Boost learning outcomes with standardized classroom system

Ken Moss, instructional technologist, Georgia Perimeter College and Jim Hollenbach, head of media technical services, Northern Illinois University will discuss how standardized classroom systems enabled two campuses to enhance teaching and learning while dramatically reducing IT costs.

Date: February 28, 2008
Time: 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
Sponsored by: SMART Technologies

Register for details.

Here's a venue for teacher as artist to explore with those who call for more targeted interactions with students how a common hi tech system leads to student learning increases.

Here're interesting data to review for drafting your proposal for funding more electronic tools in classrooms, Tableteers, MIDeers, and other venture educators.

Multiple Postdocs Available at the Sketch Recognition Lab TX A&M

Tracy Hammond announce that the Sketch Recognition Lab in the Computer Science Department at Texas A&M University seeks multiple postdocs for starting Summer, 2008.

Positions are for one year with yearly extensions dependent on available funding and performance.

Candidates should have expertise in one or more of the following areas: HCI, Speech Recognition, Sketch Recognition, and/or Machine Learning. Salary will be highly competitive.

Interested candidates please send CV, research statement, and letter of interest to (email preferred):

Tracy Hammond
hammond at cs.tamu.edu
Director, Sketch Recognition Lab
Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department
Mail Stop 3112, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX

Best wishes on this venture, Tableteers! Let us know of your progress. You will extend the honor other venture educators have given to the mobile PC community.

North Dakota Selects TIENET to Manage Special Education Data

MAXIMUS (NYSE:MMS), a provider of government services, announced that the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI) has selected its TIENET(R) special education case management system for a statewide implementation. The project, valued at $1 million, is expected to be completed by October 2008.

Robert Rutten, Director of the Office of Special Education for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction stated, "Our State wanted to provide a service for educators that will enhance their ability to use data to serve students more effectively. The TIENET(R) system strengthens both instructional data management and special education case management, and it also makes it easier to meet reporting expectations."

TIENET(R) enables teachers and special education service providers to prepare Individual Education Programs (IEPs) that meet students' unique needs and to address compliance requirements in North Dakota. Staff will be able to collect, analyze and report student achievement data to improve student performance and develop reports and communication for parents, teachers, administrators, and School Board members.

In addition, the NDDPI will be able to gather data in a uniform manner from all districts and enhance their ability to perform monitoring activities that will result in improved school and student performance outcomes.

Check out this case study of TIENET by Microsoft. In short, reports that used to require weeks of turn around time
from other vendors are now created within minutes by users.

Eurographics Calls for Papers

The organizing committee for Eurographics - European Association for Computer Graphics issued a call for papers for the Fifth Eurographics Workshop on
Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling.

Although computers are indispensable tools, pencil and paper still reign in the early stages of design in domains such as engineering, architectural design and in the entertainment industry, from 3D animation to video games.
Here's an invitation to demonstrate your new products and explain how it uses Ink instead of paper and pencils to design products or to play video games. I've heard at CES, Tablet Gatherings, and other such places some of you talk about such products you're developing. Here's a venue for sharing them with us. Thanks for thinking about taking that step.

wipte Calls for Papers, Posters, and Videos

The organizing committee for the 2008 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education issued its Second Call for Papers, Posters, and videos about uses of pen-based technologies in schools, including for learning.

WIPTE is open to anyone with an interest in instructional technology. A wide variety of disciplines are embracing Tablet PC's and similar pen-based devices as tools for the radical enhancement of teaching and learning. This conference is intended to leverage this shared passion and to identify best practices in the educational use of pen-based computing so that all educators may benefit from this next generation of technology. Each WIPTE paper presentation includes an assessment component as an important part of the presentation. The WIPTE program also includes keynote talks, poster presentations, vendor booths, panels, and special sessions.

Check it out, Tableteers, Venture Educators, education ISVs, and others who have tried pen-based products for learning, teaching, and overseeing.

Note the upcoming important dates. Yes, you have time to click over to the announcement sites and add dates to your calendar.

Homeschoolers, students, classroom artists, engineers, therapists, nurses, coaches, superintendents, curriculum supervisors, show and tell how you use your Tablet, MID, UMPCs, touchboards, and such devices.

Yes, these are peer reviewed presentations, so you may add your contribution to your CV.

Ohnosecond Defined

Ohnosecond: the short time required to realize that you have made a serious mistake.

