKinnon

If only there was a way to learn without going to a classroom ... hmmmm

scroll to the end

Pinchas Zukerman on methods of videoconferencing

teaching a new generation of learners

With my three extra hours a day, I will often go to the beach. Cook a healthy meal. Do a bunch of exercise. Have a drink with friends. Read a book. Write a poem. Mow the lawn. Go skiing while checking my email from the chair lift. Visit a museum. Get into my van at 10pm at night and drive to Joshua Tree by morning without worrying about having an editor to report to. My van has a bed, a stove, a closet, a fridge and and auxiliary battery, 4g modem and my laptop. I can work from the desert, the beach, the mountains, reception withstanding. My life has never been fuller and I've never been more meaningfully connected. I'm not making as much money as I was before with my hyper intense news job, and I might run out of money and need to work at McDonalds one of these days, but for now I'm using Airbnb to pay my mortgage and it's working out just fine. It's a little scary at times, but I'm going to keep going with it.

prepared by the Canadian Virtual University for HRSDC

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Lawrence Summers gets education more than any other writer I've read in the NYTimes

The price of information plummets. Yet the price of education soars. These two trends cannot both continue. Guess which will crack first.

Will Richardson

Anya Kamenetz

"While more than half of traditional schools' financial resources typically go toward labor costs, virtual schools can often reduce those costs by increasing the student-teacher ratio or by reducing teacher salaries by hiring only part-time teachers or paraprofessionals."