Monday, December 31, 2012

Join our eCourse and become a Connected Educator




Learning today takes place anywhere and anytime. To meet the needs of today's connected learner, today's educator needs to be fluent in new media literacies. The Teaching Online: Becoming a Connected Educator eCourse will prepare you to be an online professor, teach online courses in blended environments such as a virtual school, or teaching blended courses in traditional settings.

http://plpnetwork.com/teaching-online-becoming-a-connected-educator-ecourse/

Saturday, December 29, 2012

The History of English in 10 Minutes



A compilation of ten videos on the history of the English language. I compiled the videos into a film to make it a little easier to watch them all. While I do not own the originals. They originals are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Licence agreement. The origin webpage can be found here http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/english-language/the-h...

Six famous thought experiments explained quickly

Knowledge in a MOOC

Success in a MOOC

What is a MOOC?

Friday, December 28, 2012

Ray Kurzweil: Bad Memory? Not a Problem Unless You're a Robot.



The basic algorithms of human thought, Ray Kurzweil says, just aren't that complicated. From an observation about the weather to a sophisticated joke, cognition at every level operates according to a few simple principles. Researchers have gotten lost, he says, in the diversity and complexity of individual neurons and are missing the bigger picture.

Transcript - Well if we talk about what is it that we should train children and adults because I think we need lifelong education to do. It's not rote learning, which unfortunately it's still the model of education throughout much of the world. I think actually the United States is better than a lot of other areas interms of having more flexible approaches to what it is we're trying to get children to do.

Many areas of the world are really still have a model of education of rote learning, which is obsolete because we carry all that information on our belts. We don't need to remember it all. But we do need to be able to solve actual problems with knowledge. We need to find the right knowledge; yes, we have search engines to help us and the search engines will get better, but really need the right strategies to find the right information. We need to be able to create new knowledge.

Knowledge is doubling every 13 months by some measures.And knowledge isn't just a database. Knowledge is a symphony or a jazz band or a poem or a novel or a new scientific insight or an invention. These are also examples of knowledge. My philosophy ofeducation is learn by doing. Singularity University, which I co-founded with Peter Diamandis and I'm Chancellor of -- has that philosophy with the core curriculum is the students self-organizing into small teams and they take on a grand challenge like to solve the water problem of the world and maybe they will actually succeed indoing that -- the goal is to actually do -- solve major challenges inten years.

Or maybe they'll solve a piece of it, or maybe they won'tsolve it at all, but they'll still learn something. If I think about what I've learned in my career, it's from my own projects and whether they succeed or fail, that's really the best way to learn. And there's versions of that we can bring into every level. We certainly see many college kids started major revolutions, including political revolutions but also technological revolutions, with no equipment other than their notebook computer.

Directed and Produced by Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Meet the Presenters: Jay McTighe

Author Jay McTighe discusses "Our Time" -- an alternative to the current grading system. See his session at ASCD's 2013 Annual Conference & Exhibit Show in Chicago, March 16-18, 2013.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Faronics LabPro

Faronics LabPro empowers lab managers to make better decisions. It automatically tracks usage data for labs, computers, applications, printers, and more. This easy-to-drive solution eliminates manual tracking headaches and inconsistent data. Now you can be confident your lab data accurately captures the 'who, what, when and where'.

More info: http://www.faronics.com/products/labpro/

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Competitive Evaluation of Three-stream 802.11n Access Points


Here is a paper on wireless Access Point Providers, here's a comparative performance analysis done by Syracuse Univ of Ruckus, Aruba, Meraki, Cisco, and Aerohive 3 stream systems.

http://dcc.syr.edu/PDF/CCENT_3-stream_eval.pdf

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Poll Everywhere - FREE Student Response System

Polleverywhere.com is a free student response system that uses cell phones as the response device. Learn how to quickly set up a poll.

InfuseLearning - iPad/Tablet Learner Response Solution

InfuseLearning - an all new virtual learner response solution. Check us out at www.infuselearning.com

Solution Tree: Dylan Wiliam, Content Then Process

Check out Dr. Wiliam's books at Solution Tree: http://ar.gy/2eEA

According to Dr. Wiliam, the only way to raise student achievement is through sustained investment in teacher professional development focused on minute-to-minute, day-by-day formative assessment. Since effective implementation of such formative assessment requires considerable changes in what teachers do daily, it also requires the formation of building-based teacher learning communities (TLCs) in which teachers are held accountable and provide support for one another.

Damen Lopez, founder of No Excuses University, offers his main messages ...