BNET Business Dictionary

Several times a day, the best teachers have that "Ohnosecond" recognition. Now we have a word for that awareness that seemed to occur in personal isolation for so long.

Thanks, Wordcrafter, for acknowledging that we share mistakes with enough others to have a word to describe that split second while we figure out how to take another step to make student learning easier!

Flight Simulator Takes Off

Here's a program for discussion with students who want to fly and for teachers who want to discuss their experience as pilots.

Microsoft ESP, a platform for developing rich simulations based on Microsoft Flight Simulator technology, is helping companies like Lockheed Martin and FlightSafety International create sophisticated training simulations to help pilots prepare for some of the most demanding conditions they’ll face.

Here's a Q&A both education Tableteers interested in aerospace may review to get an idea of the benefits of Microsoft ESP for these long-established contractors.

Intellectual Property Rights Curriculum for Schools

Microsoft sponsored development of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Education Curriculum program to incrrease awareness of intellectual property rights, to foster a better understanding of the rights connected with creative content, and ultimately, to instill in students a personal respect for IPR in a way that changes their behavior and perception of digitally delivered content.

This program ... offers a comprehensive set of cross-curricular classroom activities designed for grades 8-10 (but easily adaptable for use in grades 6-12) and organized into thematic units. The units provide a variety of ways to engage students in this learning experience and span the following subject areas: Civics, Computer Science, Debate, Economics, Fine Arts, Government, Journalism, Language Arts, Technology, and Video Production. (Bold added.)

Free downloads available, Tableteers, so enjoy this informative offer. Teachers as well as students will likely learn at least one thing that will help meet a learning criterion for one of these subject areas.

Please consider offering these curriculum developers your assessment of the program and suggestions for revisions.

InkSeine for Tablet PCs

Eliot describes Microsoft Research's InkSeine for Tablet PCs as

InkSeine is an innovate note-taking, organizing, annotation application that was designed and build with the idea that you'll be commanding, entering data, and manipulating content with a tablet pen and ink. Menus, actions, commands, and more are all optimizrd for the Tablet PC.

InkSeine is not an average Tablet PC or ultra mobile PC application/tool. It is an approach at developing a new user interface with their machines.

It is a new inking tool addressed at Tablet PCs and UMPCs running either Windows Vista or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

Students and teachers will likely find InkSeine's many features save time with new results, including from pen hover-touch-drag-and-drop, use of existing Ink to initiate a search, pen controlled file filtering and note viewing. There're more. Check out Eliot's neat "Notes for project meeting."

Wish I could have activated Eliot's notes to view Bert Keely's groove on souping up his Tablet PC. Maybe I did something wrong?

While on his site, check out his description of Ink-Enabled WinForms controls for Tablet PC applications. Here's more good stuff for your tablet.


Thanks, Eliot, for a great blog!

And, yes, teachers, you can trust his site. He knows what he's talking about, with a fine reputation for straight talk. Those who stay up to date will monitor him routinely.

Thanks, Lora, for pointing to Eliot's new blog.

String Family: Ah, Faith!

"Flat World" Education with Pink and Friedman

Daniel Pink interviewed Tom Friedman for The School Administrator about education in the Flat World of global competition, information, etc. Friedman contends in The World is Flat (2nd ed.) that 10 forces make it easier for people around the world to compete with those who had triumphed in the 20th century. In the interview, Friedman highlights his thoughts about how this flattening affects schooling and education. Here are interview excerpts:

Friedman: You know, Dan, I’ve been saying to people: “I used to be a free trader. I’m not anymore. Now, I’m a radical free trader.”

Pink: Why?

Friedman: Because if we live in a flat world where whatever can be done will be done, guess who’s going to win? People who get the signals first, who do it before it’s done to them ...

Friedman: I’ve added something I got from my friend Ramalinga Raju from Satyam, the Indian company. ... The greatest economic competition going forward is going to be between you and your own imagination. Your ability to act on your imagination is going to be so decisive in driving your future and the standard of living in your country. So the school, the state, the country that empowers, nurtures, enables imagination among its students and citizens, that’s who’s going to be the winner.

Pink: What’s your take on how that is going in the U.S. schools compared with education systems in other countries?

Friedman: What’s happening, I believe in the world, is a global convergence. China’s trying to get more innovative. And we’re trying to get more rigorous. But I’d rather have our problem than theirs because I think this right-brain stuff is very culture-bound and often hard to teach...

