Public Education: The expensive cost of failure

As you look at the following graphic that I found at: Day By Day in Our World, I want you to think of something:

Home-schoolers, on average, achieve higher scores than institutionally taught children but are educated at a much lower "per student" cost.

To see it better:
1. Click to Enlarge
2. Click "Show Original in the lower left
3. Click again to "zoom"
4. Or visit: Day By Day in Our World

$7,700 per student?

Time to: #Occupypublicschools, nah, just Home-School your kids.

###

Coach Hire Quote - The key points that you have to know from experts within the subject

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Rajasthan Board Class 12th Arts results 2011 coming today

The Board of Secondary Education of Rajasthan (BOSER) is all set to release the results of Senior Secondary (Class 12th) of Arts Stream today at 4:15 pm. The board has already published the Commerce and Science stream results on 21st and 27th May respectively.

The passing percentage recorded in the Science stream results has gone down to 85.42% compared to 87.58% of last year, however majority of the students manage to secure the first division. The trend, which can be seen in almost all the state level boards, has been followed as girls have outshined the boys so far in the results declared.

Board issued a merit for the first 10 positions in the Science stream results and same is expected to be replicated in the Arts stream results, however majority of the students who make it to the list are from private school as out of 25 students in merit list of Science results, 22 were from private schools and just 3 from Government schools.

These results can be checked on the official results portal of Rajasthan Board on http://rajresults.nic.in, when published. Students can also register themselves with their roll number and email id to get the results in thir inbox, else type Result(space)RAJ12A(space)Roll Number on your mobile and send to 56263 to get the results via SMS.

Rajasthan Board Class 12th Arts results 2011 coming today

The Board of Secondary Education of Rajasthan (BOSER) is all set to release the results of Senior Secondary (Class 12th) of Arts Stream today at 4:15 pm. The board has already published the Commerce and Science stream results on 21st and 27th May respectively.

The passing percentage recorded in the Science stream results has gone down to 85.42% compared to 87.58% of last year, however majority of the students manage to secure the first division. The trend, which can be seen in almost all the state level boards, has been followed as girls have outshined the boys so far in the results declared.

Board issued a merit for the first 10 positions in the Science stream results and same is expected to be replicated in the Arts stream results, however majority of the students who make it to the list are from private school as out of 25 students in merit list of Science results, 22 were from private schools and just 3 from Government schools.

These results can be checked on the official results portal of Rajasthan Board on http://rajresults.nic.in, when published. Students can also register themselves with their roll number and email id to get the results in thir inbox, else type Result(space)RAJ12A(space)Roll Number on your mobile and send to 56263 to get the results via SMS.

Punjab Board (PSEB) 12th class result 2011 today ?

If sources are to believed, results of more than 4 lakh students appeared this year in class 12th examinations is expected to be released today by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), Mohalim however there has been no official communication or update on the PSEB official website. PSEB vice-chairman Dr. Suresh Kumar Tandon earlier confirmed that the bar code technology is used to prepare the results this year to bring the timely results, unlike the previous years, to students of their performance.

Some changes have been made this year to avoid the errors encountered in merit list last year as a Delhi-based agency has prepared the result after which PSEB review committee has thoroughly reviewed the results. These results can be checked on the official website of PSEB on http://www.pseb.ac.in, and on several other results portals. To get the get the results on mobile via SMS, type PSEB12(space)ROLL NUMBER and send to 56263.

Dr. Suresh Kumar Tandon also confirmed earlier that the class 10th results of PSEB would be released after the 8 days of declaration of class 12th results, however the use of bar code technology in preparation of class 10th results could not be confirmed.

CBSE class 10th Guwahati & Bhubaneswar region results today

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has been releasing the results this year in phases and here comes the turn of anxiously waiting class 10th students of Guwahati & Bhubaneswar region as board is expected to release this results today i.e. 4 June at around 10-11am, however the time has not been confirmed by the board officials yet.

Before this, Board announced the results of Ajmer, Allahabad, Chennai, Delhi and Panchkula Region on 1st June and the results for Patna region is still pending. CBSE is also expected to release the controversial AIEEE results in the coming week as well, if sources are to be believed on 7th June. There has been lot of speculation about the dates of results of class 10th in the absence of any official statement from the board.

