Yesterday, I noticed this article being shared; “Hays school district orders 800 padlocks for students“. I am glad that they are providing iPads to their students so it is not that they are not ignoring opportunities for both creation and consumption, but I am firm believer that the best device for any learner is often the…
YouTube is getting rid of its video editor and photo slideshows due to lack of use, the company announced yesterday. The changes won’t happen until September 20th, so if you still rely on YouTube to edit your videos, you’ll have a bit of time before you have to find a new service. Source: YouTube is getting rid of…
Don’t let your spare USB drives go to waste! Use them to prepare for disaster and turn them into toolkits that might one day save your neck. USB jump drives are a dying breed. As the process of transferring data becomes increasingly wireless, many are left with underutilized USB drives crammed into drawers. That is,…
Want to know one common habit among successful people? They get things out of their head and down on paper (or some other note-taking device). In fact, Richard Branson has been known to carry a notebook with him everywhere he goes, and credits writing things down as one of his most powerful success habits. Source: The…
It would appear that Open Plan Classrooms (OPCs) are making a comeback. Or probably more accurately, they never really went away. You may have also heard of them being referred to as Modern Learning Environments (MLEs). I have no knowledge of their prevalence, past or present. But it is looking increasingly likely that your local…
New research by scientists at Michigan State University suggests that laptops do not enhance classroom learning, and in fact students would be better off leaving their laptops in the dorm during class. Although computer use during class may create the illusion of enhanced engagement with course content, it more often reflects engagement with social media, YouTube videos,…
Few saw the Chromebook coming. When it launched half a decade ago, the category was broadly maligned for its limited feature set, middling hardware specs and operation that required an always-on internet connection to work properly. But things change in five years. In 2015, the category overtook MacBooks in the U.S. for the first time ever, selling…
To graduate from a public high school in Chicago, students will soon have to meet a new and unusual requirement: They must show that they’ve secured a job or received a letter of acceptance to college, a trade apprenticeship, a gap year program or the military. Source: Chicago won’t allow high school students to graduate without…
The think-tank examined the relation between social media use (including online time) and mental illness: While twelve percent of children who spend no time on social networking websites on a normal school day have symptoms of mental ill health, that figure rises to 27 percent for those who are on the sites for three or…
The cliché is a fifty-year-old asking some ten year old student for help in making the computer work. Having trouble making working with your device or your software? Just grab one of those digital natives to handle it for you! Well, not so fast. Here’s Jenny Abamu at Edsurge saying what I’ve been arguing for over…