Pink: Sifters, sorters, connectors, “yes but-ers.” That’s a nice way to describe a teacher’s role today. Now let me ask you a question that’s tinged a little bit with politics ... (NCLB) ...

Friedman: So again, you don’t want to go to either extreme here. You can’t be a really good connector if you don’t know algorithms and calculus. But you can’t be a connector if you only know algorithms and calculus. So it’s really striking a balance. And the question is, in the last decade, have we gotten out of balance? ... We’re not going to get better educators and better schools without better parents. ... So I’m a real big believer that you should do what you love and follow your nose. ... My only stricture was do it well. ... Maybe the most important piece of advice is: Know what you believe and stick with it. Don’t let people knock you off your game, ... Today, the president’s got to be our chief education officer. (Bolds added.)

Thanks, Pink, for the interview. It's a good summary of Friedman's writings and many interviews on TV, etc. He condenses some of educators' best thinking over the centuries into memorable, catchy phrases.

And, thanks, J Poletti, for the reminder to find the interview.

Kenya Disputes at Trinity School 6th Grade

A teacher at Trinity School recently shared online a poignant email from a friend in Kenya.

I think you will find her words interesting…

“In Nyeri, the school is still functioning as normal. Classes are still held and homework is given out as expected. However, at the moment, we are taking extra precaution by not having students leave the campus for cross country or other activities where the security might be questionable. At night, our security guards, armed with their usual bows and arrows, watch over us…”

“While there is no violence here, there is obvious tension around campus as the radio is constantly on in the staff room and conversations rarely touch on anything other than the current and developing situations in the country. ...

There's more of the email posted. It's worth reading.

Thank you, teachers, for sharing your observations and thinking about events in Kenya that we see briefly on TV. You reminded me to find out how my friends in Kenya with whom we shared college dorm meals have faired during this brutality.

What Do We Know About Our Kids’ Futures? Really.

Will Richardson asked an interesting question that drew double digit comments on his blog, "What Do We Know About Our Kids’ Futures? Really."

Our kids’ futures will require them to be:

Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.”

More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information.

More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world.

Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids.

More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically.

Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice.

More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world.

Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.

There’s more, obviously. But I’m curious. What would you add? Or what would you push back against?

His list seems reasonable. Yet it's different from what comes to mind when reading the question he asked.

I commented, Looking at the future as a half-full glass of milk, I’d include personal initiative, calculated risk-taking, and entrepreneurship in any list of behavior youth will use tomorrow, if they plan to live what we call a middle class life today. I expect tomorrow will require personal competition for daily resources that exceed levels most people in the U.S. have experienced since the 1930s, irrespective of what else teachers and politicians do today.

I wonder if a school would have to change much in order to emphasize personal initiative, calculated risk-taking, and entrepreneurship as dominant outcomes for PK12 curricula and daily lesson plans?

Lisa Klassen Presses On Regardless

Lisa Klassen is the first woman to win a national Rally Race Championship. She also surfs, mountain bikes, plays the French horn, designs clothes, is a certified audio engineer, has a degree in American Literature and Culture, and generally reminds you that you could be doing way more with your life. Wow!

Kudos to you and your teachers who helped you earn the tools to accomplish so much already in your life. Now, other teachers may use your example to inspire other youth, especially with the name of the Press On Regardless Rally. What a great motto as well. It's a great way to think. Thank you.

You set a brisk pace for other young women. We look forward to reading more about your accomplishments.

How Bishop Hartley High School Students Increase Learning with Tablet PCs

DyKnow released a case study of students and teachers using Tablet PCs at Bishop Hartley High School. Educators will find this, others on DyKnow's case study page, and 13 other case studies (see Tablet PC Schools tags in right column of this blog) published previously in this blog about Hartley High School useful for preparing proposals for Tablet PCs in your school.

Bishop Hartley High School, a private Catholic school located in Columbus, Ohio, realized the importance of integrating technology and became a pioneer in one-to-one computing ... “In high school, where students take seven 45-minute long classes per day, each moment of instruction is valuable,” Kenneth Collura, Director of Communication and Instructional Technologies for the Dioceses of Columbus, OH, explains. “We needed a way to make every minute of education personalized for each student.”