However, there has been smiles for the students after the results are declared as Ajmer region has recorded the record 99.11% passing percentage where only 0.77 % got compartments, results of other regions have been impressive as well. The girls have yet again outshined the boys in the results declared of all regions so far.

Happy Memorial Day 2011!

• Happy Memorial Day 2011!
  

• Please share this video with everyone...

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK0T4pVHP28
  

• "It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor
  those who died in defense of our country
  in wars far away. The imagination plays a
  trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old
  and wise. We see them as something like the
  Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But
  most of them were boys when they died, they
  gave up two lives -- the one they were living and
  the one they would have lived. When they died,
  they gave up their chance to be husbands and
  fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance
  to be revered old men. They gave up everything
  for their county, for us. All we can do is remember."
  -- President Ronald Wilson Reagan
  Remarks at Veteran's Day ceremony,
  Arlington National Cemetery November 11, 1985

• "I, a humble citizen of this great country USA,
  proudly salute the men and women of our Armed
  Forces all over the world! Thank You for securing
  our freedom, and providing us unmatched safety,
  peace, and making USA the greatest democracy
  in the world!
  
  
• "I moved to USA from India in 1987 to study.
  I became a U.S. citizen in 2008, and voted for the
  first time - this was a terrific experience. I am
  very grateful to USA for providing me great
  education, fantastic work experience, freedom,
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  very thankful and grateful that I have been able
  to raise a wonderful family and grow here.

• "As U.S. citizen, I am particularly proud of
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  establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
  exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
  speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
  peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
  Government for a redress of grievances."
  The fourth amendment:
  "The right of the people to be secure in their
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  unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not
  be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but
  upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
  affirmation, and particularly describing the
  place to be searched, and the persons or
  things to be seized."
  Finally, the fourteenth amendment:
  "All persons born or naturalized in the
  United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
  thereof, are citizens of the United States and
  of the State wherein they reside. No State shall
  make or enforce any law which shall abridge
  the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
  United States; nor shall any State deprive any
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  within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
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• Sincere regards,
  Sanjay Dalal, CEO / Founder

• oGoing
  

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• (receptionist: 7 am to 5 pm PST M-F)

Connecting educators through Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team

One of the best parts of working on the Google Apps for Education team is talking with teachers and hearing the incredible ways they are using Google Apps to enhance classroom learning. Kern Kelley and Rob Dominick, teachers based in Newport, Maine, use laptop cameras and Google forms to grade math quizzes. Aida Awad, a science teacher in Park Ridge, Illinois, instructs students to use a motion chart to plot and contrast plant growth in different environments. In the UK, Ian Addison's elementary school students create impressive websites about their hometown.

With millions of students and teachers moving to Google Apps, we want to make it easier for teachers around the world to connect and share these kinds of examples with each other.

Today we're excited to announce eight Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups across the United States and Canada. These groups are designed for educators to learn and collaborate through community discussion forums, shared resources, events and webinars. In addition to showcasing creative instructional uses for Google Apps, we hope these groups will help teachers and administrators to identify other schools in their region that have "gone Google."

If you live in the United States or Canada, check out the list below to find and join your Google Apps Regional K-12 User Group (International user groups are coming soon, stay tuned...)

States:

• California: k12california.appsusersgroup.com
• Texas: k12texas.appsusersgroup.com
• Illinois: k12illinois.appsusersgroup.com

Regions:

• East (US and Canada): k12east.appsusersgroup.com
  Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island
• Great Lakes (US and Canada): k12greatlakes.appsusersgroup.com
  Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario
• South (US): k12south.appsusersgroup.com
  Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia
• Central (US and Canada): k12central.appsusersgroup.com
  Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Nunavet, and Saskatchewan
• West (US and Canada): k12west.appsusersgroup.com
  Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories

We can't wait to hear more great stories and discussions about Google Apps!

From the Ocean State to the Show Me State: 2 More States Go Google

Nearly one year after Oregon blazed the trail as the first state to bring Google Apps to students and teachers, Rhode Island (the Ocean State) and Missouri (the Show Me State) will begin offering support for Google Apps to K-12 schools and districts across their respective states. Together, they will provide over a million students and over 100,000 teachers with the ability to move to the cloud with Google Apps.

