Okay, I want to go back to college

"What might a university look like with a fully deployed program of converged devices like the iPhone? Connected is one possible vision. This fictional day-in-the-life account highlights some of the potential benefits in a higher education setting when every student, faculty, and staff member is "connected." Though the applications and functions portrayed in the film are purely speculative, they're based on needs and ideas uncovered by our research - and we've already been making strides to transform this vision of mobile learning (mLearning) into reality."

What a great article.  What a great opportunity for students of Abilene Christian University.  What great efforts this university has gone to to do it right.  Check out their vision and their progress.  I think I'll send my kids there - as if I have that much control or would want to have that much control of where they go. . .

Check it out - Abilene is giving their incoming Freshmen an iPhone or iPod Touch to utilize during their college life for classes, university administrative stuff, etc.  While I'd love to see the video's on You Tube right now, I have to wait until I go home from work.  Blocked iTunes University and too slow of a band width to look at it here.  Well perhaps I'll post more once I get home :(

Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation

Below is information about this free conference that you will want to attend. Let others know about it also. Please pass the information on.

Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation
You are invited to attend the Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation Conference.

What is Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation?
Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation is a one day conference/meetup for teachers, administrators, students, school board members, parents and anyone who is interested in education. It will be held on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008, from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, USA. We assume most folks will be from Colorado, but everyone is welcome to attend, and we are working on some ideas for virtual participation.
Education is conversation.

Conversation creates change.
The future of education does not exist in the isolated world of theory and abstract conference sessions. Instead, it exists in conversations. It exists in creating a robust learning network that is ever-expanding and just-in-time. Learning 2.0 is not the beginning of this conversation. It is merely a stopping point, a time to talk about the visible difference that we all seek.


We read. We reflect. We write. We share. We learn. Come join us for a day of conversation about learning and technology.

You can learn much more about the conference on the wiki, including information about registering. Here are some highlights:

Tentative Schedule
We're still working on the details so this will be updated before the conference. Also, this may expand if we have more folks register than we are anticipating. (To quote Bud Hunt, "This conference stuff is hard!")

Registration
You must register so that we know how many folks to expect and so that we can have enough lunches available. (Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?)

Cost
Free, baby. And lunch is included, thanks to the generous support of Littleton Public Schools, St. Vrain Valley Public Schools, and Arapahoe High School.

Wireless
BYOL (that would be Bring Your Own Laptop) - we'll have wireless access to the Internet (filtered) - we may test our capacity to handle density of machines, but hopefully things will go swimmingly. If not, we have wired machines in various places you can access.

Questions for Students
We're having a student panel discussion during lunch. Here's your chance to submit some questions for them to consider.

Invite Others
We strongly encourage you to invite other folks from your school, district, neighborhood, or learning network to attend as well. It would be great if everyone could bring at least one person with them that is perhaps new to this conversation.

Questions?
Feel free to leave a comment on this post or on the FAQ page on the wiki.

Oh, also feel free to download and print the flyer.

MIT offers FREE OpenSourceWare for High Schools

Eschool news just published an article about MIT's effort with their new Free OpenCourseWare (OCW) for high schools. It is specifically geared towards Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

This high school offering is designed to assist our future engineers and scientists and might be a valuable tool for high school use. (OCW publishes educational materials under an open license that encourages their reuse, redistribution, and modification for noncommercial purposes.) Okay so let's reuse, redistribute and modify them for our purposes.

Highlights for High School can support student's math and science curriculum and perhaps encourage more careers in science and engineering.

On the site there are clips, animations, etc., matched to the high school AP science and math. The online videos provide optional ways to present concepts and illustrate hands-on approaches to teaching STEM subjects. It supports writing, brainstorming challenging world problems, and inventing.

This is a first attempt to create this model for secondary education. We can use this option to provide more alternative learnings for students.

There are many courses available listed here: Courses and you can be notified as new courses become available.

Check it out and comment your thoughts!


Thu, Nov 29, 2007. "MIT adapts free online courses for high schools". New secondary-school web site contains OpenCourseWare resources for teaching STEM disciplines. From eSchool News staff and wire service reports.