So they turned to DyKnow Monitor for thumbnail views of student screens to see that students are participating in class and staying on-task. After implementing Monitor software educators noticed overall improvement in students’ grades.

Congratulations, Ken, for another noteworthy recognition of how Hartley students increase their learning.

Thanks, DyKnow, for helping teachers increase student learning. We appreciate your skillful designs and useful updates.

Mobile PCs, College Preparation and Intellectual Disabilities

Imagine that two devoted, traditional, highly schooled parents ask if you can assist them to prepare their daughters to attend college. They're the kind of parents teachers cite as examples of traditional ideal supporters of public schools.

These parents enrolled their daughters in the best public school available in their area, but don’t think teachers prepare them for admission beyond a tier four or possibly tier three college or state university. They believe that such schooling, even with their daughters at the top of their classes, will not likely prepare them for employment comparable to their parents.

One daughter will probably earn top academic and artistic positions in highly competitive schools. Educators labeled the second daughter as having an intellectual deficit. She likely has a Stanford-Benet IQ score two deviations below the mean. Educators assigned her to conventional special education “inclusive” instruction that’s mostly IEP pull-out programs.

Someone else offered reading lists and skill development suggestions for the first daughter. I'll give priority to suggesting activities for the second daughter's college preparation.

For some of us, these are familiar requests. Examples exist of how such suggestions result in education doctorate holders, authors, artists, entertainment celebrities, and etc., including for people with various intellectual disabilities.

For some observers, it seems cruel, unnecessary, elitist, or inappropriate to prepare individuals with intellectual disabilities for anything other than living limited, at least partly sheltered lives.

Other objectors argue to parents, give your attention instead to improving public schools, so others as well as your children may also attend colleges of their choices.

I first remember hearing these objections during school desegregation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1967.

Today, mobile PCs can mitigate risks against someone attending a college of choice, including a person with intellectual disabilities. That premise appears reasonable, given uses of mobile PCs to implement results from experimental laboratory and field research studies about teaching and learning.

I think I’ll explore this request further in the next few days, review options, and post some thoughts, just in case they might assist someone.

What do you suggest I do to assist these parents?

Adequacy of Funding and the Future of Public Education in Illinois

Heads up, Tableteers. This influences your future use of tablet PC, MIDs, UMPCs, and other mobile PCs in public schools.

The Forum on the Future of Public Education of the College of Education, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign sponsors a symposium exploring models of education funding for states and nations and taking a close look at some new strategies to measure adequate funding.

Establishing the economic value of education as a long-term investment for the state and the country, and having reliable, objective measurements of adequate funding to gain optimal value for investments in education is essential as a matter of public policy.

A Forum on the Future of Public Education event made possible through The Edwin J. O’Leary Endowment in Financial Management in the Department of Educational Organization and Leadership.

When: February 15-16, 2008

Where: THE WHITEHALL HOTEL, 105 East Delaware Place, Chicago, Illinois


Interestingly, this symposium is cast as though student learning is a down-the-chain outcome. I wonder how the agenda would appear if learning rates were the intended primary index of economic value.

Atomic Learning Tutorial Library Increased to 35,000+

Every 45 days, Atomic Learning (AL) releases an average of 500 new tutorials on current applications that students and teachers use everyday.

Earlier this month, the Atomic Learning library reached a milestone of 35,000 software training tutorials.

AL recently released a new tutorial series on GoogleEarth - an interactive, virtual globe that uses satellite imagery, aerial photographs and user generated content to display the world in ways that are rich and powerful. The series covers topics such as searching, adding placemarks, measuring, creating a tour and using Flight Simulator. Try it out, free, with your Tablet PC or other mobile PC.

Mobile PCs Yield an Emerging Open Learning Paradigm

Tablet PCs, MIDs, UMPCs, and other mobile PCs have launched a new emerging paradigm of Open Learning (OLP). Sometimes I think of this as opening a mass market of independent learners. It appears to be forming among learners and educators in response to various commercial electronic communication ventures. I use the term Open Learning (OL) as a working descriptor referring to the commonly used assertion of ways anyone with a mobile PC can learn anything, anytime, anywhere (Any; ATTW; A3TsW?) on demand.

This paradigm requires different assumptions about learners in schools today and about access to information from those traditionally used to organize school learning. In turn, emerging assumptions alter the nature of what constitutes a disability, as well as special talents and gifts in school.

