Is the Chromebook for Your Students?

What is done on a Chromebook is stored in the Cloud. That means, for the most part, that your students need access to the Internet to make it work. The storage, and the fact that you’d need to use Chrome OS apps, seem to be the basic differences between Chromebooks and laptops. The CNET Community has a good discussion going on this topic, which you’ll want to browse if you are looking into using Chromebooks with your students. Some of the advantages of Chromebooks listed by those responding to the Chromebook question include: low cost, speed, automatic file backup, and no worries over viruses. Disadvantages listed included: inability to use Windows applications, slower for storage, Internet access needed, can’t be upgraded, looks like a laptop but isn’t, and is like a dumb terminal. So, is a Chromebook for your students? It depends on how robust your wireless network is and what you are planning to do with your students and technology.

Webinars: Not Always Scheduled with Teachers in Mind

eSchool News sponsors a nice variety of Webinars, which are great for teachers and administrators.  If you’re like me, you don’t always have time within the school day to take advantage of online learning when it is scheduled.  It’s rather difficult for teachers and often tech coordinators, as well, to attend sessions scheduled for times like 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., but don’t forget that many organizations offering Webinars keep archives of their sessions. Okay, so you won’t be in on interaction during the session, but often there isn’t much you’ll miss.  So, if you can’t make the eSchool News Webinar, “Learning in the Cloud,” that’s scheduled for March 21, 2013 at 4 p.m. PT, you can catch up on the content in the archives whenever you want.  Some of eSchool News’ archived sessions include information on BYOD, Chromebooks, Google Apps and writing, eRate, creating online learning programs, tips for teaching online, implementing tablets, and cutting costs.

Technology in Innovation Report

The 2012 Report from The Center for Digital Education and Converge, Technology Innovation in Education, discusses how IT funds were spent in schools, K-12 key findings in areas such as digital content strategies and online courses, what digital technologies students would like to see in their classrooms, online and blended learning, cloud computing and virtualization, and data management. You can download the report to check other information available from The Center.

White Paper Library

eSchool News provides a White Paper library where you can download current papers related to student performance, NCLB scores, learning platforms, Wi-Fi, cloud computing, classroom strategies, and more.  Keep in mind that while White Papers provide solutions to problems and issues facing schools, they are often written to stress the worth of a particular program and can be a subtle commercial for a technology-related product. Even so, White Papers can be useful to those making decisions about technology if they understand the viewpoint from which the paper is written.

Technology Megatrends

One hundred “global thought leaders” working with the Horizon Project met in January 2012 to talk about research relating to technology and education. They came up with 28 megatrends of which 10 were considered the most important. These megatrends are bringing about significant changes in our world, our interactions, and the way we learn. Although you can read more about the top ten in the New Media Consortium’s Communique´on the Horizon Project, some of the trends include the following:

• People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want....
• The Internet is becoming a global mobile network....
• The technologies we use today are increasingly cloud-based....
• Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices....
• The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while redefining our notion of literacy.
• There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools....

Techedge offers information on the megatrends as they relate to young learners and asks, “After Megatrends...What Next?” Some of the solutions suggested to help teachers with tech expectations of their students are: using LiveMinutes for online discussion, Audicity for interviews, ShowMe for “re-imagining the learning process”, UStream for video capture, and Dropbox for file sharing. For additional information, check out the very useful article by Pat LeMay Burr, “What Young Learners Expect and How Technology Delivers”.