Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

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eLearning Resource: Classroom 2.0

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Today we would like to share an excellent eLearning resource with our readers: Classroom 2.0.  This is a website that acts as an online social forum for those in the education profession who are interested in incorporating social media and participative technology in the classroom.  Steve Hargadon, host of the Future of Education interview series and co-chair of the annual Global Education and Library 2.0 worldwide conferences, created this social network in 2007.  Classroom 2.0 has many great features and boasts of having over 60,000 members from 181 countries worldwide.

One of the main features of Classroom 2.0 is the user discussion forum.  This part of the website is set up much like any other discussion forum and provides a place for education professionals to pose questions, offer advice, and share ideas.  If you sign up for an account with Classroom 2.0, you can mark discussion threads that interest you and you will then be able to access these threads in one centralized location, “My Discussions”.  The Classroom 2.0 discussion forum is a great networking tool for teachers and educational staff.

Classroom 2.0 also has a Groups section in which you can find a large selection of groups of users with common interests or goals.  For example there is a group called CIS Technology Forum that provides a place for users to share ideas and knowledge about using technology in the classroom.  There is also a Brazilian group, Exchange Brazil, which seeks to match up Brazilian students with “ePals” (similar to the pen pal concept of years ago) so they may learn about different cultures, countries, and ways of life.  As a Classroom 2.0 member, you may also start your own group if you don’t find one already in existence that suits your needs.  There are many school site specific groups that are used as a communication tool for the participating schools or school projects.

Other features of the Classroom 2.0 website include a link to recordings where users can access various informative recordings on all types of education and technology topics.  Additionally, Classroom 2.0 has a channel in iTunes U in which users may listen or subscribe to these recordings.  There is also a link to something called EdIncubator where users can find a daily video blog, lesson plans, two weekly news stories, original student produced news pieces and a new initiative called the Student Reporting Labs.  EdIncubator aims to create a “fun community dedicated to media literacy, good citizenship and empowering young people through journalism.”

Classroom 2.0 is a free, community supported network.  You can create an account on the Classroom 2.0 website or also sign up using your Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Yahoo account.  While there is no charge to sign up for a classroom 2.0 account, all memberships must be approved.  You can keep up with what’s happening at Classroom 2.0 by following them on Twitter at @Classroom20.  To sign up for your account or to learn more about Classroom 2.0, visit www.classroom20.com today.

The Education for All Crowdsourcing Challenge Update II

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

Over the last couple of months we have shared two articles with our readers about The Education for All Crowdsourcing Challenge.  In November of 2011, we introduced the challenge in an article titled The Education for All Crowdsourcing Challenge: Mobile Communication as an Educational Tool and in January of this year we provided an update on the winners of this ongoing challenge in an article called The Education for All Crowdsourcing Challenge Update.  Today we would like to fill our readers in on the sub-category monthly winners in this challenge.

As you may recall from our previous articles, The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) teamed up with Nokia and the Pearson Foundation to launch the Education for All Crowdsourcing Challenge.  This is a challenge designed to produce ideas for using mobile communication technology to assist Education for All (EFA) in achieving its goals.  This challenge began in October of 2011 and will last for eight months. Each month the challenge focuses on one specific EFA goal.  The EFA goals include:

1.  Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children

2.  Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality

3. 
Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes

4. 
Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults

5. 
Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality

6.  Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills

The monthly winners for the sub challenge categories of Primary Education and Literacy were I-Learn by Swaroop John and TOT by Sanjith Yeruva.  You can read about the details of these two winning entries in our January article.  The most recent sub challenge winner in the category of Youth and Adult Learning Needs is Eric Kotonya with his idea Education Time Bank.  This is and idea for a mobile application in which students can pay a nominal fee for brief training sessions from registered subject matter experts.  The subject matter experts earn credits based on time input while the students have the opportunity to rate their individual training session.  Kotonya envisions this application creating a “learning currency” in which anyone can pay to learn by first offering quality training services.

If you are interested in submitting an idea for a mobile education application, you can visit the EFA Crowdsourcing Challenge website at http://www.ideasproject.com/community/en/efa  .  Ideas can be submitted in all challenge categories through the challenge deadline of May 31, 2012.

eLearning Resource: There’s an App for That

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

Around the time the iPhone 3G was in widespread use, there was a running joke among fans of this Apple product: “There’s an app for that.”  The term “app” is referring to the applications users can download for their iPhone (or other Apple devices) and the joke came about because there are so many apps in existence that there is quite possibly an app for every need or want a person can dream up.  So, the standard response for a person experiencing a dilemma or facing some sort of challenge: There’s an app for that.

While this is humorous, there is no joke in the fact that there are over half a million applications available in the in iTunes App Store today.  And there is certainly nothing funny about looking for an app for a specific need and having to sift through over 500,000 choices.  The apps in the App Store are loosely categorized, but searching through even just one category can be quite overwhelming.  Those in the education profession are no strangers to this challenge.  With many schools and classrooms incorporating technology into their curriculum by way of Apple iPhones and iPads, finding quality applications for these devices can be rather daunting.

In a recent article on iPad Academy, Andy Brovey shared several great resources for finding useful and relevant iPad apps for educators.   The website APPitic is a directory of over 1300 educational apps by Apple Distinguished Educators (ADEs).  APPitic is easy to use with search categories including Preschool, Themes, Multiple Intelligences, Bloom’s, and SPED/Autism.  Each category includes several subcategories to further classify the apps.  Of course, there is a typical search box on the site as well.

Another app finding website Brovey shared in his article is IEAR Education Apps Review.  IEAR is a self-proclaimed “community effort to grade educational apps” with about 30 volunteer app reviewers and over 500 educators, administrators, and app developers contributing to the effort.  This is a useful site because in addition to educational app reviews, there is also a wealth of information and advice around using apps in education.  This site offers a community forum, tutorials, and much more.

A third site to use as an educational app finding resource is Apps in Education.  This is a website arranged in blog format with apps categorized simply by academic subject category.  Apps in Education also offers posts about iPad tips and tricks, “top ten” style lists, and ideas for iPad learning objectives.

If you are still looking for help in finding quality educational apps, there’s an app for that too.  AppShopper is a free app that will keep you updated on apps newly added to the iTunes app store, as well as app sales and giveaways.  This app also allows users to create a wish list and will notify users when apps on their wish list go on sale.  Another app finding app is Discovr Apps .  This is another free app that allows users to find apps they might be interested based on apps they already find useful.  The user simply enters the name of an app he’s already had a positive experience with, and Discovr Apps will return similar apps for the user to investigate.

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