More Mobile on Campus

EduCause is the international professional association for IT in higher education. The focus of the latest edition of the Educause Quarterly is on mobile computing and its impact(s) on colleges: http://educause.informz.net/educause/archives/archive_1404284.html

We expect a growing demand for mobile support in every area, from our applications to our infrastructure.

Three steps we have taken recently to address these demands are:

• Our switch to Gmail for students, which has very strong support for a wide range of mobile devices;
• Doubling of campus bandwidth (not without remaining issues) to better support the growing number of mobile devices and their "always on" nature;
• Expansion of our wireless network coverage to all floors in the Circle and Crescent houses this summer. (The 5th Form houses were done last summer. All Houses have had wireless on the first floor common areas for several years, as have all floors in academic buildings.)

As one of the authors writes, "Individuals have had access to 'portable learning devices' since the advent of the printing press; we call them books." But there are many who believe that the growing power and ubiquity of network-enabled smartphones will probably bring the greatest technological changes since the general availability of the Internet - if we use them correctly, not just as content delivery devices. As others have said, "this changes everything." How will it change Lawrenceville?

Personal Learning Networks

A lot has been said recently about the idea of Personal Learning Networks, or PLNs. Wikipedia has a good explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Learning_Networks

One of the key elements that the Powerful Learning Practice program (http://plpnetwork.com/) that several Lawrenceville teachers and administrators took part in was about the importance of and tools used in the creation of a PLN. We all had experiences where even our nascent PLN became a source of high quality information and guidance on a variety of subjects during this process.

It can be argued that PLNs are nothing new. 20 years ago, the depth and breadth of your Rolodex often indicated the strength of your PLN. Today's tools just make it easier to connect with colleagues and experts from around the world.

Now, Facebook is entering the PLN world by allowing you to ask questions of your friends, and friends of friends, through their new Questions tool: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150110059982131
Given the huge amount of time that our students (and teenagers in general) spend on Facebook, this might be a good way to have them develop PLNs.

However, for this to truly be useful, it means that adults, experts, educators, etc. need to be on Facebook and "visible" enough to be found in the questioning process.

-->Are there ways that you use a PLN in your work or for hobbies that could be transferred to how we educate students here?

Want to try a PLN or learn more? Educational technologist David Warlick has some good information and links on his site: http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.TheArtAmpTechniqueOfCultivatingYourPersonalLearningNetwork

More on eBooks

Two interesting data points recently about eBooks in schools.

UK trade publishers surveyed by Publishing Technology predict that 2012 will be the year that eBook revenue surpasses the "tipping point" for physical book revenue: http://blog.publishingtechnology.com/blogs/uk-trade-publishers-predict-2012-revenue-tipping-point-e-books/
Interesting, on the textbook side, they state "one in four UK academic publishers were already seeing 10% of their total book revenue coming from e-books in 2011, with double that predicting this would be the case in 2012".

Last week, Henrico County (VA) Public Schools uperintendent Patrick Russo said "We made a commitment pretty much we are not buying more textbooks." The district has had a 1:1 laptop program for approximately 10 years, and currently supplies laptops to over 25,000 high school and middle school students and almost 4,000 teachers through the county.

EdWeek's Technology Counts 2010 Released

Education Week has released their 14th annual report on the state of educational technology: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/tc/2011/digital/Education_Week_Technology_Counts_2011.pdf

While once simply a tally of hardware and Internet connections, the report now explains why technology matters in education and points to trends and trend setters.

One of the major themes this year is the use of technology to provide a more personalized learning experience for each student. Interestingly, it is one of the advertisements that sums up the need to technology in this area:

To teach exactly what every student needs each day, you'd need an insomniac, genius sidekick.

While it is possible to differentiate the instruction for each and every student using traditional methods, proper use of technology can help, not only with the instruction, but with the assessment that leads to that instruction.