They agree with the Techno-Critics that there’s been a lot of exaggeration when it comes to describing the link between tech and learning improvement; they agree because of the conspicuous lack of empirical data. But rather than throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, as the Techno Critics are prone to do, they suggest six extensions of Jonassen, et al.’s notion of tech as cognitive tools. For example, one of the six recommends not only involving all members of the school community but positioning each as an active agent in assisting with defining … clearly articulated roles, responsibilities, and performance measures. This emphasis on specific roles for stakeholders is one way to keep the focus on concerns related to learning rather than technology.

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.

via TechCrunch – 1/3 Of Americans Don’t Use Fast Internet

I thought of this once again after seeing Andy Petroski’s presentation at this year’s PETE&C conference. Part of his solid talk involved relaying stories from students’ implementations of Web 2.0 in their K-12 classrooms. Before he got into the details of the stories, though, he emphasized that teachers can’t assume that all kids are highly fluent in 2.0 tools; especially when we’re surrounded with lots of stories that depict kids as hooked on gadgets, it’s an easy stereotype to fall prey to. Yes, okay, most of the Net-Gen’ers know Facebook and Text-ing, but how comfortable are they in other zones (blogs, wikis, and RSS)? And how well do they know more than the surface-level features of these tools? What about using them strategically (e.g., for learning)? How wide is their bandwidth of knowledge?

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Schools committing to Time To Know's curriculum must be able to provide on-premises technical support. This means that if a student’s netbook experiences technical problems, it will dealt with immediately, rather than having to wait for an IT support professional to make a call days after

With the iPad hubbub still fresh in my mind, I couldn't help but substitute the word netbook with iPad. Given Apple's solid track record on platform stability (e.g, no viruses) and ease-of-use, this could be a pretty good scenario for a test run.

On the new feature front, I recently found out that they’ve got a WebSlides option that makes it extremely easy to string together a series of web pages and present them to a class or group. One way to quickly create a slideshow is to select a list from your Diigo collection and then click the slides widget. Another option is to create them directly from an RSS feed. In true Web 2.0 fashion, viewers can also become participants by annotating the slides. Especially for people teaching online, this would be another way for both teacher and students to generate interactive discussions about web-based materials. It also has other options which you can check out from Diigo’s intro video.

Feedly is also Safari and Chrome-friendly.

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