Learning Solutions

Visit the center at: http://www.thearmyexperience.com/

The U.S. Army needed an innovative way to communicate its mission, values, resources and career opportunities to a new generation of Americans on a local level. The Army Experience Center (AEC) now serves as a twenty-first century destination for people to get accurate information about the Army directly from the source.

Conceived and built over a ten-month period in the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia, the 14,500-square-foot technology and education center is fast becoming a model for Army recruiting nationwide. Touch screen kiosks, state-of-the-art presentation facilities, community events and high-action simulators are just a few of the AEC features helping to shatter outdated stereotypes and start new career conversations.

CNN reports:

As the U.S. wages wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has been looking at new approaches to attracting soldiers since a dismal recruiting year in 2005. Other steps have included increasing bonuses, hiring more recruiters and easing some standards.

Some people are not too excited:

Over the past year, as part of the United for Peace & Justice—Delaware Valley Network’s campaign to close the Army Experience Center (AEC) located in the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, there have been regular protests and a monthly vigil (3rd Saturday of the month) at Knights & Woodhaven Roads, urging people not to shop the mall until the AEC is closed.

Thoughts?

Here are the top ten ed-tech stories of 2009, as reported by eSchoolNews:

10 - Internet safety becomes an integral part of the K-12 school curriculum (link)

 9 - “Sexting” becomes a huge problem for educators and parents  (link)

 8 -  Microsoft vs. Google: Two technology heavyweights square off in a battle for student loyalty (link)

 7 - Google’s ambitious book-scanning project draws antitrust concerns  (link)

 6 - Online learning becomes a true “disruptive innovation” … (link)

 5 - …while also preventing the disruption of class during the swine-flu scare  (link)

 4 - Billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding helps rescue ed-tech budgets–but schools are still hurting, despite the increase  (link)

 3 - Federal officials seek a national strategy for getting broadband to every American  (link)

 2 - Technology is a key part of the Obama administration’s school-reform efforts  (link)

 1 - Digital textbooks open a new chapter in the history of U.S. education  (link)

From Higher Ed Morning:

Not so long ago, students relied on crib sheets and word of mouth to cheat. And while some of those methods live on, cheating today has taken a new twist.

Here’s Education-Portal.com’s list of the eight most popular ways students are cheating (in no particular order):

• Copying — Whether it’s eyes roving during a test or a so-called “study group,” it’s still copying.
• Buying papers online — It doesn’t get much easier than this. Papers on just about any topic you can think of are available — and most can be downloaded instantly.
• Cheat sheets — This perennially popular form of cheating is made even easier with today’s electronic devices.
• Take a picture — If a professor leaves a test on his desk, all it takes is the click of a student’s cell phone camera to steal it.
• “Can I go to the bathroom?” — Once there, a student can call or text friends for answers during a test.
• MP3 players — Students can put anything on their iPods — including lecture notes. And with many professors letting students listen to their MP3s during tests in order to focus and relax …
• Cell phones — Is there a better — or easier — way to store data?
• When is a candy bar more than a candy bar? — Believe it or not, some students have peeled off the wrapper, scanned it, edited the nutritional info into test answers and rewrapped the candy bar — where it sits on the student’s desk during an exam.

As long as teachers continue to rely on basic levels of assessment, then cheating will occur.  If a student can pass your class by cheating, then you are doing a disservice to that student.

Education is not about how well one does on a multiple choice test. Can the student apply the knowledge gained to the world around them?

Teachers need to get away from the objectiveness of learning, and assess at a higher level, thus eliminating the term cheat from their vocabulary.

How do you cheat in a open discussion forum? How do you cheat on a group project, with an oral presentation? Am I able to cheat at my workplace?

In the past 5 years, I have not been assessed with a multiple choice test, I am assessed on my multiple decision-making skills.

When will this stop being an issue?

From THE Journal:

More than 2 million preK-12 students take some form of schooling online right now–whether attending a virtual school for all their classes or just taking one or more courses via the Internet. But while the vast majority of students will continue to take all of their courses in physical classrooms over the next five years, the number of students taking courses online will jump to more than 10 million by 2014, according to data released recently by research firm Ambient Insight.

Across all segments, the market for electronic learning products and services, at present, is $16.7 billion. According to the report, this will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.4 percent over the next five years to $23.8 billion in 2014.

The healthcare industry will see the most growth, followed by PK-12 and higher education.

Impact for learning solutions is to flexible in providing content face to face and online.  Instructors will need to understand the pedagogy behind distance education.

Inside Higher Ed reports about a new competitor for Blackboard’s Learning Management Monopoly:

New Player in Course Management Software

A challenge from SMU professor Jose Bowen: “Teach Naked”, meaning to utilize the face-to-face time with students for more discussion and debate, instead of rote lecturing from bullet-laden digital presentations. He encourages the use of podcasts for the lecture material, and e-mail to point students to content covered in the curriculum.