The RISTE organization will help Rhode Island schools who decide to "go Google" with both technical deployment assistance and training opportunities. Paul Barrette, executive board member of RISTE and Director of Technology at the Burrillville School Department, has already moved his district to Google Apps and is excited to offer this service to the other 32 districts in Rhode Island. "Google Apps also integrates very well with a wide variety of handheld and portable devices," Barrette adds, "making it a perfect fit with the ways that teachers and students are now accessing technology."

In Missouri, the Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet) – a consortium of schools, public libraries and higher education institutions – will assist K-12 member schools in the adoption and configuration of Google Apps by providing training to administrators, faculty, and staff. MOREnet hopes to help members faced with budget constraints move to Google Apps to reduce IT costs while also improving technology integration in the classroom. As John Gillispie, MOREnet Executive Director explains: “It’s more than just a fiscal decision. Google Apps provides communication and collaboration tools that enhance learning across the curriculum not only in reading and writing, but also in areas like math and science.”

We're excited to welcome Rhode Island and Missouri to the growing Google Apps family, which also includes Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York and Oregon.

Posted by Jaime Casap, Google Apps Education Manager

The Power of the Apps Marketplace: A Webinar with CloudLock and Boise State

Thousands of institutions have adopted Google Apps for Education and already enjoy the tremendous collaboration boosts and cost savings that come along with it. Many, however, may be less familiar with the Google Apps Marketplace (not to mention the recently launched Education category in the Marketplace which includes applications for student tools and teaching aids). As the Apps Marketplace celebrates its first birthday, we invite you to learn how one Google Apps customer has deployed an innovative Google Docs management app from the marketplace and how it has impacted the visibility of collaboration and sharing within their organization.

Join us for a webinar on April 7th at 11am PST to hear Boise State University’s Brian Bolt, the Office for Information and Technology Team Lead, share how they are using Google Apps and CloudLock from the Google Apps Marketplace. Brian will share his lessons on rolling out Google Apps and demonstrate how CloudLock addresses some of the core IT control and visibility requirements they faced when moving increasing amounts of their organization’s data to the cloud. Specifically, Brian will cover how CloudLock helps to address:

• Governance - Managing access to data to mitigate unauthorized access
• Protection - Define and enforce document ownership and sharing policies
• Analytics - Understanding how to effectively make sense of data

CloudLock’s Co-Founder, Tsahy Shapsa, will also share how their app has made it possible for organizations to extend their Google Docs repositories in order to begin to retire their legacy on-premise file servers, effectively producing a significant ROI with real hard and soft cost savings. We hope you’ll tune in to hear more about how Boise State has leveraged CloudLock.

The Power of the Apps Marketplace: A Webinar with CloudLock and Boise State
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

Posted by Jordan Pedraza, Google Apps for Education Team

The Green and Gold Goes Google

After many months of planning, today the University of Alberta – one of Canada's largest research-intensive universities – will begin providing its faculty, staff and students with Google Apps for Education. About 40,000 students will start making the switch today, with faculty and staff following over the coming months. This agreement paves the way for other Canadian institutions to go Google.

Jonathan Schaeffer, the University’s Vice Provost for Information Technology, says: “This is good news for the University of Alberta. Moving to Google will ultimately have a positive and transformative effect on teaching and learning on campus.” The migration will not only improve campus-wide communication and collaboration, but will reduce the current 80+ independent email servers on campus to one single system for everyone.

In the US, we are also thrilled to welcome some of the other schools, colleges and universities that have recently joined the family of more than 11 million users of Google Apps for Education, including:

• Douglas County School District
• Humboldt State University
• Lakeshore Technical College
• Linn-Benton Community College
• Madison Metropolitan School District
• Santa Barbara City College
• St. Joseph School District
• SUNY Fredonia
• Township High School District
• University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Western Oregon University

Posted by Lauren Miskelly, Google Apps for Education Team

College Basketball 2011: Over 50% of the bracket has gone Google

[Cross-posted from the Google Student Blog]

March is a special time for college basketball enthusiasts as the NCAA® Championship games heat up. This season is especially exciting for us on the Apps for Education team to watch, as more than half of the teams in this year’s tournament have Gone Google – meaning they’re using Google Apps for Education on campus.

