Posts Tagged ‘k-12’

Steven Hopper, an Education Administration Master’s student at the Iowa State University, put together a 2-minute inspirational video about the need to meet the demands of a new age in education:

As Steven notes, embracing technology in the classroom is about educating our kids to meet the needs of an evolving society. We touch on topics of eLearning and technology in education from time to time on the blog, but we don’t often sit back to think about how important it is that these changes happen in education. I hope you enjoy the video!

Via dangerously irrelevant

Absolute Software will be hosting a webinar on May 20th at 11am PT / 2pm ET about navigating K-12 Computing in a time of shrinking budgets, high computer theft and drifting assets.

The webinar will include input from Eric Willard, Chief Technology Officer, Community Unit School District 300, and Carol Johnston, Senior Product Manager, Absolute Software.

Learn how one of Illinois’ largest districts proves accountability by:

• Tracking laptops at all times using minimal resources
• Minimizing the risk of loss and theft
• Monitoring hardware/software usage for effective budgeting
• Avoiding financial penalties by ensuring software license compliance

Learn more about the webinar here.

Edweek.org has released their newest annual report, Technology Counts 2009: Breaking Away from Tradition, which looks at e-education and opportunities for raising achievement at the K-12 level.

The report indicates that online education is not just being used for advanced students but for struggling students too. On another positive note, the report found that school districts and teachers previously who felt threatened by online education are now embracing the new technologies and ways to hybridize the learning process.

Referencing a report from Sloan-C about K-12 Online Learning, it was shown that the number of K-12 students engaged in online courses in 2007-2008 was up 47% to over 1 million students.

The edweek.org report looks at the changing education environment, key findings from the 2009 State Technology Reports, analyses state-by-state grades and other state data, including use of technology and data access. Read more here.

This week, British Columbia had its first ever Anti-Bullying Day. All across BC, people wore pink to stand up to bullying – both online and offline. 1 in 4 youth in British Columbia have been victims of cyberbullying and 1 in 5 and bullied others! 80% say people bully others online because it’s earlier to do. Read more here.

We’ve talked in the past about social networking, privacy and cyberbullying, with Facebook being sited often as a platform used by cyberbullies.

Today I stumbled across a video about how to configure your privacy settings on Facebook – a video teachers may wish to share with their students, or parents with their kids:

For resources on bullying for parents and teachers, check out the list available on the BC Ministry of Education.

Via SafeKids

A task force that was charged to assess technologies for protecting children from unwanted online contact has put together a report. The report indicates that no single approach is a guarantee or foolproof system to protect kids. Therefore, they encourage that parents and teachers continue with vital oversight of Internet usage.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) out of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society was created in February 2008 by the Attorneys General Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking and MySpace. After a year of study, the final report was presented to the 52 Attorneys General in December of 2008. The task force was made up of a group of 29 Internet businesses, non-profits, academics and tech companies.

The report found that the risks minors face online are not significantly different than those they face offline – though they are complex and multifaceted. Part of this conclusion was drawn from a lack of data about sexual predators using social networking sites. As they age, the report found that minors were contributing to some of the problems they face online.

Interesting conclusions from the study:

• Bullying and harassment – mostly by peers – are the most frequent threats both online and offline
• Unwanted exposure to pornography does occur online, but mostly to those seeking it out
• Social networking sites are not the most common space for solicitation and unwanted exposure to problematic content – though they are used by peer-to-peer cyberbullies
• Minors most at-risk online are those who engage in risky behaviors and have difficulties in other areas of their lives – psychological makeup and family dynamics predict risk better than use of certain technologies
• Almost all technologies present privacy and security issues
• Social networking sites have been aggressively pursuing technologies that promote safety for minors – innovation is promising

The report concludes that there are promising developments in technologies to protect kids online but that such technologies are not enough:

“Technology can play a helpful role, but there is no one technological solution or specific combination of technological solutions to the problem of online safety for minors. Instead, a combination of technologies, in concert with parental oversight, education, social services, law enforcement, and sound policies by social network sites and service providers may assist in addressing specific problems that minors face online.”

The task force set out a series of suggestions for the Internet community, the Attorneys General, to parents and more. They point out that more resources should be allocated to all the many-faceted stakeholders working to protect minors online.

See the report presented and debated in this video and download the final report here.

Via MSNBC

According to a new survey, schools all across the US are feeling the effects of the downturn in the economy. The study, released by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), is based on a survey of school superintendents from October of 2008. It finds that schools across the nation are cutting costs in response to shrinking budgets, which could “threaten gains in student achievement and progress in narrowing the achievement gap.”

The study is very in depth, looking to many areas of budgets and cost-custting, from thermostats to staff levels. Currently, 67% of those superintendents polled describe their districts as “inadequately funded.”

Highlights from the study:

• 36% of superintendents have increased class sizes
• 35% have reduced instructional material
• 30% are considering lay offs, while 48% have already reduced staff-level hiring
• 95% say unemployment has impacted the families of students in their districts
• 87% say the economy affects the schools’ capacity to maintain focus on student learning (similarly, most indicate the same inability to focus on instructional improvements, learning needs of all students, and meeting performance assessments)

There is no doubt that education is vital to a healthy economy, so a struggling education system could, according to AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech, “multiply the negative impact and prolong the economic downturn.”

Although the survey did not ask about IT budgets in any way, I would imagine that IT has been as impacted by tighter budgets in the education sector. It will put extra pressure on IT departments to find solutions that help automate tasks and increase efficiencies. Also, given that data breaches in the education market account for a significant portion of all breaches in 2008, reductions in security spending could increase the risk of data breach (which is a costly issue). Download the study here. [PDF]

Another extremely interesting article on the topic of education looks to Obama’s campaign and what lessons the education sector can learn from his embrace of technology during his campaign. Obama’s campaign made effective use of social media – Facebook, Twitter, blogging – to get in touch with young voters. A strategy that had more young voters out to the polls than any time in the last 34 years, and which teachers can take inspiration from in terms of getting their students involved. Continue reading about this here.

Learn more about Absolute Software’s initiatives in Education here.

Via eschoolnews

On November 17th, the One Laptop Per Child initiative will come to Amazon. The mission of OLPC is to make sure kids in the developing worlds are able to learn effectively on their own personal laptops, to that “they, their families and their communities can openly learn and learn about learning.”

In addition to making sure kids in developed countries have laptops, the OLPC Association focuses on designing, manufacturing and distributing laptops into the hands of children in lesser-developed countries. Of course, in order that the laptops can be used, the association focuses on getting government support to create programs so that children can not only own, but use, laptops.

The ability to support OLPC was previously restricted to the OLPC site – however, on November 17th, news has it that Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk will be participating in the Give 1 Get 1 program. Under this program, people can buy one of the XO laptops for themselves and donate the other to a child in a developing country – the starter price to give 1 and get 1 is just $199.

You can support the program as an individual or business, but you can also help in creating open source software and learning resources (info here). For future news, you can follow the One Laptop per Child initiative on Twitter or read the independent OLPCNews blog.