The Tablet PC Education Blog

Online Science Awareness Tool

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:27:00 +0000

Faculty of 1000 Biology is the next generation online literature awareness tool that highlights and reviews the most interesting papers published in the biological sciences, based on recommendations of over 2300 selected leading researchers.

It is run by scientists for scientists and provides a rapidly updated consensus map of the important papers and trends across biology.

A must-monitor reference for PreK12 teachers seeking to help students learn with and without Tablet and other mobile PCs current scientific information.

Wouldn't it be great to have an application that would automatically reference these sources while students use their Tablets to complete a lesson that includes any biology content?

What is Faculty of 1000 Biology?

Check out the free 3 week trial offer for individuals, if you can't convince your district to subscribe.

Rational, Scientifically-based Societies

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:07:00 +0000

“scientists all around the world must now band together to help create more rational, scientifically-based societies that find dogmatism intolerable.”

Bruce Alberts, Department of Chemistry and Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco Mission Bay; Editor, Science; co-chair, InterAcademy Council (consisting of presidents of 15 national academies of science that advise world leaders; former president, National academy of Sciences; instrumental in developing the National Science Education standards that emphasizes hands-on problem solving, and evidence for claims.

Quote source, May 2, 2005, NAS Annual Meeting Speech excerpts

Thank You for Encouraging Loren

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:45:00 +0000

Thank you for encouraging Loren during his health challenges, including the recent removal of a tumor from his brain. He and our family appreciate your wonderful posts and comments on Twitter, FaceBook, etc. They helped comfort us. We look forward to seeing each of you again. Here're links to related posts, if you haven't followed his progress on Twitter, FaceBook, etc.:

Loren's Incremental Blogger

Lora's WhatIsNew

Layne's Technology Questions

Scalable Sound Sensing for People-Centric Mobile Phone Apps

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:38:00 +0000

Using the microphone on a cell phone,SoundSense software picks up sounds and automatically classifies sounds as "voice," "music," or "ambient noise."

The architecture and algorithms are designed for scalability. SoundSense uses a combination of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to classify both general sound types (e.g., music, voice) and discover novel sound events specific to individual users.

If a sound is repeated often enough or for long enough, SoundSense gives it a high "sound rank" and asks the user to confirm that it is significant and offers the option to label the sound.

SoundSense

Hong Lu, et al. SoundSense: Scalable Sound Sensing for People-Centric Applications on Mobile Phones, captured June 278, 2009.

Computers Make Great Students

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:53:00 +0000

"A computer, for instance, can remember everything and work at blinding speed, so it gains a huge advantage by not having to wait for the teacher. And when data appear "in the wild"--or generated for free on the Web--it can be just the thing for the computer as student."

Peter Norvig, Computers Make Great Students: The great leap forward in unsupervised learning. 06.22.09, 06:00 PM EDT

Education's Dirty Little Secret (DI)

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Direct Instruction (DI) is the dirty little secret of the educational establishment.

This method ... is the opposite of the favored methods of today's high-paid education gurus, and contradicts the popular theories that are taught to new teachers in our universities.

Direct Instruction ... (has been demonstrated) in the largest educational study ever ... and continues to bring remarkable success at low cost when it is implemented.

One large (5 year comparative) study that parents really should know about is Project Follow Through, completed in the 1970s.

This was the largest educational study ever done, costing over $600 million, and covering 79,000 children in 180 communities.

This project examined a variety of programs and educational philosophies to learn how to improve education of disadvantaged children in grades K-3. ... Desired positive outcomes included basic skills, cognitive skills ("higher order thinking") and affective gains (self-esteem).

The program that gave the best results in general was true Direct Instruction, a subset of Basic Skills.

The other program types, which closely resemble today's educational strategies (having labels like "holistic," "student-centered learning," "learning-to-learn," "active learning," "cooperative education," and "whole language") were inferior.

What the Data Really Show: Direct Instruction Really Works!

People Don't Gain Insights about Ourselves from Videos of Us

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:05:00 +0000

People do not read insights into ourselves from watching a video of our own body language. Outside observers watching the same video make revealing insights into our personality.

In other words, "self-perceivers do not appear to pay as much attention to and make as much use of available behavioural information as neutral observers," the
researchers said.