New Assumptions

• Technology natives enter schools with different skills from technology novices and different from previous students and most educators today, including those in teacher preparation programs. (The term technology natives appears in journalistic writing about students born into an environment of technology, especially those born since 1985 with personal computers and TVs, then later beepers, DVDs, IPods, cell phones, etc. They know, use, and expect more mobile technologies to meet their demands.)

• For mobile technology natives, location and family background seem less distinguishing in schools than current student social economic factors.

• More information and skills flow faster and globally through wireless, mobile personal computers than through schools.

• Management of access to learning content with mobile PCs relies more on commercial ventures vs. conventional schooling controls.

Outcomes
Given these or whatever other assumptions that seem reasonable, I'd like to know the following, perhaps through a Research Center on Mobile Learning.

o Description of an emerging paradigm of mobile PC and other technology enabled on-demand, personalized, individualized student learning that could replace special education school programs as they operate today.

o Description of implications developers of this paradigm have found for preservice and inservice teacher preparation.

o Descriptions of actionable tasks to replicate activities described by venture educators.

o Agreements by venture educators to provide technical support for others to replicate actionable tasks.

o Formation of an Open Learning Study Group to monitor implementation of replicated actionable tasks and their derivatives.

I wonder, who else thinks, "Let's do it!"

More MIT OpenCourseWare for K-12 (Public)Education

MIT, the famed research university located in Cambridge, Mass., offers MITOPENCOURSEWARE, free video, audio, and print lectures and course material taken straight from the school’s classes. Those resources target K-12 teachers and students.

MIT is committed to advancing education and discovery through knowledge open to everyone.

OCW shares free resources from more than 1800 courses spanning MIT's entire curriculum uncluding highlights for high school.

No excuses now, students with initiative and ambition, for limiting learning to classroom instruction from "the best."

And "Yes, I agree," MIT's expanding offer appears as another way for teachers assist pre-college students to distinguish themselves in competition for top tier higher education. So, crank up those Tablet PCs, MIDs, UMPCs and other mobile PC in order to squeeze in more learning into daily school schedules and assignments. Someone's doing it.

Kudos, MIT, for setting a newer, higher standard for public education.

Help Wanted: Digital Partners in Schools

Master Venture Educator-Teacher Bill Ferriter asks if anyone's looking for a digital partner for working with Voicethread in classrooms.

He's also offering a free download of a handout that includes teacher directions and student handouts.

This is a thoughtful educator worth monitoring for ideas and practices that appear to increase student learning in a public school.

Thanks, Bill, for these offers. You set a brisk pace for the rest of us.

Tech. Cooperation Vital in Spec. Ed.

Michelle R. Davis lists four tips for using advanced technologies with students assigned to special education classes.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires districts to consider a special education student’s need for assistive technology during the development of his or her individualized education program, or IEP, says Joy S. Zabala, the project manager for the Accessible Instructional Materials, or AIM, consortium at the Wakefield, Mass.-based Center for Applied Special Technology, or CAST. If a student needs assistive technology, that need should be written into the IEP. (bold added)

Eight types of assistive technology exist.

Mobile PCs, such as tablet PCs, MID PCs, and UMPCs, address these and more functions useful to increase learning of students with disabilities.

Davis reviews ways school IT staff can work with teachers and parents.

Research Results from Center on Mobile Learning

Here’s a sample in stream of consciousness order of results I want from a Children’s Research Center on Mobile Learning. These questions come from watching people use Tablet PCs, MID (mobile internet device), Ultra Mobile PCs, and other mobile PCs in most social institutions and organizations to acquire new information and skills, sometimes on-the-fly, sometimes by schedule and discipline.

About Learning Principles.

1. What learning principles people use to acquire new information and skills with mobile PCs. To what extent these principles correspond to those identified in experimental empirical laboratory studies, e.g., dimensions of learning? What is unique about mobile PC learning principles. What learning principles exist, but mobile learners do not use them, and why. To what extent do mobile learning principles rely on hardware, on software, and on human choice at time of learning.

2. What information and skills do people use mobile learning to acquire. Which of this learning can they acquire without the aid of mobile communications, e.g., in schools, libraries, on-the-job, and why do they use mobile learning instead. Do people learn more with mobile learning than without it?

3. What contribution does traditional schooling make to mobile learning. What affect mobile learning have on student learning rates in traditional schooling.

4. What mobile learning contribute to traditional schooling.

About an Emerging Mass Market of Independent Learning.

