Bye bye textbooks, buy buy laptops

by | Thursday, July 10, 2008

Reuters story titled Technology reshapes America’s classrooms. Couple of quotes worth noting:

“Why would we ever buy a book when we can buy a computer? Textbooks are often obsolete before they are even printed,” said Debra Socia, principal of the school in Dorchester, a tough Boston district prone to crime and poor schools.

and

Unlike traditional schools, Frederick’s students work at vastly different levels in the same classroom. Children with special needs rub shoulders with high performers. Computers track a range of aptitude levels, allowing teachers to tailor their teaching to their students’ weakest areas…

And finally, the rise of online learning:

U.S. enrollment in online virtual classes reached the 1 million mark last year, 22 times the level seen in 2000, according to the North American Council for Online Learning… Our projections show that 50 percent of high school courses will be taught online by 2019

Hmm…

Topics related to this post: Books | Learning | News | Online Learning | Teaching | Technology

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Faculty Development by Design

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Digital Shadows: AI Scripts a Different Curriculum

Digital Shadows: AI Scripts a Different Curriculum

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Creativity, genius & age

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From being to becoming: Keynote by Shawn Loescher

From being to becoming: Keynote by Shawn Loescher

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Political poetry

What do Donald Rumsfeld and Sarah Palin have in common? Turns out that they both deliver speeches that can, at be, without much effort, converted into poetry. Check out this and this. Some of them are quite briliant.

Common sense in science class

Common sense in science class

Students can sometimes perceive scientific ideas to be in conflict with their common sense. How do we approach such conflicts in the classroom? Do we see these commonsense ideas as being wrong or, at best, misconceived? Alternatively, do we see them as resources and...

Creativity, computers & the human soul

In his article Is Google making us stupid? the author Nicholas Carr takes Sergi Brin to task for something he had said in a 2004  interview with Newsweek. Brin is quoted as saying “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an...

The futility of existence, Part II: What now?

So there's this guy who wants to get into a balloon. Don't ask why but he does. So he inflates these large balloons and tries to squeeze into them. And he fails for the most part. And of course all of this is documented on YouTube. For instance you can see his second...

On taking beautiful risks

On taking beautiful risks

Dr. Ronald Beghetto, Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, is an internationally recognized expert on creative thought and action in educational settings. He is a Fellow of the American...

2 Comments

  1. Aaron

    Hi Punya. I see you posted this some time ago, but with the explosion of mobile devices, I believe it further supports these findings. Most schools are adopting mobile applications these days that support their classroom platforms. It is kind of hard not to believe that a majority of education in the future will be conducted online.

    Reply
  2. Weeffitoexisp

    Thank you

    Reply

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