Hofmann, W., Gschwendner, T., & Schmitt, M. (2009). The road to the unconscious self not taken: Discrepancies between self- and observer-inferences about implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues. European Journal of Personality, 23 (4), 343-366.

Bigger is Faster in Lexical - Visual Word Recognition

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:48:00 +0000

People are faster at processing words referring to big things than we are at processing words that denote small things, reported Sara Sereno and colleagues.

This study considers "semantic size," lexical access in visual word recognition - namely, the real-world size of an object to which a word refers. It's a relatively unexplored topic.

Sereno, S., O'Donnell, P., & Sereno, M. (2009). Size matters: Bigger is faster. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62 (6), 1115-1122

Personal Force and Intention in Moral Judgment

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:33:00 +0000

Using one's own bodily strength made killing someone less morally acceptable , according to 600 students, than dropping the person through a trap door in front of a train in order to save five others, J. Green and team reported.

"Put simply, something special happens when intention and personal force co-occur," the researchers said.

I wonder how to relate such moral relativism to students considering use of cell phones, etc. as acceptable, not cheating, ways to complete course papers and examinations. Are these positions consequences of school communitarianism curricula?

Greene, J., Cushman, F., Stewart, L., Lowenberg, K., Nystrom, L., & Cohen, J. (2009). Pushing moral buttons: The interaction between personal force and
intention in moral judgment. Cognition, 111 (3), 364-371.

MIT Replaces Large Letures

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:18:00 +0000

The physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolkogy has replaced large introductory lectures with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent.

Also, students taking the two introductory courses in classical mechanics and electromagnetism meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers.

At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard

Teachers Provide Technical Support in School Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:12:00 +0000

If teachers use some of the same procedures that technical support services provide callers, would teachers help students increase learning rates more? I asked this question in 2006.

I think now the answer is a qualified, "Yes." Writing about NESI and a learning efficiency analysis paradigm have helped to continue supporting that answer.

Writing and reading educator and our advocates blogs also helped me to formulate the question, again respectfully, if teachers talk too much during lessons, and thereby limit student learning efficiency? That could be an interesting master's thesis topic or empirical study, as Roger conducted in the middle 1960s.

If teachers use some of the same procedures, would that help students increase learning rates more?

Teachers Provide Technical Support in School

Do Teachers Talk Too Much?

“Rationed Learning: …'Yes, but … ' ” Report Revisited

Read Tablet PC Reviews before Deciding "Which One"

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Be sure to check out Tablet PC Reviews for authoritative comments about variations among Tablet PCs. A useful stop for those assembling a short list of hardware to submit for approved purchases. Yes, they've been around for awhile and have a reputation for reasoned reviews.

Tablet PC Review

Bentley University SOTA Tech Connects Tablet PCs

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:31:00 +0000

This spring, Campus Prowler rated Bentley College one of the best computer networked campuses.

The state-of-the-art technology (SOTA) is visible no matter where you are on campus, ... at least one computer in each classroom, ... there are power and network ports for each individual student’s laptop in about half of the classrooms on campus. In the front of each classroom, there is a computer that is hooked up to a projector which allows for both professors and students to showcase educational material, pull up a Web site, or run a PowerPoint demonstration on a large screen in front of the class.

College Prowler - Bentley University

Bentley has collaborated with HP to allow students to work with their new Tablet PC to conduct research on Tablet PC use and acceptance.

ITEXPO West

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:27:00 +0000

ITEXPO registration still open. Learn how to select IP-based voice, video, fax, and unified communications to purchase or resell. Buyers, sellers, resellers, and manufacturers meet to forge relationships and close deals.

What: The World's Communications Conference!

When: September 1-3, 2009

Where: Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

Check out details

Register

Speed School Recommends the HP EliteBook 2730p Tablet PC

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:25:00 +0000

For Fall 2009, Speed School, University of Louisville, is recommending purchase of the Tablet PC through iTech Xpress. By 2011, all Speed School students should have Tablet PCs.

The recommended tablet for Fall 2009 is the HP EliteBook 2730p.

It fulfills all hardware specifications set by Speed School.

The tablet is available at a discount for Speed School students and warranty repair service is available directly from iTech Xpress. For tablets under repair, a loaner tablet will be provided for tablets purchased via iTech Xpress.