With more than 11 million students, faculty and staff who are already part of the Google Apps “squad” – providing their campus community with collaboration and communication tools – we’d like to congratulate the 37 Apps schools who are vying for the championship and wish them luck with the rest of the tournament, including:

• Alabama State University
• Belmont University
• Bucknell University
• Clemson University
• Gonzaga University
• Notre Dame
• Old Dominion University
• San Diego State University
• Temple University
• University of Akron
• University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
• University of Kentucky
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• University of Texas at San Antonio
• University of Southern California
• University of Washington
• Utah State University
• Vanderbilt University
• Villanova University

For information about how to become a 100% web campus, please visit google.com/apps/edu. While we’re sorry to say we can’t promise any success on the basketball court, you can at least make your own bracket a "slam dunk" with the Google Docs bracket template!

Posted by Steven Butschi, Google Apps for Education team (and college hoops enthusiast)

Google Apps for Education 101: Webinar Series

Interested in joining the thousands of schools and millions of students, staff and faculty currently using Google Apps for Education? We’ll be holding a webinar series in March that will help you do just that.

These webinars will cover a number of topics - from an overview of Google Apps and its services to a deep dive into the Google Apps control panel. These webinars will be run by members of the Google Apps for Education team who can share lessons learned and best practices. Feel free to register for one session or the entire series. Hope you’ll join us for Google Apps for Education 101!

Register to attend one of the upcoming webinars in the series:
March 16, 10:30AM PT/1:30PM ET: Pitching Google Apps at your school
March 22, 10:30AM PT/1:30PM ET: The A to Z of a Google Apps Deployment
March 24, 10:30AM PT/1:30PM ET: What can the Google Apps control panel do for me?
March 30, 10:30AM PT/1:30PM ET: We’re going Google: marketing and project planning

Archived recordings from past Google Apps for Education webinars can also be found in our resource center.

Posted by Ariel Hathaway, Google Apps Deployment Team

Guest Post: Google Docs for Classroom Instruction

[cross-posted from the Google Docs blog]

Guest Post: Philip Greenspun is a pioneer in developing online communities and an educator who has taught electrical engineering and computer science courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1987.Today he explains how he used Google Docs to develop and distribute curricular materials and to support in-classroom discussion of student solutions.

In 1983, I began building applications to support multi-user collaboration over the Internet. When I began using the World Wide Web in 1993 I vowed never to write a native application program again and said "every desktop computer program going forward should simply run in a Web browser." Since the main reason to prepare a document was for others to view, I predicted that everyone would be using browser-based word processors and spreadsheet programs by the year 2000. I am still waiting for my "everyone goes to work in a flying car" prediction to come true also...

In January 2011, four of us were developing an entirely new course for MIT students, an intensive lab-based SQL programming and Android development class. All of us are proficient Web developers accustomed to authoring pages in standard text editors and publishing them on our own servers, but it turned out to be easier and more effective to use Google Docs to collaboratively develop course materials. Google Docs was more effective because simultaneous updates could proceed in different areas of a document and we weren't slowed down by having to do explicit check-ins with a standard version control system (or circulate drafts with names such as "DayOneProblems-final-version-by-philg-really-really-final"). Also, the "insert a comment" feature of Google Docs proved useful, e.g., when I wasn't sure if an example program was correct and wanted to ask a collaborator to check, but without leaving crud in the main body of the document.

We created two Google Docs folders the night before class: lessons, editable by us and view-only for students; workspace, editable by everyone. Into the "lessons" folder we moved the first day's assignment. In the "workspace" folder we created a "Day 1 Workspace" document intended for students to cut and paste code into. As each student walked into the classroom, we asked him or her to email a teacher from his or her Google Account (most students already had Gmail and some experience with Google Docs) and the teacher would share both folders with the new student, immediately enabling access to all lessons.

