Archive for December, 2007

Online Education in the News – December 3, 2007

Published by Zornitsa Vodenska on December 3, 2007 in In the News. 0 Comments

Updates on: Curriki.org’s wiki approach to teacher education, Japanese university’s mobile phone course, a Biology teacher’s tale of implementing online materials into classes, Bloomsburg University’s online course for deaf and hard of hearing students

Curriki.org, a nonprofit group originally part of Sun Microsystems that likewise takes content contributions from the public at large, teaches educators themselves how to teach. Is this wiki-approach academically credible? Will its free content hurt textbook publishers? — International Herald Tribune

Cyber University in Japan has begun offering a mobile class on the “mysteries of the pyramids,” but instead of a typical PC’s display of text, images, sound, and video, the mobile version offers a streaming Power Point presentation on the topic. The university – 71 percent of which is owned by Softbank, a mobile service provider — has 1,850 students, and offers almost 100 courses, though only one is available for phones. — Engadget

High school students are hooked on a Biology teacher’s video lectures and notes available online. He talks about how easy it is to record and upload them – and he admits he is not even a tech-savvy person. His web site received some 38,000 hits last year, indicating that his students are using the lectures repeatedly after class, as well as sharing the site with other students. — T.H.E. Journal

Last semester, Bloomsburg University began using Wimba’s Live Classroom, a Web-based learning tool, to offer deaf and hard of hearing students an online course that includes a sign-language interpreter and closed-caption text to accompany the standard slide presentation and instructor’s voice. — Campus Technology

Schools and Program in the News – December 3, 2007

Published by Zornitsa Vodenska on December 3, 2007 in In the News. 0 Comments

Updates on: formation of English Language Proficiency Collaboration and Research Consortium, MIT’s OpenCourseWare extended to secondary schools, presidential candidates’ views on education and technology, No Child Left Behind program receives theatrical commentary, Carnegie Mellon University’s digital library reaches 1.5 million books, Sacramento State’s podcast-only course, Texas Education Agency director loses job over Evolution vs. Creationism debate

Six state education agencies serving an estimated 320,000 English language learners have formed an independent English Language Proficiency Collaboration and Research Consortium (ELPCRC) to collaborate, provide unified representation, and undertake studies and research for the improvement of ELL testing and instruction. All six states implement CTB/McGraw-Hill’s LAS Links English language proficiency assessment for their statewide English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. — CNN

Five years after the initial pilot of MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative, it’s now making its way into secondary education with the launch of “Highlights for High School,” which aims to bolster high school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education through free and open course materials, from complete curricula and syllabi to videos, lecture notes, and animations. — Campus Technology

In this post, Andy Carvin reports on some of the presidential candidates’ views on educational policy, technology, and the digital divide. — learning.now (a PBS blog)

poster - amep.org

Nilaja Sun’s one-woman play, “No Child,” tells a story about a visiting artist who tries to turn a class of unruly students at Malcolm X High School into “thespians” who put on a play about putting on a play. “No Child” takes on the federal No Child Left Behind law, and the play slaps the law across the face. Sun wrote the play on commission for the New York State Council on the Arts and the Epic Theatre Ensemble, a New York City nonprofit that advocates the idea that “plays are ideally suited for helping students explore the connection between politics and their personal lives.” — Boston Globe

Nearly a decade ago, computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University embarked on a project with an astonishingly lofty goal: digitize the published works of humankind and make them freely available online. The architects of the project said they have surpassed their latest target, having scanned more than 1.5 million books – many of them in Chinese – and are continuing to scan thousands more daily. — Times Leader News

Nick Burnett has eliminated live lectures in one of his presentational speaking classes this semester at Sacramento State. He gave all the lectures this summer in a studio, where they were recorded and launched onto iTunes. And in what Burnett believes is the first such large-scale experiment at California State University, Sacramento, 224 of his students will be able to hear him only by downloading his lectures onto their iPods or MP3 players. — Sacramento Bee

After 27 years as a science teacher and 9 years as the Texas Education Agency’s director of science, Christine Castillo Comer said she did not think she had to remain “neutral” about teaching the theory of evolution. Consequently, she lost her job. — New York Times

Awards in the News – December 3, 2007

Published by Zornitsa Vodenska on December 3, 2007 in In the News. 0 Comments

Updates on: Verizon Foundation’s grant to West Virginia School District, Cisco Foundation’s award to MIND Research Institute

The Verizon Foundation has awarded $48,000 to the West Virginia Department of Education. The grant will be used to provide train teachers in the use of Verizon’s Thinkfinity, a Web portal that provides access to lesson plans and interactive materials for K-12 students. Verizon recently announced that it will award $1.2 million in grants to schools in 17 states.– T.H.E. Journal