1. What is a mass market of independent learning. Why it exists. Where it exists, e.g., in homes, stores, employment, schools, religious centers, entertainment. How many of these markets exist. Who constitutes it/them.

2. What relationships exist between mass markets of independent learners and traditional academic schooling. What proportion of learning exists independently and in schools.gh How are these mass markets changing traditional school learning, such as children’s TV influenced entering skill levels of students.

3. Who are the most successful mobile learners and why. Are they techies, academics, financial investors, justice system operatives, politicians, students, criminals, ... ? What they do differently from other learners that yields more successes.

Financing Mobile Learning.

1. What financing, e.g., personal, school budget, employer, mobile learners use to support their acquisition of new information and skills. What costs they pay and what unique and other benefits they receive with mobile learning. How they acquired that financing, and what priority that financing had in their total budget.

2. What competitive advantage mobile learners have with this financing. What financial, time, timing, and other trade-offs they make to acquire this advantage.

What results would you want to review from research on mobile learning? What's missing from this list that would assist you?

Particle Accelerator May Reveal Shape Of Alternate Dimensions

ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2008) reports that exotic new particles may offer a glimpse of the existence and shapes of extra dimensions when the world's most powerful particle accelerator starts up later this year.

Gary Shiu, lead author of a paper appearing in the Jan. 25 issue of Physical Review Letters, said Much as the shape of a musical instrument determines its sound, the shape of these dimensions determines the properties and behavior of our four-dimensional universe (bold added) ...

String theory describes the fundamental particles of the universe as tiny vibrating strings of energy. Scientists using this theory suggest the existence of six or seven unseen spatial dimensions in addition to the time and three space dimensions that we normally see and conventional wisdom accepts as scientific fact.

The shape of the dimensions is crucial because, in string theory, the way the string vibrates determines the pattern of particle masses and the forces that we feel.

Shiu commented, "There are myriad possibilities for the shapes of the extra dimensions out there. It would be useful to know a way to distinguish one from another and perhaps use experimental data to narrow down the set of possibilities."


Just think of what this demonstration will do to school science curricula when scientists, as they expect to do, demonstrate four or more dimensions of reality.

I know a middle school student waiting for her science teachers to discuss string theory in class. Maybe she can use her Tablet PC to read about it outside of school.

I wonder if we're seeing the emergence of something about dimensions of reality akin to the end of the flat earth theory of hundreds of years ago.

Thanks, KurzwellAI.net, for the tip.

Nearsourcing of Information and Mobile Learning Continued

Laisa Bernard offered a useful comment to the post Nearsourcing of Information and Mobile Learning.

There are a lot of new and exciting things going on in the world of Mobile Learning! Did you know that there are many universities, corporations, government facilities and academic organizations that are merging their eLearning with mLearning, all over the world?

Teachers may find three things for prompt use in this extended comment:

1. Laisa's profile lists four blogs about mobile learning, including descriptions of mobile learning tools in schools; and

2. An offer of a mobile learning demo; and

3. A publisher's authorized free trial download of mobile learning HotLavaSoftware.

Thanks, Laisa, for your comment and for sharing your ideas with teachers.

Teachers, Tableteers, Ultra Mobile PC, and other mobile PC users, let us know how you like their software and websites. What strengths and weaknesses do you find for learning with mobile devices other than mobile PCs?

We're so lucky to have a fast growing array of mobile learning tools for nearsourcing as well as farthersourciing in and out of schools.

Children’s Research Center for Mobile Learning - Notes

In 2007, I drafted for someone a proposal for establishing a Children's Research Center for Mobile Learning. Perhaps others will find these notes helpful for proposing such a program at another research university.


Children’s Research Center for Mobile Learning - Rough Notes

The Children’s Research Center for Mobile Learning (CRCML) promotes increased international scientific collaboration among laboratory and school based researchers and program evaluators. Collaborators integrate translational, theoretical, and outcomes research to increase student learning with mobile PCs. This collaboration creates an intellectual synergy, an international infrastructure, and an environment for sharing data and research sites in order to accelerate scientific discovery of ways to increase state-of-the-art and state-of-practice PK-12 student learning rates with mobile PCs.

