education

Curriculum teaches digital literacy and citizenship

commentary In my more than 15 years in the Internet safety field, I've seen a lot of programs designed to teach children how to use the Internet safely, but many have missed the mark because they too often focus on children as victims or at least passive consumers rather than as participants in our digital culture. But in this Web 2.0 world, kids aren't just consuming media, they're creating it and they have collectively embraced social media as a part of their lives. They don't go online; they are online--whether on a PC, a mobile … Read more

Microsoft creates Office plug-in for Moodle

Microsoft is releasing a free add-on that could make life easier for teachers, professors, and others who use the online educational system Moodle.

The plug-in, which works with Office 2003 and Office 2007, allows users to save Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents directly to the open source online service. It also allows users to edit directly in Office a document saved on Moodle, which is widely used in colleges and at some K-12 schools as well.

"We know that it's out there in force," Jon Perera, general manager of Microsoft's Educational Products Group, said of Moodle. &… Read more

Piano app for iPad proves screen size matters

Of all the questions surrounding Apple's forthcoming iPad tablet, the one I find the hardest to answer is, "What can it do that my laptop and smartphone don't already deliver?"

The question is tough to answer for two reasons. For one, until we see how developers are able to tailor their apps, we really can't say to what degree the iPad experience is going to differ from the iPhone or iPod Touch. More importantly, but harder to communicate, is how much the iPad's 9.7-inch touch screen fundamentally changes the nature of how we … Read more

Police get Webcam pictures in school spy case

Two IT employees at Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School District have been put on administrative leave, and pictures taken from Webcams on school-issued computers have been turned over to the local police department, according to the attorney of one of the employees now on leave.

Attorney Charles Mandracchia, who represents school district information coordinator Carol Cafiero, told Philadelphia TV station Fox 29 that that "they had a private Web site for some of these pictures for the Lower Marion Police Department to view and they were the only ones who could view it."

In February, the family of … Read more

Google mulls blend of education, search

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Google is thinking about ways to inject search into the educational process as more than just a quick and dirty cheat sheet.

One of the most amazing things about Internet search is the speed and precision at which it returns answers to specific questions, ideal for students researching subjects for tests or papers. But this also generates criticism that the knowledge gained from services like Google can be a mile wide and an inch deep: data points don't organize themselves into concepts and ideas.

Google's Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, has begun exploring &… Read more

School shows off its laptop surveillance tactics

"This kid looks like they're editing their MySpace page."

So declares an assistant principal at Intermediate School 339 in the Bronx borough of New York, a "former technology coach" (PDF) named Dan Ackerman (but not to be confused with CNET's Dan Ackerman). You might imagine that he's wandering around a classroom looking over kids' shoulders as they fiddle about on their laptops. You might imagine, then, that storks deliver milk as well as babies.

This remarkable 2009 footage from the PBS show "Frontline," promoted on its site earlier this month and … Read more

Shut down Webcam use, judge tells school district

You know it's bad when it gets the suffix "gate." In a case against the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania, which some are already referring to as Webcamgate, a federal judge Wednesday made a very clear statement.

According to Fox 29 Philadelphia, the judge told the school district not to activate Webcams remotely under any circumstances.

In case this unquestionably soon-to-be-produced episode of "Law and Order" had slipped by you, a student's family is accusing Harriton High School of spying on their son in their home by remotely activating the Webcam on his … Read more

Robot as second language? Korean kids learning it

It should come as no surprise that Korea, the same country that's building a robot theme park, is planning to send English-teaching bots into its schools. Are we sensing a theme here?

After ongoing classroom trials, South Korea will spend approximately $45 million for an "R-Learning" program that places a range of robotic teaching assistants in 500 preschools by 2011 and in 8,000 preschools and kindergartens by 2013, according to io9.

For now, the terribly cute robot instructors--which teach via voice recognition and telepresence technology--won't take over all classroom duties, but will do things like … Read more

School accused of off-campus Webcam spying

I know that there are many parents who would dearly love to spy on their children. Some, because they think their kids might be up to no good. Some, because they think their kids might be up to something so very not good that it might be illegal.

So I am rather moved with concern at a spying accusation that has reportedly been leveled by parents at a Philadelphia-area school district.

According to Computerworld, a class action lawsuit has been served upon the Lower Merion School District, based in Ardmore, Pa. It declares that the school district has taken on … Read more

What today's tech is teaching tomorrow's workforce

The technology we call innovative will seem pedestrian to our children.

From touch screens to open source, our kids are being conditioned to interact with technology in ways we hardly expected even a decade ago, despite what "The Jetsons" foreshadowed back in the '60s.

One thing seems increasingly clear: our children are not being conditioned to buy Microsoft. Not anymore.

This thought came to me from two directions yesterday. The first was a text message my 13-year old daughter sent me:

BTW bring more Ubuntu stickers if possible. I wore my Ubuntu shirt today and a ton of … Read more