Bowen warns residential colleges that they are under siege from cheaper online learning options to provide more engaging, personal interaction with students, in order to justify the cost of a college education.

Technology has a place for teachers, and is not a replacement for teachers.

I propose a “Teach Naked” week for all teachers to turn off their computers while students are in their rooms.

“How to Become an Executive in Information Technology in 400 Words or Less“.

Uses 63 commonly used IT buzzwords.

Ideally, change management begins at a 50000-foot level, so first and foremost you want make sure you are talking apples to apples with the right people in the right seat on the bus that is on the right street in the right city and state. When the time comes to bridge the gap, best practices dictate you put a stake in the ground and mind meld with the solution architect. Be tactical, taking baby steps, staying off the bunny trail, even if it is a moving target. In this initial phase of information gathering, understanding time to value will help you avoid vendor rage.

It’s like building a house, taking a cool concept and through many iterations, minimizing disconnect while managing cost of service. If you find yourself in the critical path, revisit the action items to get traction, even it you take a vanilla approach.

Don’t drop the ball when you encounter showstoppers, and feel like you are pushing a string, that is healthy friction. To get your ducks in a row, think out of the box, and try playing the customer, without reinventing the wheel. This is not just a stopgap measure, but rather an interface to peel the onion and get the low hanging fruit. Lessons learned say you will experience push back, like you are drinking from a fire hose. Next steps would be telling the story to connect the dots, using a phased approach that increases synergy, and well, warm fuzzies!!

When you are about to operationalize, it’s like building a car, so don’t be afraid to eat your own dog food, though it may feel like herding cats. This is when your passion for databases and capacity planning will allow you to leverage those resource buckets, and move past the proof of concept stage. This may sound like a chicken and the egg approach, and make you go from hero to zero. But, you should play devil’s advocate, and focus on a dashboard of KPI metrics, not onesy-twosy objectives, which would increase fuzziness. Avoid building buggy whips, and your triangle will take you from hide and seek to show and tell, thus creating GOODNESS!!

OR

Just outsource it!!

Now that several schools are being closed, and even whole districts are shutting their doors, I am wondering if the schools have a contingency plan to continue and instruct the students while closed.  Are kids being given another spring break, or are they being sent home with worksheets to complete on their own?

This is the perfect storm to raise awareness about the use of learning management systems as out of school learning solutions.  A basic Moodle install would solve many problems that the closed schools are facing at this time, if the days are not to be made up.  Teachers could continue to communicate with students, and not lose any instructional time.

The most unfortunate result of this: it is happening after TAKS testing.  Everyone knows that teachers finally do authentic, constructivist teaching once the 8 months of TAKS readiness is over.

I am watching a webinar on the release of Blackboard 9, a learning management system that has finally incorporated some 21st century technologies: drap and drop, social networking, blogs, and journals.  The most intriguing feature is the connection with open source learning management systems, such as Moodle and Sakai.  Is this a peace offering, or a sign of things to come, that Blackboard will take over the open source market.  Ask Desire2Learn…

The problem I am having is that the presentation, like all their other presentations, is rather dry.  Blackboard has always come across as a monopolistic, “take it or leave it” entity, not going that extra mile to sell their product.  Proof in point, not 30 minutes into the presentation, ther are already selling their hosting solution.

True tale wiil be the cost increase associated with the new release.

Urging policy makers and school leaders “to take bold steps … to improve education for America’s 21st-century leaders,” the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) has issued new guidance for reforming the nation’s schools with the help of technology.

With input from more than 100 national policy makers and all 50 state educational technology offices, SETDA’s action plan sets forth the following 10 recommendations for national, state, and local education leaders:

1. Ensure that technology tools and resources are used continuously and seamlessly for instruction, collaboration, and assessment.
2. Expose all students (pre-K through 12th grade) to STEM fields and careers.
3. Make ongoing, sustainable professional development available to all teachers.
4. Use virtual learning opportunities for teachers to further their professional development, such as through online communities and education portals.
5. Incorporate innovative, consistent, and timely assessments into daily instruction.
6. Strengthen the home-school connection by using technology to communicate with parents on student progress.
7. Provide the necessary resources so that every community has the infrastructure to support learning with technology, including assessments and virtual learning.
8. Obtain societal support for education that uses technology from all stakeholders–students, parents, teachers, state and district administrators, business leaders, legislators, and local community members.
9. Provide federal leadership to support states and districts regarding technology’s role in school reform by passing the ATTAIN Act.
10. Increase available funding for the e-Rate so that schools can acquire telecommunication services, internet access, internal connections, and maintenance of those connections.