• ebook adoption among students is still pretty low
• iPads are too pricey for most students, so little inroads there

In skimming some of the features he describes, one place where CafeScribe seems to have done its homework is making it easier to create opportunities for collaboration. Students can see others who bought the same book, and so, in theory, I could see organically-generated groups forming to work on difficult concepts, problems, etc. What I like about this, pedagogically, is that it doesn’t restrict collaboration to specific courses or even semesters. It could also encourage more student-based scaffolding where perhaps upper-division students who are majors in a given area (e.g., accounting, engineering) could assist struggling students. Faculty can also use CafeScribe to create collaborations within specific courses.

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.

• 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.

Because it’s a toolkit, instructors or schools can customize it to meet their specific learning needs. Another advantage appeals to those concerned with privacy. Because it runs behind a firewall, teachers don’t really have to worry about cyber-bullying or other sorts of pernicious behavior that students may have to contend with in more open virtual world environments such as Second Life. Shu Schiller has an interesting article on this article when using Second Life within the context of an MBA-Information Systems class. However, that said, schools or educators can work around this issue by getting a Second Life premium account for about $10 and so in the end, I guess it kind of boils down to one of those common software trade-offs: do the development work in-house and reap the benefits of greater customization, etc. or go with what amounts to a hosted option with less flexibility.

They move on to discuss how the relationship between goals and objectives can be more fluid than with many traditional design projects because game designers may want to develop a challenge that is directly related to the goal.