Problem

Tablet PC, Ultra Mobile PCs and other mobile devices appear likely to increase learning rates of users. This mobile learning appears a fact of contemporary life, yet no organization systematically, objectively describes that learning venue for any cohort of learners. Common sense leads to speculation that significant unidentified and unmeasured mobile learning occurs outside of schools influences school learning.

This center addresses three related problems about ubiguitious mobile electronic learning.

1. No entity exists that gives priority to understanding mobile learning scientifically; and

2. No entity gives priority to using such data to prepare learners to use mobile PCs more efficiently and effectively;

3. No entity compares mobile learning rates with other information and intellectual skill acquisition venues.

Purpose

The Center for Mobile Learning facilitates the development of empirical databased innovative software related learning tools and strategies to address mobile learning more effectively, and prepares preservice and incumbent teachers to use these developments.

In addition to conducting their own research, members of the Center assist other researchers with a range of efforts in studying mobile learning, including the following:

Design and development of investigator-initiated studies; preparation of grant applications and reports; and

Submission of protocol/informed consent to university bodies; protocol review and monitoring; scientific review; and data safety monitoring procedures.


Organization

The Center consists of three groups of research and teaching faculty, staff, and students. Senior staff have research specialties in learning, mobile electronic communication devices, formal organizations (including schools), and enterprise development.

Each group gives priority to different phases in the development and assessment of the relevance of empirical data, theoretical generalizations from these data, applications of data to mobile learning of students in and out of schools, and evaluations of these applications. They use vocabulary, logic, and measures that give priority to student learning rates over existing schooling practices and policies, and over the mass market of independent learners.

Together, these groups increase understanding of quantitative affects of mobile PCs on learning, especially relationships between learning protocols, mobile devices, instruction, and learning rates of students with personal behavior patterns (unclassified by background demographics, disability type, etc.) familiar to educators, including special educators.

The Learning Research Group (LRC) analyzes existing experimental learning behavioral and cognitive research and theories as well as conducts independent research to identify learning principles with implications for mobile learning. This group gives priority to identifying empirically based generalizations about learning with mobile PC, so the Translational group may construct and conduct Beta tests.

The Translational Research Group (TRG)) gives priority to transforming scientific discoveries arising from laboratory, school, or population studies into mobile learning applications to increase learning rates. We adapt the term transitional research from a type of health care study. Translational studies provide a scientific link between laboratory research and human trials. The Translational Research Group stimulates development of basic research and human translational Beta tests that improve children’s learning in and out of schools with mobile PCs. This group works with PK12 schools, learning laboratories and mobile PC engineers, software developers and publishers to insure relevance and support of translational research projects.

The Education Policy Research Group (EPRG) analyzes and assesses impacts of learning rates from mobile learning on education policies, practices, and organizations, especially in schools and families. They then conduct field studies in schools and families to identify adjustments most likely to lead to increased learning rates in those settings. They also recommend adjustments other schools and families may make in order to have similar student learning rates, including adjustments in funding patterns and budgeted expenditure allocations.

Dissemination: Information, Skill, and Material Transfer

Center staff will share what they know, learn, make, and do over the Internet with blogs, podcasts, webcasts; through published products; and by offering workshops, inservice sessions, and conferences.

Support

Grants for individual projects fund this initiative. Preliminary reviews indicate that foundation grants likely exist to underwrite aspects of the center as well as some research and development of educational software. Other grants likely exist from conventional sources, some in cooperation with PK12 schools.

Expected Results

The CRCML will establish empirical benchmarks in student mobile learning. Software developers may use these benchmarks to design educational programs. Educators may use them to evaluate mobile learning hardware and software. Policy makers may use these benchmarks to assess the relative utility of regulations, appropriations, and pedagogy for increasing student learning rates with mobile PCs.

These benchmarks will use an expanded vocabulary about learning, schooling that practitioners can include in discussing individual student progress, and ways likely to accelerate it.

Benchmarks will result from new models, heuristics, instructional and learning protocols, off-the-shelf electronic hardware, and learning software.

A new era of education software and equipment will emerge within a year or so after the first benchmarks from the public and private sectors consistent with one-on-one and on-demand learning in and out of schools. These additions will likely contribute to increasing student learning rates further than what exists and is hoped for today.

A relatively small aggregate of early adopters will join a growing aggregate of leadership in state-of-the-art education practice and conversation.

Counterpoints

Several counter positions exist that college faculty should consider before launching this center.

