Top 6 New Emerging Technologies in K-12 Education

People love lists and people are always putting out lists. The New Media Consortium, whom I have never heard of, released the top six emerging technologies for K-12 schools. If they are a media company, how do they know what the technologies are for schools I wonder? Anyway, here is the full article if you are interested.

They provide a timeline and provide them in order: Cloud computing, mobiles, game-based learning, open-content, learning analytics, and personal learning environments. The timeline is one to five years all of this is to be implemented.

I find this interesting in that most of the people I work with have never even heard of any topic except games. Okay, probably the cloud computing concept, thanks to commercials. I guess this is why they call it emerging, I appreciate their optimism. Based upon my real life experiences, I wish I could be that optimistic.

I would be nice, though.

Skype in the Classroom

Skype has a special site just for teachers now. Called Skype in the Classroom, educators can connect with others globally. Whether they just want to communicate or create an elaborate project, it is much easier to connect now. All a person has to do is sign up and start searching. They can also start looking on the map for educators located around the world by markers placed on the map.

Blogs? Who's Blogs?

A lot of times the best place to get information from is other teachers. They share their experiences of tried and true methods (and failed experiences). The best place to get these shared experiences is from blogs. There are many of them and here a some that I follow.

Free Technology for Teachers This guy wins awards for his blog and he has lots of stuff to share.

changED This lady is more about current events and high school but always has follow up resources.

dy/dan This blog is by a high school math teacher who really pushes the limit on thinking logically and "When am I ever going to use this stuff?"

If you are interested in seeing some other really good blogs. Check out the The Edublog Award site. They have the 2010 winners listed if you are curious.

Insert your own activities to your site

BBC has some really good interactive resources for teachers and students. The activity below is a sample of an activity that you can copy and past onto a website.

They have English, Math and Science interactives. Give it a try.BBC-K22

Math, Physics, Calculus...Oh my!

Yeah, I know, but I found this and it is great! A non-profit group called the Khan Academy created self-paced videos for a group that I think is under-represented; advanced science and math students. They need the most help because their stuff is the hardest, yet they get the least help. I don't think it should be a "get it or get out" type of mentality for advanced math and science education. I think it should be "get it or let me find a better way of teaching it" mentality.

Their website has...a lot...of self-paced videos explaining how to do all kinds of concepts in subjects that range from geometry, trigonometry, organic chemistry, physics, finance and test prep, just to name a few.

Math and Technology

Technology has the opportunities to teach math in a completely new process. Conceptually, we can teach without students fully understanding the process first.They can learn it by see the concept visually, then applying the rules through a computer program.

TED, the idea blog has a video about Conrad Wolfram talking about teaching kids real math with computers. It is an excellent video, it is seventeen minutes longs but should be watched by anyone who teaches math or doesn't like math.

Another good video is from TED, Dan Meyer, Math Class Needs a Makeover and here is his blog which is full of math lessons that shows he practices what he preaches.

Cyberbullies and Digital Parents

Every now and then I run across an article that hits me. Here is one from Yahoo that makes even a techie parent of real good kids, ages 13 and 14, sit back and think, "Am I doing enough to monitor my kids?" Take a look here.