Australian university to issue 11,000 iPads next year

Some excerpts from the article:

“The University of Western Sydney said in a statement that it plans to distribute 11,000 iPads next year to every new student and member of the faculty “to support learning and teaching innovations across the curriculum and in informal learning environments.””

“The iPad initiative is part of a curriculum overhaul at UWS that will stress “flexible study options” and “a blended learning model,” The Australian reports. Traditional lectures will be augmented by a more interactive learning approach, Krause said.

“Mobile technologies will be a key part of this strategy,” she said. “We want to support our academic staff to make the most of iPads and custom-designed apps in class so that, even in the largest lecture theater, students have access to just-for-me, just-in-time interactive learning experiences.””

My thoughts:

While I am personally more inclined to use laptops over tablets because they do so much more, I think things like this can be very beneficial if implemented correctly – and that is the key. If they just buy professors and students a bunch of iPads, I would not expect much good to come out of them…at least not a large % anyway. Now if they train the professors and students how to use them, provide good resources, and support, then it could be an awesome initiative.

Minnesota Bans MOOCs….then doesn’t

Last week the state of Minnesota banned MOOCs. Why? Apparently they have a law that states that any university trying to operate within their border must meet state standards (as in get approval to operate). This would be OK if Minnesota had some kind of quality program but my guess is that the people in charge are not even educators and that there are companies that stand to lose money if the state pushed to get MOOCs out. Here is an excerpt from the chronicle:

“The state’s Office of Higher Education has informed the popular provider of massive open online courses, or MOOC’s, that Coursera is unwelcome in the state because it never got permission to operate there. It’s unclear how the law could be enforced when the content is freely available on the Web, but Coursera updated its Terms of Service to include the following caution:

Notice for Minnesota Users:

Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.”

Source: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/minnesota-gives-coursera-the-boot-citing-a-decades-old-law/40542

Apparently, facing backlash from the higher ed community, Minnesota plans to ignore the law and let these programs exist within its borders – http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/facing-backlash-minnesota-decides-to-allow-free-online-courses-after-all/40588

Now there are a lot of good issues here. First, these MOOCs are free and offer no credit….plus they are online. How could a state really police them? Should a state really be able to police what is on the internet? On one hand you have states rights and on the other you have a state telling its citizens what they can and cannot see online which brings up a whole host of issues. I would not be surprised if we see more of these types of situations in the very near future so keep your eyes peeled:)

MOOCs: MoocDonald’s article a must read

Massive open online course’s (MOOCs)…..I see some advantages, disadvantages, and learning and research opportunities within their domain but am still undecided as to what my predictions are for them and how they will impact education so I am holding off writing about that. But I did read an article yesterday by one of my favorite faculty (Dr. Kyle Peck) from Penn State University and think it is a very good read. Dr. Peck is an expert in this field (probably more than anyone else I know for this kind of thing), he has both corporate and education experience, has managed his own charter school, has served in management at the university, and has worked with many many school districts, so he knows his stuff. I do have to say I really like some of the ideas coming out of this article:
“Most of us have options when it comes to food.  We can buy groceries and make choices in terms of quality — from junk food to organic, from Captain Crunch to granola and corn dogs to kale.  When we eat out we can grab fast food, stop at a chain restaurant, or choose a fine dining experience, although for these restaurants to run they need the best POS, and they can get the meaning of POS from POSUSA.com to find the best software for their establishments.  We can eat there, eat in our cars, or take it home. We can finish it off at home as a midnight snack.  Different options make sense at different stages of our lives, and on different days, and these choices have implications in terms of cost, time, social interactions, and ultimately, in terms of overall wellness.  For billions of less fortunate others, however, options are few and a next meal is not guaranteed…..” rest of article here

How to find scholarships

Decent article on Mashable this morning on how to find scholarships. While it doesnt go into much detail its a great starting point for those looking for money to attend college (who isnt?).

