changing tech.Good Morning, and happy Monday! For this week, we look at how educational technology has changed.  Some can be good and some can, well, some can still be under debate. As new ideas and innovations come into being it is often helpful to take a bird’s eye view of it all.

We start off today with looking at the opinions of students and parents about the use of technology in education. Edudemic‘s article tells us that over 50% “of children under 12 who use iPads use them for educational purposes.” Parents are beginning to accept technology as an educational tool, and they even believe it’s beneficial toward helping students use their creativity.

What Students And Parents Think About Mobile Technology (Edudemic)

Nota Launches as the World’s First Mobile, Collaborative Digital Textbook Platform (Ed Tech Times)
Changes can also bring people together, to create something new. Nota has created a mobile platform where people can collaboratively create an open textbook. Ms. Cher Wang, the women behind it all stated, “‘I am excited about the possibilities of Nota to truly innovate how we read and learn, and I am committed to ensuring the success of Nota to broaden technology learning opportunities worldwide.'”

The New Face of Adaptive Learning (Ed Surge)
Sometimes changes can bring out emotions in even the youngest of people. New face-recognition technology is aiding in the process of adaptive learning and gives tutors indicators of how a child deals with a difficult assignment.

One Hundred Great Ideas for Higher Education (National Association of Scholars)
Ideas can help bring about happier changes in the world. The National Association of Scholars has some thoughts about how to help the state of higher education. They include: mentoring, abolishing sports to attract better students, academic freedom courses, and even “using technology to teach the curriculum.”
-Thank you Education Sector for the link.

How EdX Plans to Earn, and Share, Revenue From Its Free Online Courses (Chronicle of Higher Ed.)
As these changes continue, MOOCs have been the basis of some companies and organizations. Namely, EdX, a nonprofit organization, has found that it needs to make SOME money in order to survive. So EdX has created two new partnering strategies that will allow universities to choose between a “self-service model” or direct support from the organization, as it would play more of a consultative role.

The Trouble With Online College (NY Times)
Lastly, some are still skeptical of these changes. In particular, when looking at online learning, some studies have noted that students who use online courses may not do as well in class, or even withdraw from the class altogether. Yet, the author also noted the bright side of these changes for more online learning in that students who partake in hybrid courses excelled academically.
-Thanks to Angelyn for the link.

Well? Are these changes good or bad? What are your thoughts on the use of technology in education? How can we ensure that the focus is on the curriculum and not the technology? If you have any thoughts or comments on this or anything else please feel free to comment below.

Have a great week! In other news…
Oxford Blocks Google Docs in Response to Phishing Scams (Chronicle of Higher Ed.)
As 3-D Printing Becomes More Accessible, Copyright Questions Arise (NPR)
The Higher-Education Lobby Comes to Madison (Chronicle of Higher Ed.)

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