Nelson Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." From Coursera offering first-rate college courses free of charge, to OpenStudy bringing together study buddies across the world, to Irynsoft bringing school to the palm of your hand, here are some innovative companies seeking to change the world by equalizing educational access.
Microsoft today is extending free access to Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus to all students at higher education institutions where staff and faculty are subscribed to ProPlus or Professional Plus. This “Student Advantage” promotion is already available at 35,000 eligible schools and is already in use at some schools. The program is commencing just a month […]
When future historians look back at video games, what will they think? That’s exactly the question prestigious universities and museums across the country have begun to ask. The answer is surprisingly simple: they’ll think whatever the evidence at their disposal leads them to think.
The artificial intelligence of machines is now being used to build real intelligence in human students, especially when it comes to developing writing skills. Three innovative software programs designed to support classroom writing instruction have been selected for nationwide classroom trials this fall. These programs give students instant feedback on their essays, helping them learn to write more effective prose.
I’ve recently met with the creators of PingPong, an app that is aimed at providing a higher level of interaction between teachers and students. It works by simply letting teachers create questions either on the spot (during class), or as a series or prepared questions (exam-style) that students will have to answer, possibly in a limited time.
The beauty of the app really resides in its simplicity and the fact that it is free. The user interface may appear a little Spartan, but that’s exactly why it works so well: it is extremely easy to build questions, and answering them is even easier. This means that it could work with very young children, although I don’t see why it couldn’t be used for adults. I don’t disagree that another design may work too, but the point is that function comes first here. (more…)
PingPong: Simple, Interactive, Free Q&A App For Teachers original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Google is looking to make the task for schools looking to cash in on Google Play for Education a bit easier with a bit of mobile software. The Google Edu Device Setup app (for Android, natch) allows administrators with a proper account to activate tablets purchased through school-themed store in bulk. Once the app is downloaded from the regular Play Store and the slates are activated, age appropriate settings — like disabling location sharing — can be configured and when complete, only the Education Store can be accessed. As you might expect, this tool only works with Nexus tablets procured through the proper scholastic portion of Google’s online shop.
Filed under: Tablets, Software, Google
Via: SlashGear
Source: Google Play
Google Play for Education — the program that leverages certain tablets and educational apps for K-12 classrooms — now has a setup app that should make it relatively easy to initiate the program. School administrators who want to enable their bulk-purchased tablets to receive content from the Education Store can configure the tablets using the […]
The advent of cheap cameras and free online streaming services means teachers can stream or even pre-record their lessons so students can watch them at their own pace and even in advance. But using conventional blackboards or whiteboards means the teacher is often facing away from the camera. That’s why Prof. Michael Peshkin of Northwestern University made the Lightboard.
The Lightboard is a 4 x 8 ft. pane of architectural glass lit by 8 ft. strips of white LEDs at the top and bottom of the frame. The transparent board lets Prof. Peshkin write and look at the camera at the same time. He uses fluorescent markers and a black background to make his notes and sketches more vivid. He also uses the board to superimpose images from a projector.
When he’s recording his lessons, Prof. Peshkin shoots himself and the board through a mirror to correct the orientation of his notes and sketches.
If you want to make your own Lightboard, check out Prof. Peshkin’s guide here.
[via Laughing Squid]
For the time being, manned space travel is out of the question. If we’re to truly explore the universe, unmanned probes are currently our best bet. Unfortunately, unmanned space exploration comes with its own array of challenges, the greatest of which is…well, robots aren’t all that smart yet.
Dan Shapiro’s Robot Turtles board game Kickstarter showed there is serious appetite for kids’ games that aren’t just fun to play with but also sneakily teach core coding principles. Instead of the $25,000 he was aiming for, Shapiro raised more than $630,000. Geeky moms and dads clearly have money, and will spend it on the right bit of educational kit.
With that kind of Kickstarter community response, it’s pretty likely we’re set to see a wave of educational toys doing cool fun stuff with programming principles. To wit, meet Primo: a physical programming interface that teaches children programming logic while they control the movements of an Arduino-powered robot.
All of Primo’s electronics are concealed inside wooden boxes, so from the child’s point of view they’re playing with blocks, a board and a cute little robot. But as they snap the coloured pieces (instruction blocks) into the board (the physical programming interface) they are building up a set of instructions that the wheeled bot will execute when they push the big red button. So they get to see their program come to life as the bot moves around the room and navigates around household objects.
The instruction blocks comprise four different coloured pieces: forward, to move the bot forward; left; right; and the green circular function block. The function block adds a little more complexity to the basic instruction set as it calls the last line of blocks on the board every time it’s called. Aka it’s a sub-routine.
The function element, used in conjunction with the setting of longer physical paths for the robot to complete, then requires kids to use logical thinking to build up longer sequences of instructions to complete the challenge. And that’s the subtle learning it’s hoping to achieve.
It’s certainly a lot more basic than the Kano DIY computer Kickstarter – but the idea is to offer coding ‘baby steps’, for four-to-seven-year-olds, not throw kids in at the deep end.
“Skills are mastered gradually. Mountains are climbed one step at a time. Think of Primo as the very first step in a child’s programming education. Primo provides the very basic ABC of programming logic,” Primo’s U.K.-based (Italian) creators note on their Kickstarter page.
They’re aiming to raise £35,000 to get the kit to market. The full, assembled kit costs £160 to early Kickstarter backers – or £135 for a DIY version that you can self-assemble at home. They’ve already managed to raise more than £5,500 since the campaign kicked off on Friday, with 27 days left to run. If it hits its funding target, they’re aiming to ship to backers next August.
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