+Damen Lopez, founder of No Excuses University, offers his main messages ... +Damen Lopez

KLT - Dylan Wiliam on the Importance of Communities of Learners

Education expert Dylan Wiliam comments on how KLT type programs creates communities of learners, which elevates student performance.

For more information visit the Keeping Learning on Track site:
http://keepinglearningontrack.nwea.org/

Dylan Wiliam on Barriers to Teachers Changing

Dylan Wiliam believes that every teach can get better. Using formative assessment and the tools and techniques made available from programs like Keeping Learning on Track, teachers can

Every Teacher Can Improve

Dylan Wiliam discusses teacher quality and the fact that every teacher can improve. Creating a culture of continuous improvement in schools helps all teachers get better at what they do.

Blog by +Fred Sharpsteen

Student Centered Learning -- Talent Factories versus Talent Incubators

Dylan Wiliam discusses what is needed in schools today for student centered learning -- a shift from talent incubators to talent factories.

Unpacking Formative Assessment

Dylan Wiliam unpacks formative assessment, discussing the five strategies that make up a smart formative assessment strategy: setting learning intentions, questioning, feedback, activating self, and activating peers.

Early Childhood Adaptive Skills Assessment: Pre K - 3rd Grade (Children'...

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Heart-Brain Connection: The Neuroscience of Social, Emotional, and A...

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson presents his research on how social and emotional learning can affect the brain. Read more about the topic, including how to use social and emotional learning to stop bullying, on our Edutopia website: http://www.edutopia.org/social-emotional-learning

George Lucas Shares His Hopes for Education

The education visionary speaks about innovation in education and the critical need for businesses to better support educational programs, at the Dreamforce conference in 2007. Tip: Did you know you can "favorite" this video to bookmark it?

Salman Khan Describes Future Classrooms with Blended Learning

Educational technology pioneer Salman Khan maps how online learning tools can help physical classrooms evolve to become hubs for creativity and hands-on experiences, and how Khan Academy and the Discovery Lab summer camp fit into that big picture.

An Introduction to Technology Integration

Integrating technology with classroom practice can be a great way to strengthen engagement by linking students to a global audience, turning them into creators of digital media, and helping them practice collaboration skills that will prepare them for the future. For more about technology integration, visit http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Biggest Internet Trends Of 2012


An Introduction to Technology Integration

Quizlet.com Tutorial

How to use Quizlet.com to enhance instruction, study for content areas, allow student directed learning.

Quizlet is a free website providing learning tools for students, including flashcards, study and game modes. It was created by high school sophomore Andrew Sutherland in 2005 and now contains over 400 million study sets. All of the material is user-generated.

http://quizlet.com/help

Stephen M R Covey on relationship trust and 13 behaviors of high trust p...

eTEXTBOOK Stats

The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey

Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version) - Chris Anderson

Solving the puzzle of the periodic table - Eric Rosado

Published on Dec 12, 2012
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/solving-the-puzzle-of-the-periodic-table-eric-rosado

Inside a cartoonist's world - Liza Donnelly

iPad Mini vs. Nexus 7



The iPad Mini and Nexus 7 are competing in the smaller tablet space. People really like tablets of this size because they can be held with one hand, they can fit into a pocket (usually), and they're great for reading and web browsing.

The iPad Mini is the more expensive of the two, starting at $329 for the 16GB WiFi model. At higher price points, more storage and LTE connectivity is available. It has an A5 dual-core chip with 512MB of RAM. The display is 7.9" and 1024x768 resolution and 162ppi.

The Nexus 7 is just $199 for 16GB. You can double the storage for $249, then add HSPA+ data (coming soon) for another $50. It has a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU with 1GB of RAM. The display is 7.0" and 1280x800 resolution with a 215ppi.

PaperCut iPad / iPhone (iOS) Printing Demonstration



A point of view demonstration of the interface and functionality of the PaperCut Printing App.

With the launch of the iPad and other mobile devices schools and businesses are moving away from fixed technology and are looking for ways to make the most of their iOS investment.

The PaperCut print application brings the same papercut functionality and experience from your desktop environment onto your iPad.

This video covers setup, authentication, identity association, charging to shared accounts/departments as well as a tour of the PaperCut mobile interface.

For current updates on development and other news from the PaperCut team, follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/PaperCutDev

For more information about copier control, print management and PaperCut MF visit: http://www.papercut-mf.com/

http://www.papercut.com/tour/manage-ipad-printing/

Supporting BYOD student wifi printing with PaperCut



This is a demonstration of PaperCut's Web Print solution. It is a 100% driver-less and browser-based user printing solution and works by allowing you to upload your document to a server that then prints for you.