As the course materials had never been used before, they contained some errors and many sections that lacked sufficient hints or explanations. When we noticed these deficiencies, e.g., when a student asked a question, we would edit the problem set from a teacher's laptop and all students would immediately see the change on the projector and/or on their own screens.

Google Docs enabled us to distribute solutions incrementally. The first morning we created a "Day 1 Solutions (January 2011)" document and dragged it into the lessons (view-only for students) folder. As the day progressed, when 90 percent of the students were done with a problem, we would add the solution to the end of this document (by copying from another Google Doc, of course) so that students would have it in front of them and be prepared for the discussion.

The shared Google Docs workspace documents enabled us to have students paste their work into shared documents that could be used for projection and discussion and also for members of the class to try out each other's SQL queries.

To gather feedback at the end of the course, we simply created a feedback document and put it into the workspace folder, then used the "email editors/viewers" feature (from the Share menu) to ask students to add their thoughts, including whether they liked Google Docs ("great for sharing solutions"; "very effective"; "Generally yes, I did get a little confused with all the browser tabs I had open"; "very efficient and comfortable"; "green too").

We were technical people teaching a technical course, but everything that we did with Google Docs would have been easy for a person without any programming or HTML authoring background. Google Docs was an important asset for our course and significantly enhanced the in-classroom experience.

You can read more about our experience, including our wishlist, at http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/using-google-docs-for-classroom-instruction

Posted by Philip Greenspun, founder of photo.net and co-author of Software Engineering for Internet Applications

Going Google: A Guide for Schools and Universities

We talk a lot about “going Google”, and with more schools and universities – like Ann Arbor Public Schools, Bryant University, Bucknell University, Henry Ford Community College, NYU, Oklahoma State University, and Southern Oregon University – migrating to Google Apps for Education every day, we want to help make it as easy (and fun) as possible to make the move.

Whether you are just thinking about launching Apps, or you’re toasting to your first graduating class after four years in the cloud – it’s always a good idea to educate your users about the new ways they can teach and learn with Google Apps. With that in mind, we’ve created the new Guide to Going Google which provides tools and resources that help students, faculty, staff and alumni make the most of your transition. The guide outlines six steps to successfully going Google: technical deployment, outreach, training, getting the word out, going live, and staying up to date. We designed this guide to be helpful for everyone from a 4th grade teacher in a classroom that’s just learning about Google Apps, to a university CIO that’s been using Apps for years.

Of course, if you’re still evaluating hosted collaboration tools for your school, and want to understand why so many schools have already gone Google, take a minute to hear what CIOs at Kent State, Brandeis, North Carolina State and U.C. Riverside are saying about making the move to Apps:

P.S. For those schools who have already gone Google, we'd love to hear and see your creative approaches to making the transition successful. Maybe you brought your mascot the a faculty training like they did at Brown University; or had a special group of on-the-ground trainers like the Creek Squad. Maybe you did something bold like NC State who created a graffiti wall to mark the occasion of your launch. Let us know how you’ve gone Google, so we can help other schools can get inspired, too.

Posted by Dana Nguyen and Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education team

Google Apps just got smarter: introducing the Apps Marketplace’s new EDU category

The education technology space has seen an explosion of new offerings in the past few years. What has been missing is a centralized platform for schools and universities to easily evaluate and utilize web apps. Today we are excited to launch an education category in the Google Apps Marketplace designed specifically to help schools and universities easily discover and deploy new web applications that integrate with their existing Google Apps accounts.

The new education category includes over 20 applications from 19 vendors ranging from learning management systems (LMS) to student tools and teaching aids – all of which integrate with Google Apps for Education. Each app can be accessed through single sign-on and the Google universal navigation bar and many offer deeper integrations that synchronize with Google Calendar and Documents.

This new education category will make it easier for schools to have more web apps at their fingertips, including popular existing apps such as Aviary, Grockit, and LearnBoost as well as the new apps launching today.



Learning Management
Now faculty can bring their classroom management to the cloud with apps such as:

• Haiku: an LMS that allows teachers to create media-rich class websites, give and auto-grade assessments, annotate assignments and interact online with students.
• LearnBoost: an all-in-one gradebook and lesson plan software for teachers that includes tools to visualize data and student performance.
• And other classroom management tools such as eduARC, Class.io, PlanbookEdu, ThinkWave SIS and Applane SIS, gradebooks such as Engrade and ThinkWave Gradebook, and assessment tools such as EduBrite and RCampus iRubric.