I use an HP 2730! It's traveled thousands of miles and produced I don't know how many hours of work without a hitch (except for my mistakes).

(Yes, I know I posted about Speed earlier.) Some redundancies count!

JB Speed School of Engineering

Tablet PC the Ultimate Tool for Mathematics

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:44:00 +0000

Fred Feldon of Coastline College offers a set of slides introducing why he thinks Tablet PCs are the ultimate tool for mathematics learning and teaching.

It's a great introduction to uses of Tablets for learners, teachers, administrators, board of education members, and taxpayers.

It'll save hours of research while preparing that proposal to use a Tablet in your classroom, to justify it's value for teaching to a concerned parent, as well as to warm up board of education members to spending resources on Tablets during hard financial times.

Thanks, Fred, for an useful, understandable presentation!

Download slides free

Free Digital Textbook Initiative Complete Submission List

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:59:00 +0000

The California Learning Resources Network announced that it has received 20 free digital textbook submissions for California’s Free Digital Textbook Initiative.

They received submissions for all eight eligible subjects.

Eight entries come from the CK-12 Foundation, which creates open source Flexbooks for K-12 education; six entries are from college professors, five of whom have doctorates in their subject areas; and Pearson Education has submitted four textbooks.

The 20 entries include three Biology/Life Sciences and four Calculus textbooks.

CLRN’s science reviews will be conducted over the next few weeks by the Humboldt County Office of Education.

The Kings County Office of Education will review mathematics submissions.

I hope these reviews include content validity, learning efficiency criteria, and identifying which electronic communication formats these digital texts match.

Will these digitized images fit on the screen of a Tablet and other mobile PC? Work with Microsoft XP operating system, Vista, Windows 7? With an iPhone, a Palm?

Can a student with a disability use them?

CLRN will share more about the review process.

Review results are scheduled to be released on August 10th.

California Learning Resources Network

List of submitted digital textbooks for review

Mercersburg Summer Reading 2009

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:16:00 +0000

Eugenio Sancho, Academic Dean, announced the 2009 Summer Reading list for Mercersburg Academy.

Check it out: It includes writings about common threads that define the human condition. Each provides insights into scientific developments, political conflict, and exploration in the depths of the Amazon in Brazil.

All students in the Fall, 2009, will have read at least one of the five summer reading selections. Upon arriving on campus, students will declare their reading selection with the history and English departments and we will also share our reactions to these books in school-wide seminars.

The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself by Hannah Holmes

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd

Midnight on the Line by Tim Gaynor

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

On campus, each student will write an essay that addresses how their summer reading book book challenges or reinforces some belief or value that you consider important. Describe that belief or value and explain—in detail and with supporting examples from the text—just how the book challenges or reinforces it.

Essays will compete school wide for cash awards and a letter of commendation.

The school faculty subscribe to the idea that reading—and reading widely—defines the core of an educated person.

The best preparation for active and engaged learning is reading. There is little question that the habitual reader is more inquisitive, more sensitive to language, and more responsive to subtle distinctions than is the person who reads little or not at all.

Please let me know if you've found any of these online to download to my Tablet.

Source

“Rationed Learning: …'Yes, but … ' ” Report Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Dr. Bonnie Doowrite, Dr. I. T. Benn-Dunn, Ms. Donna Pahl (Wilkinson), and Dr. W. E. Doynit review the report Rationed Learning: A Conspiracy of ‘Yes, but … ' Doynit cited this report in the proposal to open the New Era School Initiative (NESI) charter school.

Tablet PC Education Blog interviewed Doowrite on April 05, 2009; reported Pahl’s Decisive Teachers’ 2010-2011 AY Prep Checklist on May 19, 2009, and has reported to date an interview and a series of eight conversations with Doynit about NESI charter school.

Pahl’s classroom instruction for Normsville, Illinois, public schools inspired the term Decisive Teacher. Doynit is Superintendent of Normsville Unified School District in California. Benn-Dunn served as a consultant to the research project and NESI developers. All four hold affiliations with Childrens’ Research Center for Mobile Learning in Landgrant University.

Tablet PC Education: Welcome again to this blog. It’s an honor to have you join our readers again. It’s important to say that we have known each other for some time.

That said, Bonnie, the title of your research report Rationed Learning: A Conspiracy of 'Yes, but … ' seems unconventional for scholarly research. It asserts at least the appearance of what some call malpractice of public school educators. It looks like your title has poured gasoline on what a few call a war against public schools.

