What will life be like if people stop reading?

by Caleb Crain from the New Yorker

The Japanese philosopher of technology, Dr. Junichi Murata has written a book

called Perception, Technology, and Life-Worlds

published in 2007 with chapters on Consciousness and the Mind-Body

Problem, Perception and Action, The Multi-Dimensionality of Colors, Why is

Technology a Fundamental Problem of Philosophy?, Technology and Life-Worlds,

Creativity of Technology, Pragmatism and the Ethics of Technology, and From

Challenger to Columbia.

The entire contents of the book can be found at:

Link

1. Schools need help with tech support: Information technology (IT) staffing shortages are keeping many schools from realizing the full benefits of technology inside and outside the classroom, an eSchool News survey reveals.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=51522

2. Blackboard, D2L square off for court fight: Allegations that Blackboard Inc., the No. 1 course- management software firm, is using costly litigation to injure a smaller rival, Desire2Learn (D2L), are part of the backdrop to a federal trial set to begin on Feb. 11. Blackboard has sued for patent infringement, which D2L denies.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=51643

3. Florida adopts open-content reading platform: Tired of investing in expensive textbooks and proprietary software programs, Florida education officials are looking to an open online-learning platform to teach young students basic reading skills.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=51790

4. Intel quits One Laptop Per Child program: It was like one of those ill-fated relationships you suspect won’t last, and on Jan. 3, it finally ended: Citing disagreements with the organization, Intel Corp. said it has abandoned the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, dealing a blow to the ambitious project that seeks to bring millions of low-cost laptops to children in developing countries.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=51488

5. Survey: Schools fail to teach innovation: It’s widely believed our ability to innovate and prepare students for careers in science and technology will be key factors in keeping the U.S. competitive in the global economy. Yet, nearly three out of five American teens (59 percent) do not believe their high school is preparing them adequately for a career in technology or engineering, according to the 2008 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, an annual survey that gauges Americans’ attitudes toward invention and innovation.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=51750

“Today the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) released the 2008 Horizon Report at the ELI Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the NMC’s Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education.”

Link to PDF

“Why does IT matter to liberal arts education? This question is much different from why IT matters, more generally, to higher education. To understand the question (and the answer), we must first consider the defining elements of a liberal arts education and then address the role of technology in learning.”

Educause Review

“This week the library was overwhelmed by the public response after it put 3,100 of the most popular photos from its collection online at Flickr, getting them outside the Washington library walls and into the hands of people who want to use them”

Link

“But Michael is not just another teacher. He is 12, a sixth-grader at Los Encinos School in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He can’t drive, vote or write much with a pencil, but he started a nonprofit when he was 11 and teaches computer skills to elementary students once a week.”

LA Times Link

“What is Didactum? Didactum.org is the place for teachers: finally, teachers can reach millions of students worldwide. Didactum.org gives teachers the tools needed to record a class with a webcam and digital blackboard. Teachers can also record classes live using a camcorder or camera phone. Didactum.org is the website for all teachers in many subjects and languages.”

Link

Innovate (www.innovateonline.info) is published bimonthly as a public

service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova

Southeastern University and is sponsored, in part, by Microsoft.

Innovate-Live webcasts, produced as a public service by our partner,

ULiveandLearn, allow you to synchronously interact with authors on the

topics of their articles.

You may register for the January webcasts at

http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/. Webcasts will be archived and

available in the webcast section of the article and in the Innovate-Live

portal archive shortly after the webcast. All times are Eastern Standard

Time (New York). You may use the world clock at

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ to coordinate with your time zone.

January 10, 2008

12:00 PM EST

A Model for Enhancing Online Course Development

Authors: Evelyn Knowles and Kathleen Kalata

See http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=456&action=article

2:00 PM EST

Next-Generation Bibliographic Manager

Authors: James Morrison and Trevor Owens

See http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=540&action=article

[Note, Trevor Owens will demonstrate how to use Zotero, including the ease

with which you can add any Innovate article to your bibliographic database,

and will respond to your questions about how to use the program.]

4:00 PM EST

Collecting, Organizing, and Managing Resources for Teaching Educational

Games the Wiki Way

Authors: Shelley Henson Johnson, Brett Shelton, and David Wiley

See http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=423&action=article

“Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago”

Link