Startl

Educational Technology and the Developing World

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:50:46 +0000

Educational technology can help transform the way people learn. In the developed world, most of our child and adult learners have been using educational technology in one form or another for many years, and technology is accepted as an important part of the educational environment. What about the developing world? Is it realistic to think that educational technology can be used effectively there, and is it even valuable aim in countries in which access to basic education is not universal? The answer to both those questions is yes. In a globalised world, it is just as or even more important that everyone is able to gain access to the technologies that will allow them to be part of that world. The rural African child that learns how to find their way around a laptop might be buying a luxury goods such as plasmatelevisions or a leather sectional sofa tomorrow. Success in education today relies on the use of technology.

Problems Introducing Educational Technology

Introducing educational technology in developing countries is naturally hampered by cost. In many developing countries even public schools charge fees that are beyond the reach of many parents, and so educational provision is patchy. In such an environment, persuading governments that they should pay for the hardware and software they need to introduce technology to their schools is going to be near-impossible. Nor would it be desirable: there are more important calls on public education budgets in developing countries. Instead, charities can and are stepping in to help children in developing countries access technology, as the benefits of it are being realised. The One Laptop per Child organisation is a great example of this kind of charity provision.

Having the hardware in place is only part of the battle. Staff in schools in the developing world may need training on how to use both hardware and software, and help with maintenance and repairs may be needed. However, as technology becomes more widespread, so will the local knowledge needed to use and maintain it.

Technology Benefits

To participate in today’s world and to be able to compete in it, a good understanding of how to use basic computer technology is essential. Access to the internet can help children in the developing world gain a greater understanding of their place within it and can raise aspiration. More than this though, educational technology can help children learn in more creative and innovative ways, and so help them compete with children in the developed world.

The more privileged a child is, the more likely it is that they will have had access to a range of books and toys from birth, that will have helped develop neural pathways and develop their potential. Poorer children are likely to have had a more limited range of experience, and so have the most to gain from access to educational technology. Using certain kinds of software can help children think about things in new ways, contributing to the development of various essential skills. Exposure to different types of technology can contribute to the development of analytical skills and creativity, and can help with the retention of knowledge. For children otherwise dependent on the input of a single teacher for their learning, the introduction of educational technology into the classroom can introduce them to new ways of working and help broaden horizons.

Making Technology Relevant
When looking at educational technology, we need to look at how it can be made relevant to its users. If educational technology is mostly coming from the developed world, and being given to the developing world, how can we make sure that it meets the needs of the developing world? Educational technology in the developing world, especially in rural areas, needs to help children connect with others. A social networking element can help reduce isolation. Mobile technology that can be used in the home as well as at school is useful, as many children in the developing world juggle domestic or other work with school and need to be able to learn ‘on the go’. Having access to mobile educational technology (perhaps on mobile phones, which are more common in the developing world than laptops) helps them learn when they need to. It can also help their families become technology users. Educational technology should also be culturally relevant and sensitive, rather than US or Euro-centric.

Google Docs for Learning #EdTech

The Startl Team — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:30:04 +0000

If you haven’t seen the Glogster list of extremely valuable ways to use Google Docs for Learning, you’re missing out.

Students Sharing Files and Notes on Facebook – Legal or not? #EdTech

The Startl Team — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:18:19 +0000

EdTech News issued a great piece last week in light of Facebook’s announcement that it was reviving Facebook Group for Schools. There is the usual social networking of students and events, but students will also be able to share files up to 25MB.

According to EdTech News, student participation in Facebook Group for Schools may actually be a contradiction to the Facebook Terms of Use for the student, thus putting in jeopardy their own Facebook membership. “You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings,” Facebook says.

“For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).

This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.”

The question becomes – what do students legally own? If they take notes, but the course material is not theirs, are they in violation of current copyright laws?

Various universities have student guidelines for conduct and make it an offense to sell or otherwise distribute notes for compensation.

Under UC Berkeley’s policies, if a student shared their notes through Facebook’s new platform, they would be committing an offence. Even though the student has produced the notes, as they are based on the contribution of the university, it claims the right to control reproduction and sharing of the material.

It will be interesting to see what changes, if anything, occur as Facebook Groups for Schools rolls out. Will student behavior adopt and use? Will universities change some of their policies?

Where do you side on the matter?