Article: “You’ve worked hard to make it into college, and now comes another challenge — getting funding. Of course you can — and should — call your campus’ financial aid office to find out what scholarship, loan and grant information they can provide you with. It’s also wise to do a little searching of your own. And don’t count yourself out if you don’t have excellent grades, some sites award scholarships based on luck.

There are only a few free web tools that are actually useful in the search for college scholarships. Fastweb, is the first stop for online scholarships and a household name with families who’ve been Výsledek obrázku pro scholarshipthrough the college process in the past 10 years. The site has 50 million registered users, of whom 9 million are active users of the site. Fastweb has 1.5 million scholarships worth about $3.5 billion.

Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Fastweb.com and an expert in financial aid, tells Mashable less than 0.3 percent of students enrolled in four-year institutions were able to get a free ride due to grants and scholarships. 

“Your chances of winning a scholarship if you’re going to a four-year institution are about 1 in 8,” he said, adding the amount for that one winner averages about $2,800 per year. Yet, it’s important to lessen your college debt since it will most likely stay with you for years after graduation.”………..

Link to the rest of the article

UNCW MIT Orientation

Students in the MIT program, remember that today is our orientation. It will begin at 4pm and end at 6pm. Please come and join us for refreshments (yes free food), introductions, and to hear from us faculty about our program!

http://uncw.edu/ed/mit/

PhoneGap: Building an app and classroom use

Well I have built my first mobile app using PhoneGap. Here are my thoughts:

Usability: Setting the software up was pretty easy although I did think the PhoneGap tutorials were not very good and had to look elsewhere to get the software installed on both Eclipse and Xcode. However once I was set up, all I needed to do was to drop HTML files into my WWW folder. Additionally, it was not easy to figure out how to publish my apps to the Android/iOS stores but very easy once I did figure it out. I would recommend one be familiar with Eclipse and Xcode before working with PhoneGap. Now onto building an app – very easy. Building an app using HTML was pretty easy. PhoneGap does have the ability to interact with the phone’s internal hardware just like a native app, which is nice. It does require javascript though, so be prepared to program if using PhoneGap.I did have to also modify things in both Eclipse and Xcode in order to get certain things to work, for instance, just adding external links to my app in Xcode required modification. I honestly think PhoneGap needs to work on their tutorials, for many things their software could do, and it would used by many more people. They are limiting themselves with the poor tutorials they have on their site.

Publishing – Publishing on multiple devices was pretty easy. After I had finished my app for Android, it took me maybe 30-45 mins to get it ready for publishing on iOS, which is pretty impressive. Keep in mind though that in order to publish on Apple (or even get your app on your iPad/iPhone) you need to pay the $99 developer fee. On Android, that fee is only $25 which is much more reasonable. Also, Android lets you publish your app without review, Apple needs to review (takes weeks at a minimum) and might actually reject your app.

Education use: I think this would be a very good tool for the classroom but there are a few things that an instructor needs to be ready for. The first thing is setting up this software. It was not that easy to set up. You have to download and install like 5 things for Android and like 5 things for Apple. Not only do you have to download/install but you need to create directories and move files around. While this was pretty easy for myself (and it did take a while), this is a nightmare waiting to happen in the classroom. You will have to walk your students through this process and I would expect errors. This process alone will turn off non technical students who will never use this tool after class due to this set up process. Once all set up though, its HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I do believe your students should thoroughly understand HTML and CSS with intro level javascript knowledge before attempting to use this tool. You at least need to know how to find/modify javascript to really do  anything ‘fun’ with the tool (unless you are just creating static HTML pages). Now, if you can look past all of that (and I probably can for my non programmer/non technical students even though I did sound rather negative in my review), I would recommend to require all students buy an Android develop account for $25 (vs iOS $99 due to cost) and let them each publish their apps to the Android Martketplace (Google Play). I think students would love to see their apps on the app store.

Classes begin today!

Summer courses begin today. I will be teaching a graduate course: Computer Interface Design. The course will cover HCI and interface design strategies then move into Adobe Photoshop. Students will develop several interfaces and projects using Photoshop. I am very excited, this is going to be a fun course.