iterativelearning

I’ve seen or heard quite a few new stories over the last couple of days on the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top program (e.g., Education Week, NPR, Washington Post, Daily Caller ), and then today I saw in the Pennsylvania Independent that PA has qualified for the final round of 19.

In reading the details, it looks like not all the PA school districts chose to participate in the application process and apparently if PA receives funding it would only go to those schools who did.

From the ed tech angle, I’m assuming that the recipients will be able to allot a percentage towards hardware and software needs, but I haven’t read anything yet that states that.

Educause has an interview with William Rankin of Abilene Christian University who talks a bit about their mobile learning initiative, part of which involves distributing an iPhone or iPod Touch to incoming students. When they move into discussing how the device supports learning, he mentions some good ones

• Lowering barriers to participation (e.g., by using WordPress widgets such as postie, students can contribute all kinds of media by simply sending an email)
• Polling
• Extending learning outside the physical classroom context (e.g., field work, lab)

The last one, extending the classroom, is one that I’m most interested in following because of its implications for pushing learning opportunities into many different contexts. For example, because their university is located in Texas, he describes students using mobile devices for Range Management projects.