Perhaps the most important decision will be whether faculty want to conduct their research and scholarship through the center. To address this, center developers should identify what’s in it for faculty to participate rather than to study through other venues.

Most educators and policy makers will watch from the sidelines for several years while their existing grants run their course, and to assess for themselves whether mobile PC learning is a fad or fact worth adopting. A small minority will vocally oppose these steps as inhumane and against the nature of childhood and professional teaching.

Some, mostly not in higher education, will argue that the money spent on the research for this center should go directly to public schools to do more of what educators want to do already.

Expected Results
(Added soon.)


Please let me know what you decide to use, what you find useful and what seems inaccurate.

Gates Foundation Invests in Chicago Public Schools Leadership

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a commitment of $10.3 million to the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) to support the turnaround of chronically underperforming Chicagp Public Schools.

AUSL is the only national program of its kind to combine a teacher training residency with a school turnaround strategy to dramatically improve academic achievement. AUSL already has led the turnaround of two Chicago elementary schools—the Sherman School of Excellence, which opened in Englewood in September 2006, and the Harvard School of Excellence, which opened in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood in September 2007.

AUSL will use the funds to transform three CPS-selected high schools over the next several years and expand its teacher residency program.

AUSL's Urban Teacher Residency program pairs recent college graduates and mid-career teachers with experienced anchor teachers who serve as their mentors for an intensive, year-long apprenticeship.

Over the past six years, AUSL has trained nearly 250 teachers who serve more than 5,000 Chicago Public School children from low-income backgrounds. AUSL maintains a 91 percent retention rate among graduates of its teacher training program. By contrast, nearly 40 percent of all public school teachers in Chicago leave the profession, at least temporarily, within five years, according to a 2007 study by the Illinois Education Research Council.

Academy for Urban School Leadership was founded in 2001 by Martin J. Koldyke, venture capitalist and founder of The Golden Apple Foundation. AUSL's mission is to improve student achievement in chronically failing schools by attracting, retaining, and training highly effective teachers and school leaders, ultimately transforming schools into schools of excellence by opening and managing turnaround schools.

I wonder what place these leaders see for Tablet PCs, UMPCs and other mobile PCs. It seems from this vantage point that leadership requires use of state-of-the-art electronic communication tools.

Anonymous Posts, Again

Anonymous submits posts frequently on this and other websites as well as blogs. I usually reject them. Some submissions remain on file. Here's a sample of thoughtful comments Anonymous submitted. I wonder who're so afraid to identify themselves, so that others may know who justly receives credit for these thoughts. Here's a sample of comments worthy of author identification:

Original post: Achieve, Inc. found that 55 percent of college instructors were dissatisfied with their students' abilities to apply what they learn to problem solving. Anonymous said, It is amazing that 55% of professors are unhappy with students’ ability to problem solve. Editor: 55% seems within the expected range of dissatisfaction, given a normal distribution of opinions. Students' expectations that they know how to solve problems seems less than adequate.

Original post: There's more to the story about people said to have severe disabilities learning to express themselves more fully in words. Over a decade ago, Dr. Douglas Biklin at the Facilitated Communication Institute of Syracuse University, introduced procedures he calls Facilitated Communication for working with people with autism and some other communication disabilities. Anonymous said, For further understanding of the process of facilitated communication, check out the following links. http://ezinearticles.com/?Autism---Matching-Vibration,-and-Entrainment-of-Brain-Wave-Frequency&id=562627 It is important to be an open minded or the material will probably not resonate with you. Editor: Every teacher should learn how to use this strategy, whether or not you agree with philosophy. I've seen it work, know Doug, and have confidence in the results, however they occur.

Original post: ... the NCLB commission saw its charge as drafting a set of technocratic proposals that Congress could approve swiftly. The future the commission depicts gives Washington yet more power over the nation’s schools; its summary recommendations use the word “require” (often followed by the word “states”) at least 35 times. By contrast, we found just half a dozen “allows” or “permits.” Anonymous said, How are we as parents supposed to trust the educational system? When teachers are fixing tests to make their students pass exams due to the “No Child Left Behind” mandate. This is ridiculous. Editor: This comment reflects an ongoing skepticism about schooling, based in part on fundamental misunderstandings about learning.

Thanks for your comments. Please identify yourself in the future, so you may receive the credit you deserve for your contributions to understanding how Tablet PCs, MidPC, UMPCs and other mobile PCs increase student learning rates.