Learning Aids
Teachers can help student learn more effectively with web-based learning aids like:

• BrainPOP: an app that offers animated, curriculum-based content that enhances student learning in numerous ways, from illustrating complex concepts to reviewing before a test.
• DreamBox: a tool that helps students learn math through interactive lessons and gives teachers reporting dashboards to monitor individual student progress.
• And other teaching aids like Grockit, BuzzMath and LearnThatWord.

Student and Admin Tools
Administrators and students can tackle other education needs with even more tools:

• EasyBib: an automatic bibliography composer that helps students format sources quickly and accurately to cite in papers.
• Digication: an online e-Portfolio creation tool that helps students share and showcase their work and achievements online.
• And other student and admin tools like Aviary, Edutone Sakai Connector, Edutone Moodle Connector, Leveled Library and Rcampus e-Portfolio.

Thousands of universities, colleges and K-12 schools around the world with over 10 million users already deploy Google Apps in their classrooms. The applications we're introducing today into the new Marketplace education category are just the beginning. We look forward to expanding and strengthening our offerings as we continue to add new education tools, including web applications by Blackboard, Knewton and the Khan Academy already on the way.

To learn more about the education category of the Apps Marketplace – and hear directly from the developers of these applications – register to attend live Google webinars and Q&A on Wednesday, February 2nd.

Manage your school in the cloud with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring classroom management tools Haiku and LearnBoost
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Help students learn more effectively with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring web-based learning tools Grockit, BrainPOP, and DreamBox
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Posted by Dennis Troper, Director of Product Management, Google Apps Marketplace

Upcoming Google Apps for Education professional development webinars

In November, we kicked off a series of biweekly webinars aimed at helping educators learn ways to use Google Apps in the classroom. These sessions, taught by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, have received a great response and we've decided to hold them more frequently – you can now tune in every Tuesday at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET to hear tips and techniques for using Google Apps for Education.

Register to attend one of the upcoming webinars in the series today and on the following Tuesdays:

• Jan 25: Introduction to forms in Google Docs
• Feb 1: Advanced forms in Google Docs
• Feb 8: Embrace your inner Einstein: Using Google Apps for the Google Science Fair
• Feb 15: Managing Google Docs with your classroom
• Feb 22: Building a class site with Google Sites

Archived recordings from past Google Apps for Education webinars can also be found in our resource center.

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team

Novelty, Huh?

by Shelly Blake-Plock

A reader writes:

There was an interesting article in the New York Times regarding the use of iPads in schools. Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University is quoted: “IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.” Cuban also believes that rather than spending money on new technology it should be used to train, keep, and find the best teachers available (Hu, 2011). Would you agree with Cuban’s statement that the novelty of technology will wear out sooner or later? 

 I would somewhat agree with Prof. Cuban. If we were living in 1983.

In those heady early days of educational technology and computers-in-schools, it was all about hardware and software. Technology was a matter of spending enormous amounts of money to create a relatively weak digital facsimile of the analog/physical world.

And so kids like me who were fortunate enough to have a small computer lab in our school learned quickly that a math game that was lame on paper was just as lame on the computer. Especially when we could go home and play Atari.

As for the specific case of the iPad, it's hardly an ideal device if you are looking for a catch-all. I'm especially concerned about the closed nature of the system and the emphasis on sales at the app store and on iBooks. But it is a device that speaks to several of the important features of our time, most importantly: mobile and accessible instant Internet connectivity. And I would argue that to see the iPad as a fad is to miss the bigger picture: the iPad only exists within the context of a mobile-connected world. That mobile-connected world is not a novelty; that's a paradigm and a reality.

Furthermore, the paradigm and reality of a mobile-connected world has nothing to do with the institution of education, per se. The mobile-connected world isn't a new ed tech gimmick. It's a cross-cultural societal shift. And I'm not blind to the fact that that shift itself has got a lot of money riding on it; but our personal feelings about how culture is changed don't change the fact that culture is changed. Too often we try to raise a barrier between the classroom and the world; I think that defeats the potential of either to grow.