This tour is taken in an education context, to show you just how simple it is for a student to use. Web Print reduces the work required to support students printing from their own laptops, by eliminating domain and printer configuration (e.g. eliminate the need to join student owned systems to the Active Directory Domain).

When their laptop is connected to the wifi network, a student can access Web Print and start printing immediately. The PaperCut web user interface is accessible using any web-browser.

This demonstration covers browsing to the file and selecting it for upload to the server. PaperCut's Web Print allows for uploading many common document formats. All printing activity is of course tracked and controlled by PaperCut (e.g. print quotas).

Web Print data remains within the local network, and jobs are processed on the local server.

For more information you can visit PaperCut website for the product tour.

http://www.papercut.com/

http://www.papercut.com/tour/web-print/

Friday, December 14, 2012

Bill Gates-11 Rules You Will Never Learn In School

Rethinking Learning: The 21st Century Learner | MacArthur Foundation

From cell phone and video games to Facebook and YouTube, digital media are changing the way young people play and socialize in the 21st century.

Personal Learning Networks for Educators

Why educators should consider creating and participating in a personal learning network.

Twiducate

This was created by Jennifer Alman for the Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture class at Full Sail University, It highlights the features and benefits of using Twiducate for collaboration in an educational setting.

XPort Pro - The worlds smallest Linux networking server - Lantronix

"The Speed Of Trust" and how it is required in order to create collaboration

Stephen M. R. Covey at Lethbridge College

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Education System Transformation and the Deming Philosophy

How to BYOD with Ruckus Wireless

This is a tutorial that walks through how to easily configure the ZoneFlex system to automatically provision, secure and classify users and their devices with your existing authentication server.

Technology Pilot Dr. Rod Rock and Mr. Shawn Ryan

Dr. Rod Rock and Mr. Shawn Ryan explain how Clarkston teachers are exploring and testing ideas for the use of technology in our classrooms. In classrooms across the district different technologies including, smart phones, iPads, iPods, netbooks, data projectors, streaming video, and the latest software are put to the test.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Socrative video introduction

Michigan 5-4-3-2-1 plan




Link to the Michigan 5-4-3-2-1 plan

This link will take you to the Michigan 5-4-3-2-1 plan for getting us ready for 2014 and the Smarter Balanced assessment. The easy steps in this plan are really the technical issues. The first hurdle is

5. One to One Access and Connectivity:
the cost of equipment has dropped and according to mores law will continue to cost have as much for twice the speed ever 18 months. We can see historically over the last 15 to 20 years that this has been true.


4.  Consolidation of Business, Data, and Technology Services:
Now we start to make it a little harder as these are people issues and systems issues and politics. But it can happen as long as people go into this with an open mind.

3. Teacher Capacity:
This is an issues that our Higher Ed has yet to address. Student leaving many colleges and the state has no requirement for student competency in 21st century learning skills and many are not exposed to it until they take a program in Technology education for a master degree.

2.   Digital Content and Assessments: This is the frame works for assessment and not a curriculum to get our students ready for there future careers. There is much work to be done here yet and only time will tell if we can get the different Silos in education to work together to create a learning environment that will sustain this.


1.  21st Century Learning Environments:
The holly grail of education and what does this really mean. Is it Personal Learning Networks (PLN)? or Project Based Learning (PBL)? or is it Collaborative learning. Yet it may be all the above in order for student to no longer sit in rows of chairs as a teacher lectures to them.


Here is the article that I based this Blog on
Bruce Umpstead is the State Director of Educational
Technology and Data Coordination, Office of
Education Improvement and Innovation, Michigan
Department of Education. umpsteadb@michigan.gov

Monday, December 10, 2012

iPad mini: Big experience in a small package

Video hands-on with Google's new $249 Chromebook

Google's newest Chromebook, made by Samsung, only costs $249 and offers the same general performance of ChromeOS is a smaller, lighter package. How'd they do it? This model uses the

Android Video Conferencing

Polycom RealPresence Mobile app for iPad 2 demo

Code Academy Walkthrough

Code Academy Testimonials | Jessica Kim

Check out our interview with Jessica Kim (Founder & CEO of BabbaCo) to hear why she thinks Code Academy would be great for her business and for her own skillset.

