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LA Unified iPad Program
L.A. Unified halts contract for iPads (Education Week)
Los Angeles schools Superintendent John Deasy has canceled the $1 billion program to provide all students with an iPad after public records showed he and his top deputy had developed a relationship with the vendors two years prior to the bidding. Recently released emails showed that Deasy and his then-deputy, Jaime Aquino, began meeting and corresponding with top Apple and Pearson executives and discussing the effort to give all students, teachers and administrators an iPad. Two local elementary schools became the first to roll out tablet computers in a $1 billion effort to put iPads in the hands of every student in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The superintendent sent the Board of Education a letter Monday informing members of his decision. The superintendent was coming under mounting criticism over the emails and an internal report obtained by the Los Angeles Times last week that showed a flawed process and a lack of transparency, among other things.
The iPad Education Revolution Stalls Out (Gizmodo)
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that its sprawling hometown's school system, the second largest in the US, would be withdrawing from last year's ambitious promise to supply all 640,000 students with an iPad. Good. The Los Angeles United School District just dodged a $1 billion, tablet-shaped bullet. When the iPad premiered four years ago, it brought with it the attractive idea that all our heavy, egregiously expensive textbooks would soon be digitized in 1.5 lb tablet. Quickly, schools began adopting the platform, even in its nascent, first-generation phase (which is almost always a terrible idea). In 2012, Apple pushed even more aggressively into classrooms with a suite of iPad-focused education tools. By the end of 2013, Apple the company had sold 7 million iPads to schools and universities.
Industry
Zuckerberg-backed Panorama Teams With Harvard To Open Source Its Student Survey (Tech Crunch)
Panorama Education, the Y-Combinator education startup backed by the likes of Mark and Priscilla Zuckerberg�s Startup:Education, Google Ventures and other notable investors, is today announcing a partnership with Harvard University�s Graduate School of Education that speaks to how the startup is evolving its core business model. The pair have teamed up to launch Panorama Student Survey, Panorama�s signature school survey delivered as a free, open source product. Panorama Education will subsequently make the use of the survey (online here) free for new and existing school, school-district, and state education department customers, while continuing to offer analytics and reporting tools around the basic survey. To date, Panorama says that it has worked with �hundreds� of districts and states collecting feedback and analyzing the data of over 1.5 million students served this past school year � all in the name of giving supplemental information that might not be easily found otherwise, to help improve how students are educated.
Is Genius Born Or Bred? Khan Academy Weighs In (Fast Co. Exist)
Some people are born with natural intelligence or ability. Other people learn through their mistakes and become skilled through effort. Most people combine both. But which is more important: effort or talent? The online learning portal Khan Academy is launching a campaign that weighs in on this age-old question. The �#YouCanLearnAnything� online campaign actually leans on a growing body of research supporting the notion that a person�s personal answer to that question can have a big influence on their later success in learning and mastering new skills. �The answer is pretty clear that your intelligence can actually be changed. What researchers have taught us is that our brains are actually a lot like a muscle,� says Khan Academy executive director and founder Sal Khan, in a video that�s part of the campaign. �You don�t just work on things that are easy for your muscles to do.�
Amazon Promotes Its Student Program With 50 College Scholarships (Tech Crunch)
Amazon announced this morning that it will be offering 50 full-time, undergraduate students with a college scholarship that includes $5,000 toward their tuition as well as an additional $500 to spend on textbooks at Amazon. The scholarships, which will be merit-based, will be distributed in time for fall semester 2015. According to Ripley MacDonald, Director of Student Programs at Amazon, the scholarship is designed to �reward students who demonstrate extraordinary ability in leadership and innovative thinking.� Students who apply will be judged on their GPA, community involvement, leadership experience, and will need to complete an essay in order to advance to the final round � pretty standard college scholarship stuff. Winners will be notified by April 2015, with the scholarship awarded in July 2015.