Automated Essay Scoring Systems Demonstrated to Be as Effective as Human Graders in Big Trial #EdTech

The Startl Team — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:06:51 +0000

A direct comparison between human graders and software designed to score student essays achieved virtually identical levels of accuracy, with the software in some cases proving to be more reliable, a groundbreaking study has found.

The study, which was underwritten by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and conducted by experts in educational measurement and assessment, will be released here on Monday, April 16th, at the annual conference of the National Council on Measurement in Education. An advance copy of the study is available today at http://bit.ly/HJWwdP.

“The demonstration showed conclusively that automated essay scoring systems are fast, accurate, and cost effective,” said Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Open Education Solutions, which provides consulting serves related to digital learning, and co-director of the study.

That’s important because writing essays are one important way for students to learn critical reasoning, but teachers don’t assign them often enough because grading them is both expensive and time consuming. Automated scoring of essays holds the promise of lowering the cost and time of having students write so they can do it more often.

Education experts believe that critical reasoning and writing are part of a suite of skills that students need to be competitive in the 21st century. Others are working collaboratively, communicating effectively and learning how to learn, as well as mastering core academic content. The Hewlett Foundation calls this suite of skills Deeper Learning and is making grants to encourage its adoption at schools throughout the country.

“Better tests support better learning,” says Barbara Chow, Education Program Director at the Hewlett Foundation. “This demonstration of rapid and accurate automated essay scoring will encourage states to include more writing in their state assessments. And, the more we can use essays to assess what students have learned, the greater the likelihood they’ll master important academic content, critical thinking, and effective communication.”

For more than 20 years, companies that provide automated essay scoring software have claimed that their systems can perform as effectively, more affordably and faster than other available methods of essay scoring. The study was the first comprehensive multi-vendor trial to test those claims. The study challenged nine companies that constitute more than ninety-seven percent of the current market of commercial providers of automated essay scoring to compare capabilities. More than 16,000 essays were released from six participating state departments of education, with each set of essays varying in length, type, and grading protocols. The essays were already hand scored according to state standards. The challenge was for companies to approximate established scores by using software.

At a time when the U.S. Department of Education is funding states to design and develop new forms of high-stakes testing, the study introduces important data. Many states are limited to multiple-choice formats, because more sophisticated measures of academic performance cost too much to grade and take too long to process. Forty-five states are already actively overhauling testing standards, and many are considering the use of machine scoring systems.

The study grows from a contest call the Automated Student Assessment Prize, or ASAP, which the Hewlett Foundation is sponsoring to evaluate the current state of automated testing and to encourage further developments in the field.

In addition to looking at commercial vendors, the contest is offering $100,000 in cash prizes in a competition open to anyone to develop new automated essay scoring techniques. The open competition is underway now and scheduled to close on April 30th. The pool of $100,000 will be awarded the best performers. Details of the public competition are available at www.kaggle.com/c/ASAP-AES . The open competition website includes an active leader board to document prize rules, regularly updated results, and discussion threads between competitors.

The goal of ASAP is to offer a series of impartial competitions in which a fair, open and transparent participation process will allow key participants in the world of education and testing to understand the value of automated student assessment technologies.

ASAP is being conducted with the support of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, two multi-state consortia funded by the U.S. Department of Education to develop next-generation assessments. ASAP is aligned with the aspirations of the Common Core State Standards and seeks to accelerate assessment innovation to help more students graduate from college and to become career ready.

Jaison Morgan, CEO of The Common Pool, a consulting business that specializes in developing effective incentive models for solving problems, and co-director of the study, said the prize and studies will raise broader awareness of the current capabilities of automated scoring of essays.

“By offering a private demonstration of current capabilities, we can reveal to our state partners what is already commercially available,” Morgan said. “But, by complimenting it with a public competition, we will attract new participants to the field and investment from new players. We believe that the public competition will trigger major breakthroughs.”

ASAP is preparing to introduce a second study, in which private providers and public competitors will be challenged to reveal the capabilities of automated scoring systems for grading short-answer questions. The second study will be conducted this summer. There are another three ASAP studies in development.

Dr. Mark Shermis, Dean of the University of Akron, College of Education, a noted expert on automated scoring, is the ASAP principal investigator and lead Academic Advisor. He is author of Classroom Assessment in Action and co-editor of Automated Essay Scoring: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach.
ASAP was designed by The Common Pool, LLC, and is managed by
OpenEducation Solutions, Inc.

