By Thomas H. Benton ~ The Chronicle of Higher Education
For all the concern expressed about the mminent demise of the college library, there may never have been a time when librarians seemed more vital, forward-thinking—even edgy—than they do now.
http://chronicle.com/article/Marian-the-Cybrarian/65570/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
by Anya Kamenetz – Huffington Post
Yesterday the University of California made a groundbreaking announcement that has the potential to break the tuition cost crisis and finally deliver the crucial benefits of higher education to millions of Americans and to tens of millions who demand it and deserve it around the world. They are putting $5 to $6 million into a pilot project to create online versions of courses with an eye toward eventually creating completely online degree programs.
More than one in four US college students already take at least one online class. So why is this an important announcement?
Because a public university system is declaring that it will innovate its way out of recession, and even more importantly, that it will not cede the banner of innovation to the for-profit sector that is encroaching more and more on public higher education’s territory. Read Full Story
As our society and information becomes increasingly more digitized we gain a great many benefits from this new availability and portability of information. One of the drawbacks of this progress however is that information becomes more accessible to attack or misappropriation. Most hackers (social engineers really) start off in high school or grammar school because the security there is rather lax. Educational institutions have as much personal information about students as any bank or financial institution. Unfortunately, educational institutions don’t have the same security measures as banks and institutions. As a result, schools and colleges have become a popular hunting ground for hackers, phishers and the like. Here’s a piece from Infosec about some of the shortcomings of the education sector when it comes to security
As a Computer Networking Instructor,and as a teacher in general, I have two main responsibilities to my students and future technicians…giving them the tools to Attain and Retain knowledge and I think Howcast will help me do just that.
I was actually testing out the Android browser Skyfire when I stumbled across this and I thought it was really worth posting. Howcast, for the initiated is a website that hosts only one type of videos. How To videos. They’ve got a wide variety If topics from Arts and Crafts to Multimedia and Technology. I immediately thought of 2 ways I could use this site in class so I decided to look into it further.
First, I went to the Technology section and went to see if I could find anything relevant. I found a video on expanding a wireless network, I’m teaching a networking class And posted it to the class blog. I’ll let my students have a run at it on Monday in lab. I looked for other videos on networking and found a few more I will be using for future labs. I’m also thinking about having the class produce a video as an advanced lab. Viola! 1) I used it as a research resource to attain information and 2) I can use it as a vehicle to retaining knowledge by allowing the students to gain hands on experience by performing a technical task , and reinforcing the lesson by allowing them to explain the task in their own words and relive the experience to help them remember the experience. And it has the added benefit of not being as distracting as YouTube might be. Have a look for yourself.
One of the users I follow on Twitter @tomwhitby (who by the way is a great resource for you to follow) requested that his PLN do a search on #edupd to see what teachers think teachers need in terms of Professional Development. I think you’ll find the the results pretty interesting. I posted the Tweetdoc here PLN Request: http://www.tweetdoc.org/View/2381/PLN-Request
SocialMediaInEdu (@SocialMediaInEd) has shared a Tweet with you:
“tonnet: Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools: 2009 http://is.gd/bZpre“
–http://www.twitter.com/tonnet/status/13579172487
Second Life Provides Real-World Benefits
Posted using ShareThis
This is the other side of intertwined Education and technology. Story about a teacher who was undergoing some major psychological stress from dealing with some particularly unruly students. Our increasingly plugged-in society and classrooms leave room for, and in some cases encourages, students to be otherwise engaged when they should be concentrating on the lesson. The victim and other students used their mobile phones to coordinate their efforts to antagonize the assailant. The teacher snapped and attacked the student with a dumbbell. It’s one of those worst case scenarios that is nightmarish for Administrators and often can result in drastic knee-jerk reactions. I.E.
“rmbyrne: I think this could be a great resource to use in a current events class: Mashpedia – The Real-time Encyclopedia http://bit.ly/d9vJcU“
–http://www.twitter.com/rmbyrne/status/13243964187
No big write-up here.
Link