Is that what you believe? Do you accuse educators of malpractice?

Have public school teachers and others conspired against students and the general public to offer less than the best education possible? Do teachers and others in schools really ration learning?

Doowrite: We mean the title as descriptive of study results, not as flame throwing against anyone.

No, I don’t believe that anyone has necessarily committed educational malpractice, because of measured student academic results.

Our report appears consistent with what others have reported at least since the middle 1960s. We have tried to contribute a critical test of the validity of that body of research literature.

And, yes, we have documented the empirical fact that most current public school practices result in less measured academic performance than what is possible by implementing scientific descriptions of how people learn.

Behavioral scientists have established these principles over a century of empirical, experimental behavioral studies and uses of these studies’ results.

Tablet PC Education: Why do you say that current school practices ration learning? What is the most important thing for us to know, Bonnie, about differences between conventional teaching and Decisive Teaching? What inspired you to conduct the study that resulted in your report with that provocative title, and what did you learn as a result of this study?

Doowrite: Teachers told us that they use instructional practices that they know yield less academic performance (on average) than other procedures. This awareness serves the same function in schools as public sugar and gasoline rationing boards served to limit consumption of those commodities during World War II.

Tablet PC Education: You consider learning a commodity, something to be bought and sold in schools?

Doowrite: Yes, learning is something we can monitor and manage. Teachers and other educators know how to increase and decrease it through instruction and other arrangements.

No necessary mysteries exist about how to do so promptly with whatever materials they have available.

Tablet PC Education: I wonder how many teachers agree that they can increase academic performance? Now, back to what inspired you to conduct this study.

Doowrite: I, too, wondered, but I changed the question a little: How many teachers know how to increase academic performance more than occurs in their classrooms. Several things, including that question, helped to formulate the study of why students do not learn more in schools.

First, when observing someone instruct, I compare what I see and hear against empirical, experimental research literature about how people learn. Anyone familiar with these studies can do the same thing. We see and hear learning happening.

Tablet PC Education: You can see and hear learning happening? How so? Give us an example. I thought learning occurs as cognition, something unseen happening in the brain.

Doowrite: We watch and listen to certain patterns of behavior. Our observations are to learning what a NASCAR engineer does to decide how to give a racecar more power and better handling.

Behavioral researchers have documented some of what to see and hear people do when learning. Behavioral scientists refer to these things as visual and auditory dimensions of behavior patterns.

Their descriptions exist as probabilities, not absolutes of how learners make choices of what to do. For example, learners likely respond to color before size, something larger before something smaller, both before position or location of something they see or feel on their skin, etc..

Tablet PC Education: So, a teacher who uses a colored Ink on a whiteboard will likely get a different response from students than just writing everything in black ink?

Doowrite: Yes, that’s the idea. A hierarchy of responses to colors exist, as likely do hierarchies of permutations of choice rankings across visual and auditory dimensions.

At the Childrens’ Research Center for Mobile Learning, we’re especially interested in identifying hierarchies of these permutations as well as identifying what parts of something moving contributes to observable learning patterns.

Tablet PC Education: Go on. You were saying that you compare what you see and hear with what you know about ways people learn.

Doowrite: Yes. Second, when I toured a school, by chance I saw Bonnie instructing a lesson. It took less than a minute to realize that she was doing what learning researchers have found that learners do.

Tablet PC Education: You mean, her teaching was that transparent? You didn’t need to talk with her to understand what she was doing?

Doowrite: It was transparent. I was just walking down the school hallway past her open classroom door. I could hear her and students’ voices. Their behavior patterns went right through the intellectual filters I use as I watch educators work. These filters block out words and other patterns that do not match research results that describe how people learn. These filters do for observing learning what a water filter does to block contaminants in the water.

Tablet PC Education: Give me an example of what you saw and how it matched learning research results.

Pahl: I want to answer. The first question students have is, What do I have to do? Their second question is, How do I do it?

At least, when I address these questions, students respond promptly to my instruction. In some form, spoken or inferred, learners seem to me and many other teachers to have these questions.