Top 50 Free STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) Online #EdTech

The Startl Team — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:17:25 +0000

The team at OnlineUniversities.com have published the Top 50 Free STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Online resources. The list includes Universities, lectures, tutorials, educational media, free courses and reading materials.

…these resources, whether classes, lectures, or tutorials, are all free of charge, meaning you can improve your knowledge without emptying your wallet.

Here are a few samples from the list:

MuppetLabs: Those who want to learn more about programming will find an amazing collection of tutorials here on just about every programming language imaginable, plus a few other science and tech resources as well.

MIT Open Courseware: MIT offers one of the largest collections of OpenCourseWare on the web, with the vast majority covering STEM topics.

TED: TED is famous for putting out brain-bending and revolutionary talks and by visiting their site, either on a computer or through their mobile app, you can watch and learn anytime, anywhere.

Learn on!

Frank Catalano – Higher Ed Tech: Where K-12 & Consumer Collide – #EdTech

The Startl Team — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:30:14 +0000

Frank Catalano of Intrinsic Strategy recently gave the keynote at Blackboard World Transact 2012. I focused on the convergence of K-12/Higher Ed/Consumer tech trends. In his keynote, Frank shared his insights on how today’s students are pushing education technology and what’s driving adoption in order for educators to prepare for the class of 2015 and beyond.

The keynote “Higher Ed Tech: Where K-12 & Consumer Collide” (PDF) included five trends that span K-20 and be important over the next three years. The keynote is complete with rich sources and materials.

What are the five trends you ask? Tablets, digital chunked content, games/simulations, learning analytics and… the uncollege movement.

NoRedInk – App to Help Teachers Give Great Feedback Lessons

admin — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:54:21 +0000

Mashable recently covered a company that we at Startl are excited about, NoRedInk.

NoRedInk – yes, the red ink all over your paper from the teacher or the redline version of your document – aims to provide a solid feedback loop for corrections in the form of an app.

The app creates quizzes to teach grammar skills. Based on the errors found in written work, the instructor can assign a specific skill quiz within the app for the student to hone and perfect their grammar and use of punctuation. Quizzes are not multiple choice but instead the students must edit grammar and punctuation - emphasizing the process and learning.

Learn more about NoRedInk – you will love it (at least we do).

LAUNCH Event will focus on Education says Jason Calacanis

The Startl Team — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:44:59 +0000

LAUNCH Education & Kids will take place on June 12-13 in Mountain View at the Microsoft campus. The event will bring together entrepreneurs, investors and educators with 25 startups showcasing their work.

From the conference organizers -

We’re going to invite equal parts founders, press, investors and educators to the event, which will be hosted at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View. If you want a ticket please apply here. Tickets are free for 75% of the audience (founders, press and educators). If you’re anyone else, we’ll ask you to support the event.

A public spreadsheet of about 200 startups as innovating in the educational and kids space can be found at http://lnch.is/HQgCRc To add companies to that list, of if you have any questions, email edu@launch.co.

See the original blog post.

Entrepreneur Expo 2012 – Philly Startup Leaders

The Startl Team — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:21:50 +0000

Philly Startup Leaders present: Entrepreneur Expo

April 26, 2012 from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm, at Levitt Auditorium, Gershman Hall, 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia.

Over 40 entrepreneurs will display their dreams, ideas and hard work in a trade-show like setting.

Who Should Attend?

This is a showcase of work by tech entrepreneurs and the technology entrepreneurial community. If you’re an entrepreneur, you will be able to talk about your work and hear about the work of others. If you’re interested in new ideas, new business plans, the uses of new technology, or are simply curious about the creative energy in this region, you’ll have a chance to see and meet those beginning to make a difference.

Who Will Be There?

Entrepreneurs, students, educators, investors, leaders in the political, legal, and business communities, members of the media, and the public. Register to attend

What Should You Expect?

Get ready for a vibrant scene of entrepreneurs eager to talk about their work and interact with you. Expect to see and hear about innovative new ideas and connect with like-minded individuals.

littleBits – An interview with Ayah Bdeir (VIDEO)

The Startl Team — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:50:32 +0000

Imagine a set of electronics as easy to play with as Legos. TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir introduces littleBits, a set of simple, interchangeable blocks that make programming as simple and important a part of creativity as snapping blocks together.