| Postings about youth & how technology impacts their culture and education | Tuesday, 23 June 2026 - 23:48 |
The New York Times has a good overview of three of the leaders of Massively Open Online Course providers. All with highly respectable backers, they reflect a more efficient way of educating in this broadband era.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/the-big-three-mooc-providers.html?_r=1&
This article in the San Jose Mercury points out how Santa Clara County has become among the friendliest to charter schools in the state of California. The charter schools have found their success with what had been the lowest performing students.
Santa Clara County friendliest to charter schools – San Jose Mercury News.
We are lucky to have Lisa Gillis of IES speaking at next week’s Media Innovation Summit. Lisa was a consultant to the Rocketship Education, which runs several of the charter schools referenced in the SJ Mercury article.
Is college necessary or is it even a good investment anymore with all of the online resources available? The UnCollege thinks there is a better way and points to an online world where the traditional education system is disintermediated. More than that, the UnCollege approach looks at creating an attitude of learning that is self-motivated and life-long; which matches the shorter career life cycle resulting from the ever increasing use of technology in all parts of the workforce.
The UnCollege web site is packed with great resources for people looking to receive an education without following a traditional path.
Commonsense Media suggests that television remains dominant in terms of the number of hours consumed by the zero to eight year old group. To give a perspective on this, children under 1 watch more than two-times as much TV and videos as they do reading books or being read to.
It’s not too surprising that reading is an after-thought given that, according to the data, 47% of the 5 to 8 year olds have a television in their bedrooms.
There are some interesting differences due to income, such as low-income children are likely to have a television (98%) and watch more educational programming (26% low income kids often watch educational programming) versus 17% for high income kids). Higher income children spend less time with media (music, reading & screen media) at 2:47 per day versus 3:34 for lower income children. More striking is that upper income children have fewer TVs in their bedrooms (20%) as compared to lower income children (64%).
They multitask, as evidenced by the fact that approximately 51% of 5 to 8 year olds simultaneously use multiple media at least once in a while.
A good infographic compiled by AdWeek can be found at this link:
http://www.adweek.com/files/DATA-childs-play-02b.jpg
The report is based on a sample size of 1,384 parents of children 0 to 8 years old, including an over-sample of African-American and Hispanic parents.
Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America | Common Sense Media
and the full report can be found at:
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/zerotoeightfinal2011.pdf
What a great idea and it was an idea started by a teen. More than an investment club, this group teaches entrepreneurship, the stock market and how to take ideas and turn them into products; things that should be part of a school’s curriculum.
This really is the next generation lemonade stand. Instead of taking it to the street, they are taking it to the net and it each other in real life. They also bring in adults to tap their expertise.
What a great concept that this club wants to spread to other schools and young people.
Who would have thought that a game with 1980s-style graphics, with zero marketing dollars and with only a nine person team behind it would capture the minds of millions of youth? Minecraft, a sort of building block virtual world, is now being extended into the education realm through the work of MinecraftEdu.
MinecraftEdu is tailored to the teacher’s cirriculum and it is relatively inexpensive (at up to 50% of the retail cost).
It easily lends itself to science, technology, engineering and math explorations (STEM). But beyond that, language teachers are strengthening communication skills, civics teachers are exploring how societies function, and history teachers are having their students recreate ancient civilizations.
They will soon be providing workshops and inservice training for teachers on how to use this truly engaging interactive platform.
A description of the capabilities can be found here:
http://minecraftedu.com/mod.php
On a personal note, seeing how engaged my boys and their friends are with Minecraft, I have thought that the teaching community could leverage this platform as an educational tool. It will be interesting to see what sort of traction this platform receives.
Leveraging the time children spend on games to create educational experiences is one of the conclusions of the 2009 Game Changer Report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. This report combines results of interviews with experts and analyzes the literature on the topic of gaming in education. It suggests that, “Digital games offer a promising an untapped opportunity to leverage children’s enthusiasm and to help transform learning in America.”
Beyond education, the report suggests that digital games can even improve physical health (e.g. Dance Dance Revolution), hygiene habits and disease management.
They suggest there is a need for:
At least that is one conclusion of a Wall Street Journal article posted Saturday, November 12th. The Journal reviews the current state of online education and looks at the challenges of continuing academic success as programs grow. The article points to virtual school that have done well initially, but then have struggled to match the standardized test results of schools with a physical presence.
It concludes with the idea that a blended learning experience is necessary – one that involves working closely with teachers and parents – is what is necessary to educate a child. ‘The computer can’t do it alone.’
http://blogs.wsj.com/wsjam/2011/11/14/my-teacher-is-an-app/
and the MP3 audio with the author:
http://www.wsjradio.com/audio/11-14sim.mp3
Motivating America’s youth to take an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) is the purpose of the National STEM Video Game Challenge. Through a public/private partnership with the likes of the Department of Education and private sponsors like the AMD Foundation, the Entertainment Software Association and Xbox 360, this competition has categories for middle school, high school, collegiate and educators to create games that motivate interest in STEM.
Teachers are encouraged to sign up their students
Broadband is not only critical for education, but for all aspects of life these days; from finding a job to filing taxes. The FCC push to create affordable broadband for families with children in school lunch programs is another step towards increasing broadband penetration from its near 70% rate today.
Led by the non-profit One Economy and backed by cable operators, such as Charter, Comcast, Time-Warner, the Connect-to-Compete program will offer $9.95 per month, 1 Mbps broadband to what NTCA estimates are 5.5 million homes consisting of 10 million children who don’t have broadband and are part of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). NTCA estimates that, “Broadband adoption in eligible C2C households is roughly half that of other households with K-12 students.” The launch of this program is set for the beginning of the 2012 school year.
Notably absent from the operators providing this package are One Economy partners, AT&T and Verizon. Microsoft, with $250 computers, and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, with digital literacy training classes, are among other entities who are supporting the effort within the home.
In this video interview, Kelly Dunne of One Economy talks about their efforts to help bring and create demand for broadband among the under-served. Click here for the video interview:
http://www.viodi.tv/2011/05/31/one-economy/
References:
NCTA Facts – http://www.ncta.com/PublicationType/MiscellaneousPublication/FAQ-for-C2C-Program.aspx
Connect 2 Compete – http://connect2compete.org/
FCC – Facts http://viodi.com/bookmarks/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/fcc-connect-to-compete-facts.pdf
