Tony Gurney explores educational technologies, techniques, tools and theories.
Trend usually implies that something is short term, like a one-hit wonder on the radio, but when we talk about educational technology, these trends are here to not only stay, but grow. While it is hard to choose the most important educational technology trends, we did our best to craft this list of ten.
If you have an interest in teaching and learning, particularly within the context of tertiary education, this journal is worth following.
The International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning is an open, double-blind peer reviewed electronic journal published twice per year by the Centers for Teaching & Technology at Georgia Southern University. The journal is an international forum for information and research about the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and its implications for higher/tertiary education.
Anchored in inquiry and engagement, the scholarship of teaching and learning re-conceptualizes teaching as an ongoing and scholarly process with an emphasis on bringing about improved student learning (Huber & Morreale, 2002). SoTL is a key way to support the continuous transformation of academic communities and cultures.
I wrote a piece for University Business on the future of education technology. You can read it here.
UK HE is placing a higher priority on attracting international students than ever before. Indeed, my own institution, the University of the West of Scotland, has recently been rated as amongst the top 5% of universities worldwide. While this is an exciting development it also comes with its own challenges including tailoring teaching, research and the university’s procedures to ensure a fulfilling experience. Enabling all of this is the underpinning technical infrastructure.
By Tony Gurney, Lecturer, School of Computing, University of the West of Scotland
Source: What’s next for edtech?
Is it worth creating your own education technology software?
Is there a market and, if there is, can they afford to pay you?
“Don’t go into education technology, no one makes any money,” was the advice I once got from an early founder of an edtech startup that failed.
It used to be an all too common sentiment that once deterred many prospective investors from backing some of the most promising edtech ventures conceived.
Previously considered risky investments, it’s true that many edtech startups — commonly founded by “teacherpreneurs” hell-bent on mending the broken social and cultural framework of education through tech innovation — either tank or fail to achieve true scale.Why is this the case, when basic reasoning leads us to believe there is no other professional better placed to address the issues facing education than an actual teacher?
The broken ecosystem of selling to schools educational software rather than the actual technology is what often consigns many edtech ventures to the dustbin.
Of the few teacher-entrepreneurs who do succeed in the startup world to become true scale-up businesses, these mold-breakers are developing solutions to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in education — challenges that are leading many of the industry’s talent to leave the profession completely and a disproportionate number of children to underachieve.
In a digitized world where tech innovation has revolutionized nearly every corner of our life, the negligible impact it has made in our classrooms is woeful.
Source: The broken edtech ecosystem investors once avoided is changing | TechCrunch
At the request of Microsoft I wrote a small piece for University Business on the future of educational technology. You can read it by following the link.
UK HE is placing a higher priority on attracting international students than ever before. Indeed, my own institution, the University of the West of Scotland, has recently been rated as amongst the top 5% of universities worldwide. While this is an exciting development it also comes with its own challenges including tailoring teaching, research and the university’s procedures to ensure a fulfilling experience. Enabling all of this is the underpinning technical infrastructure.
Having been teaching with a tablet in my classroom for nearly a year it has become evident that the market for Education apps still isn’t quite right. I think this is most evident in the fact that the course I run training teachers to use an iPad effectively in the classroom features almost no ‘education’ apps. I do one session (out of 7) that revolves around subject-specific apps, but other than this, the apps that are used on a day-to-day basis are commercial, and often free.
That said, even these great apps, that no doubt you read about all the time – Evernote, Dropbox, iMovie etc, don’t do everything we need them to do.
The key to successful technology integration in schools is to get the staff on board. To get the staff on board, you need to show them how much easier life becomes with the technology, as well as how much better/enhanced the learning can be. There will always be a core group of teachers who get on board without much fuss and these people are what keep you sane when you’re trying to push things forward. I will discuss the role of ‘champions’ in a future post.
Back to what we need to get devices functioning at a higher level in a classroom. My wish list includes the following:
via 5 Education Apps That Don’t Exist (But Should) | Edudemic.
Finding the best education technology tools is a time-consuming task. It may even be viewed as a chore (for some). Typically, one tracks down a handful of useful apps or web tools and puts them through their paces at home. Then you probably don’t use any of them because each tool took far too long to understand, use, become accustomed to, and actually implement in a classroom.
That’s why I was so excited to find this Symbaloo created by user lcobbs detailing 50 great classroom tools that are all easy to implement into just about any classroom. From Animoto to Prezi to Dropbox to Stixy (wait what?), there’s a lot to check out. Don’t know all 50 tools? I didn’t! Click on each icon to get an idea about each tool and learn more.
via 50 Education Technology Tools You Can Start Using Today | Edudemic.
Google Docs is such an incredible tool for college students, offering collaboration, portability, ease of use, and widespread acceptance. But there are so many options, both hidden and obvious, that there’s a good chance you’re not using Google Docs to its fullest capability.
We’ve discovered 50+ great tips for getting the most out of Google Docs as a student, with awesome ideas and tricks for collaboration, sharing, and staying productive.
via 50 Little-Known Ways Google Docs Can Help In Education | Edudemic.
There are a couple dozen ways to ‘use’ technology in education. There are also a couple dozen ways to integrate technology in education. Think those two things are the same? Think that throwing a few iPads and a few Edudemic blog posts into a classroom is the best way to launch a 1:1 initiative? In case you couldn’t guess, it’s not. So here’s a hypothetical to clear up my rhetorical questions even more:
via 12 Ways To Integrate (Not Just Use) Technology In Education.