In The Classroom
Access to Technology for Immigrant Students (Mind Shift)
School administrators are looking to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies as a way to bring technology resources in the community to bear in the classroom when there is little funding for school-owned devices. We are examining how three different teachers in three completely different communities � urban, rural, and immigrant � are dealing with BYOD issues, including trust, equity, and what happens when teachers try to put student-centered learning in the hands of students who�ve never experienced it. The advantage of BYOD has always been flexibility � educators don�t have to wait until a school board approves funds for mobile technology, rolls out a policy and implements a training program. Instead, teachers began experimenting with technology to engage learners and allow them to have more ownership over their learning. Using student-owned devices has the added benefit of helping students to see their phones as learning tools that can be used for research at home. And while not all kids own smartphones or tablets to access the internet outside of school, many do.
What Do Schools Risk By Going �Full Google�? (Mind Shift)
Kaitlin Morgan says, this year, her school district is going �full Google.� Morgan teaches U.S. and world history and advises the yearbook at Woodlake Union High School in California�s Central Valley. At Woodlake, �full Google� means a plan to have one Google Chromebook for every two students by the spring, running Google Apps. The Chromebook is a relatively cheap, stripped-down laptop. It�s become popular in the education world, with 85 percent of its U.S. sales last year going to the ed market. And the Chromebook is just the beginning. Already, Google Apps for Education claims 30 million active users around the world. The free, Web-based software works on any device and allows teachers and students to use Gmail with their own .edu address. It�s the beginning of what Google calls the �paperless classroom� � moving assignments, class discussions, feedback, tests and quizzes online.
5 Robots Booking It to a Classroom Near You (Mashable)
Robots are the new kids in school. The technological creations are taking on serious roles in the classroom. With the accelerating rate of robotic technology, school administrators all over the world are plotting how to implement them in education, from elementary through high school. In South Korea, robots are replacing English teachers entirely, entrusted with leading and teaching entire classrooms. In Alaska, some robots are replacing the need for teachers to physically be present at all.
Gamification
Need Help Picking the Right Learning Game? Some Things to Consider (Mind Shift)
To make sense of the broad and complex world of games and learning, we�re inclined to create neatly organized lists and categories. The truth is that there are so many different kinds of learning games, it�s difficult to break them down into clear-cut categories. Especially in an atmosphere of ed-tech entrepreneurship that aims to disrupt our habitual way of thinking about education, familiar classification structures can sometimes hold us back more than they move us forward. It feels contradictory to divide up the learning games landscape after arguing, earlier in this series, that games can help address the educational need to break down the boundaries between traditional academic content areas. Taxonomy is always tricky and useful only to the degree in which it simultaneously acknowledges ambiguity and fuzziness. But to make it easier to digest, let�s explore some classifications.
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Chevron Expands Fuel Your School Program to Help Fund Classroom Projects
 Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (NYSE:CVX) today announced the launch and expansion of the 2014 Fuel Your School program, an innovative collaboration with DonorsChoose.org, an online organization that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need. In 2014, the Fuel Your School Program will generate up to $8.6 million in classroom supply funding for educators in 22 U.S. communities in 14 states where Chevron operates, with the help of local Chevron and Texaco marketers in 6 markets. Beginning Sept. 1, 2014, public school teachers from participating communities are invited to post eligible classroom projects at www.DonorsChoose.org. From Oct. 1 through Oct. 31, 2014, the Fuel Your School program will donate $1 to help fund eligible classroom projects when consumers purchase eight or more gallons of fuel at participating Chevron or Texaco stations, up to a total of $8.6 million..
U.S. Army�s eCYBERMISSION Kicks Off 13th Year of Competition
 The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, on behalf of the Army Educational Outreach Program, today announced the kickoff of the 13th annual eCYBERMISSION program, a free online learning competition designed to cultivate student interest in science, technology, engineering and math by encouraging students in grades six through nine to develop solutions to real-world challenges in their local communities. Students can win on a state, regional, and national level, with national winning teams receiving up to $9,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds, valued at maturity. Registration is open until December 17, 2014 at www.ecybermission.com. Through the program, which is administered by the National Science Teachers Association, teams of three to four students plus an adult team advisor are asked to identify an issue in their community related to one of seven mission challenges, including: alternative sources of energy; the environment; food, health and fitness; force and motion; national security and safety; robotics; and technology.
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