So, in the first 30 seconds or so of each lesson, I tell students what they have to do, how to do it, and how much time, etc. they have to complete the learning task. I also write it on my Tablet PC and project that onto a whiteboard for everyone to see. I try to leave nothing at risk for them to fail doing it.

Tablet PC Education: (Turning to Doowrite) You said that you’re familiar with research about how people learn, and that you observed Bonnie using these descriptions while instructing and students following her instruction. What’s the third thing that inspired this study titled?

Doowrite: Actually, Rationed Learning is the title of the report. The title of the study was Teacher Choices of Instruction. The report title reflects study results, not the project’s name or primary purpose.

We did not expect teachers to document that they know how to increase learning with resources they have, but choose not to do so for various reasons. We understand that such talk is an unspoken third-rail for teachers. Brutal battles that have stiffled careers exist in the education field. We appreciate the courage of those who confided their judgments about instructional styles with us.

The third thing that inspired the study was familiarity with a wide range of instructional styles, procedures and their consequences for student learning.

In general, the study describes how learning rates vary at the margin with almost all instructional styles, except for Direct Instruction, Direct Learning, Directed Learning, and what we now call Decisive Teaching.

Tablet PC Education: What are these instructional styles? Did you just make them up or are they part of accepted pedagogy?

Benn-Dunn: These four styles share two common tactics. Teachers tell learners what to do to meet learning criteria. Second, they all accept that only one correct answer exists for a problem.

A correct answer fits a defined and identified set of conditions, not necessarily, but sometimes yields a conventional result.

All other responses, even close approximations, are incorrect. And, yes, these tactics offend some teachers, including some considered good teachers.

The direct and directed styles each have different sets of priorities for what happens during instruction.

Since the middle 1960s, data have shown that students in classes with Direct Instruction learn more and faster than any of the others. Less data exists for each of the other three instructional styles as well as for conventional instructional practices teachers use.

Doowrite: We plan to increase data about all four instructional styles used with Tablet and other mobile PCs.

Doynit: At NESI charter school, teachers using any of these four styles start planning and instructing by immediately answering learners’ two questions: What do I have to do? And, How do I do it?

Doowrite: About halfway through analyzing our research data about instructional style choices, I realized that we needed to analyze more carefully reasons teachers gave for choosing their style of instruction. So, we interviewed a random subsample of teachers in and out of the first research cohort.

We asked them if they knew about the four most successful styles before they made their instructional choices. If so, then why did they choose another style?

Most teachers knew about Direct Instruction. Most knew the idea, but not necessarily the name Direct Learning. Most with more than two years of classroom teaching experience could describe some kind of Directed Learning. Most also had heard of databased teaching that we call Decisive Teaching, but did not think it practical for them to use at this time.

By the end of the study, we concluded that teachers knowingly made choices other than using one of the most successful instructional styles.

Tablet PC Education: Give me an example. It’s hard for me to accept that teachers will choose a way to teach that they know will not yield as much learning as another way.

Doowrite: Here’s a sample of the reasoning we heard and read repeatedly before, during and after our research. These come from good people, many with recognition, reading and professional development beyond their graduate degrees. Each makes a reasonable, but not a sufficient point to restrict learning. Also, on average, students in respondents classes learned less than in classes where teachers use one of the four more efficient instructional styles.

“Tests and grades cannot assess the impact my teaching has on my students.”

“Teaching’s a professional art, not an engineering exercise. Our art requires experience, not formulae. No one can write a formula that captures the art of teaching.”

“I’m a professional teacher. I make judgments about what to emphasize and how to instruct to that emphasis. That’s what I’m trained to do. I resent people giving me advice or a script and telling me to follow it to meet some instructional goal they have. That’s just not right. They should give to me and other teachers the money they spend on No Child Left Behind and other such school mandates, so we can do the job we know how to do with our students.”

“I’m a good teacher. I leave it to others to explain what I do. I know its good.”

“I’ll never agree with anyone who does not consider my teaching good. I try my best. Teaching’s hard work.”

“I don’t believe research conducted anywhere other than with my students. It’s all just numbers to support someone’s opinion. Researchers can’t possibly understand what transpires in my classroom, so they can say nothing to assist me to meet my goals for my students.”

“Efficiency and effectiveness are business ideas and have no place in education. I work with people, not widgets on an assembly line. I don’t shove my students to learn only certain things in a certain way by a certain time.”