The MIND Research Institute, a non-profit education research and publishing organization, received a $500,000 cash grant from the Cisco Foundation – this on top of a previously awarded grant of about $500,000 in equipment, bringing the total donation to $1 million. The funds will be used to develop MIND’s elementary and middle school math programs and make them available over the Internet. – T.H.E. Journal

Publishers in the News - December 3, 2007

Published by Zornitsa Vodenska on December 3, 2007 in In the News. 0 Comments

Updates on: Japan’s bestsellers written on cellphone, HM Riverdeep’s acquisition of Reed Elsevier approved, European Union’s calls for open-mandated access to scientific research

Half of Japan’s top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copies. By August, the president of Goma Books, Masayoshi Yoshino, was declaring in a manifesto that he was determined “to establish this not simply as a fad, but as a new kind of culture”. — Sydney Morning Herald

Education publisher HM Riverdeep has received the regulatory nod for its planned $4bn acquisition of Reed Elsevier’s Harcourt US education business. — TheBookseller.com

The European Union has provoked concerns among publishers in pushing for a “mandated” open access publishing model to ensure that all publicly funded research is freely available. According to EU statistics, member states account for 43% of the world’s scientific research. — TheBookseller.com

Research in the News – December 3, 2007

Published by Zornitsa Vodenska on December 3, 2007 in In the News. 0 Comments

Updates on: Project Tomorrow Survey deadline extended, expectations for growing demand for elearning products, New Zealand’s virtual teacher

Project Tomorrow has extended the deadline for its 2007 Speak Up survey, a poll conducted annually to assess views on current issues in education, with results shared with state and federal policy leaders. The new deadline has been extended by a week and set to Dec. 21. — T.H.E. Journal

In the United States, the demand for self-paced electronic learning products will hit $13.6 billion by the end of 2007 and will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 22.01 percent over the next five years, according to a new forecast from Ambient Insight detailed in report entitled, “The U.S. Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2007-2012 Forecast and Analysis.” — Campus Technology

New Zealand computer scientists have developed Eve, an affective tutoring system (ATS) which can adapt its response to the emotional state of children by interaction through a computer system. This project has been led by Dr Hossein Sarrafzadeh, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the Auckland-based Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences (IIMS).– ZDNet Blogs

IT news - December 3, 2007

Published by Zornitsa Vodenska on December 3, 2007 in In the News. 0 Comments

Updates on: Pearson Inform, Steven Kirsch’s spam e-mail filter, Microsofts’s acqisition of WebFives, LiveJournal’s acquisition, lawsuit against One Laptop Per Child, Nvidia’s C-compiler, Toon Boom Animation’s new animation program for kids, Amazon’s launch of Askville.com

Pearson School Systems has released an update to Pearson Inform, a data analysis tool for K-12 schools. The new release, Inform 4.2, adds a new Academic Intervention Plan feature for planning individualize and group instruction. – T.H.E. Journal

Twenty-five years ago Steven T. Kirsch crated the computer mouse with optical sensor. Now he believes he has found a way to create a better trap — for spam, not mice. He founded Abaca, a company with a new approach to detecting junk mail and a claim that its product can filter out 99 percent of spam e-mail. — New York Times

Microsoft acquired WebFives, a social newtworking website for sharing photos and phone videos. After the acquisition, WebFives service will stop as Microsoft plans to implement the technology used in the website instead of maintaining the community. — Seattle Times

The owner of LiveJournal, a blogging and social-networking site, agreed to sell the company to SUP, a Russian online media company, in the latest example of deal-making in the social-networking sector. — New York Times

Lagos Analysis Corp, a Massachusetts-based hardware company, is suing the One Laptop Per Child project, claiming in a lawsuit filed in Nigeria that the group reverse-engineered a keyboard designed for foreign languages. — AHN

Nvidia has released a public beta of CUDA 1.1, an update to the company’s C-compiler with a Linux display. More than 20 universities around the world have adopted CUDA for multi-core and parallel processing programming — Campus Technology

Toon Boom Animation, a developer of 2D animation technologies, including Toon Boom Studio, this week released Flip Boom, a new animation program aimed specifically at kids. The software is based on traditional 2D animation principles, focused on teaching the principles of timing and motion in the animation process. — T.H.E. Journal

Amazon.com recently launched Askville.com, a website where users ask and answer questions, and discover answers to thousands of questions on everything from how to buy an HDTV to the best way to lose weight. Askville.com users who share their knowledge by answering questions will receive Quest Gold, which, for a limited time and while supplies last, can be redeemed for $100 or $50 Amazon.com Gift Cards. Askville.com is now available to all Amazon customers around the world. – Financial News USA