Now, I certainly think Larry Cuban realizes that the world has changed with the coming of the Internet, smartphones, and myriad social technologies. I think his point was that it's silly to think of the iPad as a singular tool which will change education. Instead, he wants us to focus on teacher training and retention. And I completely agree with him. Furthermore, Larry Cuban obviously realizes that there are differing values derived from differing technologies and there are also going to be many tech dollars wasted on schools that don't have teachers trained and qualified in the use of those technologies for learning purposes.

In fact, I see the whole issue of teacher preparation tied to a bigger reality of creating a new educational paradigm to meet the needs of a new societal and global paradigm. In other words, we've got to up-end the way we prepare and support teachers if we ever want to change the results in our schools.

I don't want to spend money "training" teachers how to do the things that educational institutions are currently doing. Rather, I want to develop teachers who are comfortable and savvy moving education forward into a future where the physical and the digital are augmented in a variety of ways; where schools themselves are mobile and hybridized environments merging the digital and the f2f in teaching things relevant to the lives and futures of their students' potential and authentic experience in a globalized world; and where the point of education is not simply to pass a test or get a job, but to empower individuals and community in celebrating creativity, innovation, beauty, and human capacity.

All of us want our students to succeed. And we should learn from and develop our pedagogy based  on the experiences and research of the past. But we should not do so with a blind eye to the realities of the present. Barring catastrophe, the new connections are not going away; even given a catastrophe, the seed of instant global connection has already been planted in the human psyche. It is now part of us. And it won't be long [IT WON'T BE LONG] before every student -- regardless of the neighborhood they live in or the employment status of their parents -- will be connected. We have to live up to that reality as educators. That means that we need teachers to engage in a relevant way with the digital reality -- to bring their humor and compassion and expertise to it; we need to support teachers in making this move -- above all they need time and they need to feel like they can explore and experiment without fear of being 'wrong'; and we may have to look with a keener eye at just what it is that we call 'novelty' -- because in every innovation (and every failure) there lies a deeper context.

Extra Credit: What more can you do with Apps for Education?

Update December 17, 2010: Added links to webinar video recordings.

Is your school already using Google Apps for Education? Want to move beyond the basics, and learn how to customize, integrate, and extend Google Apps on your campus?

This December, we’re kicking off a series of free “Extra Credit” webinars covering advanced topics for IT leaders in education, such as integrating Google Apps with LMSes (learning management systems), SISes (Student Information Systems), and other common learning programs, like student e-portfolios.

We’re excited to have experts from Northwestern University, Truman State University, Clemson University, SunGard Higher Education, and Appirio, Inc. sharing their experience and learnings in this first set of webinars, running December 6 - 9, at 11AM PST daily. Topics will include:

• What EDU can learn from Enterprise deployments [video]
• Google Apps as an Eportfolio solution at Clemson U. [video]
• Integrating Google Apps and Blackboard™ with Bboogle at Northwestern U. [video]
• Integrating Google Apps with SunGard Higher Education ® products at Truman State U. (includes Luminis 5 / Google Apps demo) [video]

Learn more, and reserve your spot at google.com/apps/extracredit. Registration is free.

Posted by Jason Cook, Google Apps for Education team

Google Apps for Education professional development webinars

As more and more states and school districts are going Google, we're hearing great ideas for integrating Google Apps into the classroom. To help educators make the most of Google Apps, we're starting a biweekly webinar series focused on Google Apps for Education professional development.

Webinars will be led by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers and held biweekly on Tuesdays, 4:30PM PT.

We kicked off the series on November 9 with an overview of Google Sites. The next webinar in the series will be tomorrow, November 23, at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET on the topic of Student Newspapers and Google Apps - register today.

Future webinars in this series include:
Dec 7 - Taking the core features of Google Apps to the next level
Dec 21 - The Collaborative STEM classroom
Jan 4 - Becoming a Gmail Ninja

Recordings from past Google Apps webinars can also be found in our resource center.

To get a glimpse of how a teacher might use Google Apps in the classroom today, you can also view our new K-12 demo:



Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education Team