mLearnCon News and Updates

The Virginia Department of Education is phasing in the second wave of a pilot program that uses Apple’s iPad tablet computers as the centerpiece of a social studies curriculum that blends online and face-to-face learning.

The Chicago school system is expanding a pilot program that last fall awarded a classroom set of 32 of the devices to 23 schools in the 409,000-student district.

And Irving, Texas, school officials are exploring weaving the iPad or another tablet-computing device into their district’s 1-to-1 high school computing program.

Every day seems to offer another story about a district or school that’s buying iPads—a development that astonishes some ed-tech experts since the device is less than 15 months old, and K-12 educators are traditionally slow adopters of new technology. And they’ve adopted it for classroom use despite the fact that Apple is still revising its product, with the second version of perhaps several issued in March, while many other manufacturers had only released their tablet competitors at the beginning of this year. Further, Apple products are not compatible with Adobe Flash Player.

Excluding the fad factor, experts say there are legitimate reasons for educational interest. With a battery life of eight to 10 hours and a weight of just over a pound, the iPad offers more portability and less startup time during the full school day than laptops or netbooks, while its screen size facilitates more flexibility using the Web and easier input than smartphones.

Read more from EdWeek.org here.

SINGAPORE — Apple's iPad and other tablet computers are replacing traditional note pads in some Asian schools and making the lives of thousands of students a whole lot easier.

Soon pupils could be reading on their tablets about a quaint old communication device called "paper", especially in Asia's advanced economies where many schools are racing towards a paperless classroom.

The slim glass slabs slip easily into a bag and can store thousands of textbooks, making a fat school bag full of heavy books, pens and notepads a thing of the past.

"I like the iPad because it is portable and we do not have to carry so many bags and files around," said 13-year-old Nicole Ong, who now makes notes on her iPad during class at Nanyang Girls' High School in Singapore.

A sample group of more than 120 students and 16 teachers at the school have been given iPads, at a cost of over $100,000. By 2013, every student in the school will have one.

The number of software applications -- or apps -- that can be used for educational purposes on tablet computers is set to explode.

It's a brand new business that even media mogul Rupert Murdoch has identified as an area of huge potential growth.

Murdoch said his News Corp group is to push into the education technology market in a speech to the e-G8 conference of Internet entrepreneurs and European policymakers in Paris last month.

He described education as the "last holdout from the digital revolution" and outlined a vision for personalised learning with lessons delivered by the world's best teachers to thousands of students via the Internet.

Read more here from AFP on Google here

A new survey has shown that more people favor digital textbooks. Duh! If you’re a student you probably already knew that.

The study says that students who own tablet devices are more likely to favor digital formats for their textbooks than non-table owners, and that the majority of student tablet owners think that the devices are valuable for educational purposes. The study comes from the Pearson Foundation, which is a huge textbook and educational materials corporation.
    
The fact that the study came from Pearson adds an interesting factor to this issue which we’ll discuss later.
    
The survey discloses that more than 70 percent of college students and college-bound high school seniors are interested in owning a tablet device, with almost 20 percent expecting to purchase a tablet in the next six months. 
    
The Pearson Foundation Survey Students and Tablets was initiated to measure college students' and college-bound high school seniors' thoughts about digital device ownership and their intent to purchase; views towards tablets; tablet usage and features of interest; and preferences between digital or print formats when reading, studying and completing other school-related activities. The survey was done online in March 2011 by Harris Interactive on behalf of the Pearson Foundation among 1,214 college students and 200 college-bound high school seniors. The survey is the first in a series of many to evaluate students' use, acceptance and preferences when using portable technology for learning.

Read more from TGDaily here

The web and mobile connectivity have been undisputable agents of change across a range of industries, bringing our global economy closer together and providing opportunity for business to thrive where it would previously be impossible. In the education sector, most notably, mobile connectivity, web 2.0 capabilities, and smart software are the catalysts for making quality education available to eager students who may not have access to it otherwise.

The availability of online learning and tools for ever younger students is becoming a new focus today as we realize how dependent our world really is on the skills honed through electronic communication, social media, and abbreviated calculations of how our world works. Tools that build critical thinking through games, encourage collaboration and provide real-time assessment and remediation have become a secret weapon for many schools in helping to prepare their students for the real world.

Students’ formative high school years - especially critical - provide teachers with an opportunity for instilling college and career readiness, an inclination critical to success in any post-graduate environment. Exposure to the unique requirements of online coursework, most notably independent study and virtual collaboration, provide students with experience in developing self-motivation. Students learn time management, prioritization and – despite misconceptions about online learning – practice community building more in tune with today’s actual professional environments.

Read the full article here from International Business Times

Not just a new computer, they are serving up a new way of digital living

Rolling backpacks are lame.  There, I said it.  No one wants to be that kid rolling into class, crushing people’s toes and running into desks with their weapon on wheels.  On the flip side of that coin, no one wants to be the kid in the back brace either.  But textbooks are heavy, and there’s really no way around them, or is there?  Trinity College in Melbourne Australia recently conducted a study to find out – they dispatched iPads to a small group of students and teachers at the start of term, and monitored how the new technology affected the classroom.  The results of their study – called the Step Forward Pilot Project – were recently published online and outline a few of the pros and cons of iPads as a learning tool.  Trinity College isn’t alone – schools around the world are incorporating iPads into their daily routine and changing the way students of all ages access and learn new information.

iPads in education are a hot topic at the moment, with entire websites dedicated to thediscussion of their use, and the general consensus is positive.  The results of the Trinity College study were generally positive as well, though the conclusions are based mostly on qualitative statements about how much the students and teachers liked using the iPad, without much data to support conclusions.  Some of the key findings include “iPads are effective, durable, reliable and achieve their educational aims of going further, faster and with more fun” and “Past TCFS students and current TCFS students in other intakes have expressed interest in iPads and a wish that they had the chance to use iPads at Trinity.”  A recent study conducted at Notre Dame provides a slightly more quantitative view of how students used the devices, ultimately concluding that the devices were mostly a good thing.

Read the full article from Singularity Hub here