“There’s more to life than getting something done efficiently. I ignore what outside experts say about their ideas for increasing learning. Those not teaching in public schools today can’t know and don’t understand what my students need from me in my school.”

“I have different priorities for my students besides tested academic achievement. I want them to know that learning is fun and for them to learn to be good people, satisfied with themselves, not threatened by state tests and comparisons with accomplishments of others.”

“If students don’t know how to learn or don’t learn in my classes, it’s because they did not have good teachers before they came to me.”

“I can’t possibly cover what I think important in class and also prepare my students for taking mandated state tests. They should get rid of those time consuming tests. They’re just not fair to my students, who have so many more important needs than mandated academics, such as food, protection from neighborhood predators, and peaceful homes.”

Doowrite: We also asked a sample of students from the teacher cohort, if they think they learned as much as possible in classes.

Students said, “No" in various ways. They could and wanted to learn more, but didn’t think their teachers could help them do so.

In general, sampled students earned standardized test scores consistent with mean and range scores of students of the teacher cohort, but were lower than standardized means and ranges on the same tests.

We will include student views of learning in a supplement to Rationed Learning. Perhaps we can discuss student views at another time.

Tablet PC Education: Yes, let’s discuss them later.

So, you concluded that teachers limit, or as you said, ration learning.

Doowrite: Yes, reluctantly that’s our conclusion.

And, our center’s research advisory board members reviewed our data and individually, independently concluded that teachers knowingly choose procedures other than identified instructional styles based on objective, databased descriptions of how people learn and that yield the most academic achievement.

Tablet PC Education: Who serves on this advisory board?

Benn-Dunn: The Center’s advisory board includes a practicing public school teacher, a public school superintendent, university based behavioral and social scientists, and a professor of social welfare who served as a White House administrator also as the elected president of a national professional organization.

All have public sector policy implementation experience. Each has earned third party recognition for exceptional professional performance.

Tablet PC Education: What do you think will happen with your reports? How will they result in increased student learning?

Pahl: Nothing in this report is new to teachers, except seeing our instructional choices presented publically between two covers.

Based on our research data and my experience with teachers, many public school teachers will hear school lunch room gossip and read secondary and tertiary blog excerpts and comments of the report.

A relatively few teachers will read the report and will try teaching styles that lead to more efficient learning. As a result, some unknown small percentage of students will increase measured academic performance.

Mostly, some education faculty members on university campuses will include the report on supplementary reading lists for classes such as foundations of education. Not many of their students will read beyond the titles on that list.

Tablet PC Education: So, none of you see this study having much impact on teacher instructional style choices and student learning rates?

Benn-Dunn: I think the most potential for changing teaching styles sooner than later will come through parents, not through educators.

Parents can use these data to ask state and local school board members and school administrators why teachers of their children do not use instructional styles consistent with their children’s most efficient learning.

Or, stated another way, and this will not likely happen, ask teachers and administrators individually and publically to account for their instructional methods with objective data that compares results against what’s possible for students to learn.

And, yes, some teachers routinely have such information and gladly share it with parents.

Parents also can leverage their inquiries by sending copies of their letters to their Federal and state legislative representatives.

However, realistically, these inquiries will have little impact against the political influence of teacher unions on legislative and policy implementing bodies.

Doynit: I’d like to add that I have asked our board of education members to read and discuss Rationed Learning publically. I’m trying to get the Normsville newspaper to report that discussion.

We also require all candidates for our New Era School Initiative (NESI) charter school to have read the report and to expect to discuss it during job interviews. That expectation goes for all teachers and support staff.

Doowrite: And I ask students in my classes and prospective faculty and research members to compare and contrast their current practices with those described in the report.

Tablet PC Education: I want to thank all of you for taking part in this blog. You have given readers a lot to think about. I look forward to continuing our conversation in the near future. Perhaps comments from blog readers will prompt subjects for our next Qs and As.

References

Accelerated K12 Mobile Learning: Press Release

Decisive Teachers’ 2010-2011 AY Prep Checklist

New Era School Initiative (NESI) (See Keyword list in the right hand column.)

Rationed Learning Interview

That's Nonsense to Defend Status Quo of Schools

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:53:00 +0000

"It's nonsensical - and expensive - to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form.

"... there are those who ardently defend the status quo, claiming our vision of providing (digital online) learning materials to students for free would risk a high-quality education.

