“One way of better understanding Net-Generation learners is to examine the texts they create on online social networking, blogging, and image sites as well as in virtual worlds. Mark Mabrito and Rebecca Medley explore the nature of Net-Generation texts as a reflection of the cognitive differences between this generation’s students and their older instructors, discuss the unique challenges this group of learners may present for instructors who do not share their technological immersion, and suggest the means by which such challenges may be overcome. To accommodate the needs of the Net Generation, Mabrito and Medley suggest that faculty must reconsider traditional pedagogy and integrate more innovative ways of instruction for this significantly different population of students.”

Link

Link to Information Week Article

Table of contents

Preface<<

<a href=”http://www.igi-pub.com/downloads/excerpts/reference/IGR4674_Le4VKS5ELI.pdf”Introduction<<

“Teachers, administrators, researchers, reformers, government leaders, parents, and others have long extolled the benefits that computer-based learning could have in schools: Educational video games, often referred to as “edutainment” or “serious” games, could make learning fun and motivating, especially for today’s students. Computers offer a way to customize instruction and allow students to learn in the way they are best wired to process information, in the style that conforms to them, and at a pace that matches their own. Computer-based learning on a large scale is also less expensive than the current labor intensive system and could solve the financial dilemmas facing public schools”

Link to Article at Hoover Institute

Early Results - Online Education

“More than two thirds of American parents would be willing to have their children take some of their high school courses over the Internet, a new Education Next-PEPG poll shows.

Findings from a new poll from Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University also show that, in most instances, the American public favors public funding for online courses that high school students take for credit over the internet. The breadth of their support, however, depends on the purpose of the online education. A majority favor funding for high schools offering advanced courses for students online and for high schools that offer rural students a broader range of courses online. A plurality support funding online classes that help dropouts gain credits. However, only about one in four support funding for online courses offered to homeschooled students, with the plurality of respondents opposing the idea outright.”

Link

“‘Emerging technologies for learning’ aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term.”

Link to PDF Report

As online learning becomes more of a strategic resource for K-12 and higher-education institutions to supplement traditional courses, education leaders are starting to discuss how online learning can help support minority students’ instructional needs.

Eschool News

Speak Up is an annual national research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow. The purpose of the project is to:

Collect and report the unfiltered feedback from students, parents and teachers on key educational issues.

Use the data to stimulate local conversations.

Raise national awareness about the importance of including the viewpoints of students, parents, and teachers in the education dialogue.

Over 319,223 students, 25,544 teachers, 19,726 parents and 3,263 school leaders shared their ideas through Speak Up 2007.

2007 Results

One educator demonstrates that blending face-to-face and online instruction can lead to better student grades and understanding

eschool news