Do you want a self paced programming course for your students that is free.

here is a site where you can have students do a self  paced course in programing.
http://www.codecademy.com

Codecademy vs Kahn Academy Computer Science: EdTech TV #3

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Vint Cerf - Google Science Fair Opening Event

Get inspired and learn more about the Google Science Fair by watching a recording of a presentation by Vint Cerf, Google's Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, at the opening event on

Kevin Warwick: Google Science Fair interview

Interview with Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics, AKA Captain Cyborg.

Mitch Resnick: Google Science Fair Interview

In our latest interview, we chat with Mitch Resnick, a professor at the MIT media lab, about developing educational technology that is changing the landscape of learning with his Lifelong Kindergarten project.

Google Science Fair 2012: Everyone has a question. What's yours?

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Dr. Michio Kaku America Has A Secret Weapon

Dr. Michio Kaku speaks about how America's poor educational system has created a shortage of Americans who can perform high skilled technology jobs. As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs.
Full Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceEog1XS5OI&feature=related


Samsung Galaxy S3 Wi-Fi Display AllShare Cast Hub - EAD-T10UDEGXEU

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Google Free Professional Development


Do you want to learn more about Google? Here is some videos. These sessions below were recorded on May 2nd, 2012.

Click on a topic that interests you to watch the video and learn more about the presenter.

https://sites.google.com/site/eduonair/conference-sessions

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Ruckus comes out on TOP in Wireless survey of Michigan K12 Schools

Here is a chart of the results.


Technology Requirements for Smarter Balanced Assessments



Here is the link to the full article http://tinyurl.com/bcabwc5

 The consortium reported most schools in member states already have adequate technology infrastructure to administer the assessments successfully.   

Smarter Balanced minimum requirements for current technology include:
For Windows computers: Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Pentium 233 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, and 52 MB of free hard disk space;
For Mac computers: Mac OS X 10.4.4, Intel x86 or PowerPC G3 (300 MHz) processor, 256 MB RAM, and 200 MB of free hard disk space;
For Linux computers: Ubuntu 9-10 or Fedora 6, Pentium II or AMD K6-III 233 MHz processor, 64 MB RAM, and 52 MB of free hard disk space;
For iOS devices: iPad 2 or 3 running iOS 6;
For Android devices: Android-based tablets running Android 4.0+; and
For Chrome devices: Chromebooks running Chrome OS 19+.

Smarter Balanced recommended minimum requirements for new purchases include: 
For Windows computers: Windows 7+, 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, and 80 GB hard disk drive;
For Mac computers: Mac OS X 10.7+, 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, and 80 hard disk drive;
For Linux computers: Ubuntu 11.10 or Fedora 16, 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, and 80 hard disk drive; For iOS devices: iPads running iOS6;
For Android devices: Android-based tablets running Android 4.0+; and
For Chrome devices: Chromebooks running Chrome OS 19+. 

Devices should also have at least a 10-inch screen, a mechanical keyboard, headphones, and wired or wireless Internet access. IT administrators should also have tools to temporarily disable any features, functionalities, and applications that could present a security risk during test administration. Smarter Balanced noted that while these minimum requirements for technology are adequate to support student assessments, they may not meet minimum requirements to support student instruction. 

Fred Sharpsteen STM/MEd Unionville-Sebewaing Area Schools
Director of Technology
2203 Wildner Rd. Sebewaing,
MI. 48759

Sharpstf@gmail.com

Monday, December 3, 2012

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Not made by me,found it online,available for download on website

Disney Parody explanation of Copyright Law and Fair Use

Synopsis:
Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University provides this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms.

A Shared Culture

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Digital Aristotle: Thoughts on the Future of Education

Some thoughts on teachers, students and the Future of Education.
The book kid me is holding in the video is The Way Things Work. If there's a bookish child in your life, you should get them a copy: http://goo.gl/QdreH

Also I don't think that the idea of Digital Aristotle is sci-fi, but if you *do* want to read the sci-fi version, I highly recommend The Diamond Age: http://goo.gl/uvbx6

Why a Louisiana judge ruled school vouchers unconstitutional

Why a Louisiana judge ruled school vouchers unconstitutional:

'via Blog this'

Disrupting Education - Making the Case for Change: Michael Horn at TEDxM...

My life changed when I had the opportunity to take a class from Clayton Christensen at the Harvard Business School. I went on to write a book with him, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, and found a company with him called Innosight Institute, which is a non-profit think tank that--yes, there is a theme here--applies Christensen's theories of disruptive innovation to help solve problems in the social sector. I am the executive director of the education practice at Innosight Institute, where I lead a growing team focused on transforming the education system into a student-centric one that can customize an education for the individual needs of each child.