"That's nonsense. As the music and newspaper industries will attest, those who adapt quickly to changing consumer and business demands will thrive in our increasingly digital society and worldwide economy. Digital textbooks can help us achieve those goals and ensure that California's students continue to thrive in the global marketplace."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Digital Textbooks Can Save Money, Improve Learning, The Blog, (California) Office of the Governor, June 7, 2009, captured June 14, 2009.

California Calls for Digital Math Science Textbooks

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:32:00 +0000

All high school math and science digital content developers can submit your material to the California Learning Resources Network by June 15 in order to be reviewed in time for use starting in Fall, 2009.

Submissions are considered for inclusion in the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) web-accessible database.

Publishers/producers will be allowed to submit resources for review on a continual basis throughout the year.

CLRN will review resources for alignment with the California State Board of Education approved CLRN criteria.

The CLRN criteria covers supplemental electronic learning resources in grades K-12, and in the curriculum areas of English-Language Arts, English-Language Development, History-Social Science, Mathematics, Physical Education and Science.

The CLRN criteria also covers supplemental electronic learning resources in grades 4-12 for Visual and Performing Arts. Electronic learning resources include software, video, and Internet resources.

Here's your opening, future planning Tablet and other mobile PC software content developers. This is a huge market. Let us know of your progress.

Leading the Nation Into a Digital Textbook Future

Invitation to Submit

Submit to California Learning Resources Network

Business Case for Digital Texts in K12 Schools

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:05:00 +0000

"Education is the pipeline to well-paying jobs and to California competitive,
global economy, growth.

"... And so for California to be a global competitive leader we must invest in these types (digital textbooks) of relevant digital technologies and show the immediate return on investment. And that’s what you get with this particular type of tool; you get immediate return on investment. In fact, the investment that we specifically see when this is global, when you have in K-12, when you have in all subjects, it could be as much as a $300 million return of investment.

"So the Governor’s free digital textbook initiative is an important first step for schools. Through the Governor’s Digital Textbook Initiative everyone can gain access online anytime, 24/7. Colleges and businesses are already doing this; they have been doing this for some time. ... So this commitment affords all students, regardless of the ages, to be better prepared for college while gaining industry-relevant skills.

"This is how I see this particular initiative when you’re breaking it down into just some key words here:

... it's greener ...

... it's healthier ...

... it's more efficient and effective ...

... eliminates the need for duplicate textbooks ...

... (it's) convenient ... "

Ken Philips, Valley Economic Alliance, San Fernando Valley, California

Digital Textbooks Only One Learning Tool

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:56:00 +0000

"Well, there’s no question about it; kids today get their information electronically. As the Governor was walking in, every student out there had a cell phone out, and they were taking pictures, they were taking videos. Those devices are part of what life is like for a student in today’s world. A textbook right now is simply one part, its one element in a vast array of technologies and media sources that kids can use for anytime, anywhere learning.

Digital alternatives to traditional textbooks can enable more depth, more richness, more variety and more relevance for students. It can bring all kinds of things into the classroom that not every school has the access to be able to get. So this is something that’s very exciting; it’s wide open. Digital alternatives can bring instant feedback, it can bring assessment options, it can bring individualization of instruction.

And it can also bring all kinds of tools to the teachers. It can bring professional development opportunities and collaboration resources like they’ve never had before. So our professional educators can be given a whole new set of tools to work with.

When Pluto loses its status as one of our planets, this is not about going back and rethinking the textbooks, doing a new adoption, having billions of dollars wasted and resources used in order to create new textbooks. This is about making one change electronically and having that instantly available in all of our classrooms everywhere."

Dave Moorman, President, Board of Education, Las Virgenes Unified School District, California, June 8, 2009.

Teachers as Technology Immigants to use (Digital) Flex Texts Fall, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:35:00 +0000

"Governor (Schwarzenegger), everyone here, the adults up here, we are the technology immigrants.

"... And until we, as teachers, cross the line (and use electronic technologies in classes) and understand that this is how (students are) going to live their lives, we will be failing. Until we understand that’s how we need to teach and reach them, we will be failing them.

"... And we may be faced with bigger class sizes. And we can sit here and pound and woe about it, but our job and our commitment to the youngsters of next year is how do we deliver the same quality of education to them as everyone else had had in our system, regardless of what our resources are.

