Will the classroom keep pace with technology? Will the ubiquity of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, of Readers, Kindles and Kobos, of “Cellies” and smartphones, of iPads and iPods, of Blackberries, of netbooks, of Smartboards, Mimios and Brightlinks, and finally of the internet in our everyday lives, change the way teachers teach and kids learn? Or is the blackboard and chalk of the 1950s good enough for the 2010s?
Too late!
Just as Japanese cars changed the automotive industry, or TV changed broadcast media, or the transister and then the integrated circuit changed consumer electronics, the stuff we carry in our pockets and backpacks is changing the classroom.
Hopefully this page will evolve into an organized collection of links that will reveal the hidden path to the futuire of instructional technology. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Interactive Classroom
- UCDSB SMART Inclusion Project, by Chief Psychologist Alison Inglis and Speech Language Pathologist Alexandra Dunn
“This innovative program was created by a team from the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB). SMART Inclusion uses SMART Board technology, combined with what is generally thought of as “special needs” software and hardware to include every child in classroom learning.” - BrightLink
- Mimio
- SMART Technology
eLearning
Paperless
- WIRED Gadget Lab: “Colleges Dream of Paperless, iPad-centric Education”, 5 April 2010, 6:28:30 PM | Brian X. Chen
“Three universities are getting pumped to hand out free iPads to students and faculty with hopes that Apple’s tablet will revolutionize education.
“Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University each pre-ordered bundles of iPads — sight unseen — with plans to experiment with how the tablet could change classroom learning. In interviews with Wired.com just prior to the iPad’s launch last week, officials from each university saw the iPad as having potential to render printed textbooks obsolete.” - WIRED Gadget Lab: “Apple: One Million iPads Sold in 28 Days”, May 3, 2010 | Charlie Sorrel
“Apple has sold one million iPads just four weeks. Writing in an Apple press release, Steve Jobs compares this to the “74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone.” Whichever way you look at it, the iPad is a huge success. That number equates to almost 36,000 units sold every day.” - Kindle
- Kobo eReader and Kobo eBook and App Store
- Sony Reader
New Media
- CBC Radio: Spark 112 – May 2 & 4, 2010, hosted by Nora Young
“Smartphones in the classroom”
“Many schools have policies that ban or restrict the use of cell phones in class. But in Homer Spring’s Algebra I class at Dixon High School, cell phones are part of the curriculum. Nora talked to Homer Spring and Marie Bjerede about Project K-nect, a pilot program that puts smartphones in high school math classrooms. Then, Nora checked in with teacher Lisa Noble for her take on cellies in the classroom. download the MP3 (Runs 21:57)”