"... Our board of education gave me a simple challenge just last year. They say, how do you keep a vision in the face of adversity? And (using digital 'Flex Texts')is one of the ways. We don’t take our eye off of the ball. The ball is how we deliver world-class education to every one of our students. And one of the fundamental elements of doing that is having digital resources necessary to allow teachers to be able to compete and make sure these kids have every, every advantage they have in their learning and their instruction.

" ... even if we don’t realize immediate savings as we make this trend, it’s a matter of if you have a teacher having access.

" ... We actually have one of the systems ... a Classroom Media Presentation System. So with one computer, with one computer and one projector, a teacher in this classroom can reach 170 children a day. They can print out the necessary material, the kids can take notes of the necessary material, they can see it visually. That’s how you can close that gap.

"And I’m sorry, I’m hard-pressed to believe that any school leader is going to be able to challenge and say well, we can’t do that. We’ve got that. This isn’t a one-to-one initiative. We’ve not talking about trying to find resources to get every single child a laptop computer. That would be a great goal, another goal we may have in this district in the short term. But for what we’re talking here, we’re talking about getting content in a far more meaningful manner, a far more current manner and a far more exciting manner.

Dr. Donald Zimring, Superintendent, Las Virgenes Unified School District, California, June 8, 2009.

Schwarzenegger Speaks about Digital Textbooks for Fall, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (The Tablet PC In Education Blog) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:12:00 +0000

The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of the state of California, said, "So basically kids are feeling so comfortable today, as a matter of fact, as comfortable with their cell phones and with their keyboards as I did when I was your age, when I was a kid, with my pencils and crayons. ...

"So this is why I think it is so important that we move on from the textbooks. The textbooks are outdated, as far as I’m concerned and there’s no reason why our schools should have our students lug around these antiquated and heavy and expensive textbooks. California is the home of Silicon Valley. We are the world leader in technology and innovation, so we can do better than that.

"That’s why I’m so excited about California’s Digital Textbook Initiative. Starting this fall with high school math and science, we will be the first state in the nation—the first state in the nation to provide schools with a state-approved list of digital textbooks. Think about this.

" ... if we have a choice between textbooks or having more teachers in the school, I pick more teachers in the school and provide the textbooks digitally through this means, which is more exciting. So that’s what the bottom line is, to cut to the chase.

" ... Well, I think that each district has that choice to make. And I think that you can directly hear from our education leaders, they can tell you how they make those decisions.

" ... But I would say that, because of the amount of money it frees up—you know, when you talk about in the whole state of California, $300 million to $400 million—and that’s just if you do the math and science books. Now if you add all the other books, you can have an additional gain of a few hundred million dollars and that is important money that we can use for hiring teachers and keeping teachers in place so that we can reduce class size and get more effective learning done.

" ... You guys (students) just have one responsibility and that is to study hard and to think about your education and your future. And also simultaneously think about what can you do with your knowledge and with your gifts to help those that are less fortunate. We always think about the double track. What can you do for yourself and what can you do for others that maybe are not as bright as you are or not as privileged as you are, not as talented, whatever. So that’s the only responsibility I think at this point that you have.

" ... To me it’s amazing, when you think about it, that for so many years and decades we are trying to teach the kids exactly the same way. I mean, we’ve got to update this, because I have four kids and anyone that has kids knows that they love being on the computer and they love getting their information there.

"I had my son look at geography and learn geography and all of a sudden he showed me that on that video there was like you take a trip on the Thames River in England, right up the river. And he was excited about seeing that and therefore he could study where that river is and how long is it and how many cities it goes through and all of this information. He was fascinated because he saw it right there, rather than opening up this thick textbook and trying to retrieve this information from the textbook.

"So I think it’s a no-brainer, this one. I think that a lot of school districts will follow this school district here. But this school district, you should know, is really a leader in this thing and a leader in trying always to figure out what makes students stay here, what makes them excited studying and doing physical education and doing their homework and wanting to go on and educate themselves after they get out of here and graduate from this school. So that is really terrific."

Governor Holds Press Conference with Education Officials Regarding Digital Textbooks Initiative - Video and Text June 8, 2009 Speech, Calabasas High School, Las Virgenes Unified School District, California.