Green Banana

As companies compete to digitize the textbook market, there is one approach that shakes the traditional publishing business model: open-source textbooks, whose proponents believe online educational tomes should be free.

Many universities, including MIT and Carnegie Mellon, post-course lectures online for free use. A New York Times article last year explained some of the barriers to applying the same approach to textbooks.

For one thing, the textbook authors must agree to have them distributed online without charging royalties — something that may work well in the software world, where engineers often work on projects while keeping a day job, but typically avoided by writers who put their sweat equity into one book at a time. Also, books for K-12 classrooms must meet state standards, and most states don’t have procedures in place for approving open-source textbooks.

But there’s no arguing that having at least a few open-source textbooks (even when purchased through companies like Flat World Knowledge that charge for downloading or printing them) would cut down on the average $900 per year that the average student spends on textbooks. Online School has compiled this infographic to explain the cost savings.

Google confirmed at its I/O developer conference Wednesday that it will lease Chrome laptops to schools and businesses.

The program, called Chromebooks for Business & Education allows businesses and educational institutions to pay Google a monthly fee in exchange for a supported, updated Chromebook. Business users will pay $28 a month for each Chromebook and educational institutions will pay $20 a month per unit.

Here are the details of the subscription plan as we know them now:

Schools and businesses will order their Chromebook units directly from Google at google.com/chromebook, beginning June 15, 2011.
Google will cover phone, email and hardware replacement for Chromebook Business & Education users.
IT managers can use virtualization platforms like Citrix to offer access to non-web apps, essentially making the Chromebook a thin client on steroids.
Administrators have various management options for configuring and monitoring lots of different units.

Although the potential for education sales is vast — especially at the $240-a-year price point — we think the bigger play for Google is in the business space.

Google has actively courted small, medium and even large businesses to migrate to Google Apps for email, cloud-based document management/creation and file access. The company has successfully wooed some high-profile customers — especially in regards to email — but Google still trails enterprise giants like Microsoft, Novell, Oracle and IBM.

If the Chromebook subscription offering works, it could really make Google a big player in this space. Of course, that is a big “if.” The promise of thin clients and network computers are nearly as old as the web itself. The Chromebook may be the best implementation of Larry Ellison’s vision to date.

It’s certainly an interesting idea, that’s for sure.

Check out this video Google put together explaining the Chromebook for Business & Education:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIfICYPYzrA

Would you be willing to pay a monthly fee to “rent” a Chromebook?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly are still part of the incoming tide but Time will level the playing field once the dust of 20th Century marketing ploys settles and people begin to demand quality over the distracting dissatisfaction of empty, entertainment-filled promises. The masses are tired of being increasingly informed and entertained and decreasingly enabled and empowered for critical thought and deep learning.

1. Ubiquitous – The Internet has brought us a host of online education choices including everything from unscrupulous diploma mills to a myriad of so-called learning games as well as apps for nearly every subject, platform, and device. Online learning platforms such as Udemy, Coursera and Skillshare, offer students the opportunity to study remotely for a fraction of the cost of traditional establishments. Students can save as much as 90% off many courses by using a udemy coupon, and other learning sites have similar offers. This trend will continue. The challenge to identify quality amidst the quantity will grow.

2. Social – Face it, we are social creatures and the only things we learn well in isolation are survival techniques (and even then, we wish we had some others to help us). The Internet’s social layer is solidly in place so expect to see education delivered more broadly on the social grid.

3. Mobile – The mobile generation will expect mobile access to all matters beyond mere communication and game-playing. Devices are personal links to best practices and apps will be developed to meet the ever-increasing demand.

4. Pushed – Traditional supply-side education will continue to lose ground to demand-side education where location-aware apps push just-in-time learning. Instructional design should take advantage of push technology.

5. Personalized – Learning will be personalized more and more in the way of both eportfolio content creation as well as learner-specific and contextually relevant assessment. Department of Education initiatives include plans to aggregate student achievement from cradle to grave and this data will empower apps to deliver personalized learning experiences.

6. Media-rich – Whether we agree with it or not, future literacy will demand our reading of symbols that go beyond mere letters on a page. The digital landscape requires a broader skillset than previous generations learned.

7. Computer free – Web 1.0 was platform and software specific. Web 2.0 has been rather device-centric. However, technology has a way of becoming invisible with wide-scale adoption. Expect the same in the education arena. The Internet of things will include more than kitchen appliances. The tools of the education trade will integrate smart technologies to seamlessly deliver interactive experiences previously relegated to traditional face-to-face settings.

8. Relevant – Thanks to GPS chips, technology will afford customized delivery of learning opportunities contextually relevant to the learner.

9. Augmented – Emerging technological innovations are adding ways for learners to interact with the subject matter in ways previously unavailable. Virtual field trips enable learners to transcend time and space barriers. Virtual technologies allow learner avatars to transcend identity barriers.

10. Layered – Just as the social layer has been added to the globally networked world, and just as a game layer is being constructed as I write this, watch for an education layer to be integrated where Like and Comment buttons may be accompanied by a Learn This button (Similar to Apture’s Learn More plugin but more developed).

These trends will continue while civilization continues to transition from the industrialized model of nation-state institutions to the globally networked collaborative model. Despite the fact that only half the world is Internet-worked at present, an ignorant populace can only be distracted by superficial entertainment and/or narrow cultural indoctrination for so long. Eventually, the thirst for fulfillment will drive the demand for genuine and deep learning on a global scale. Will greed give way to good?

“Fun-loving math?” Yes! For little youngsters, play and science go together consistently and normally. With straightforward materials and a bit of arranging, early youth teachers can utilize games to help flash significant numerical thoughts—and assist them with learning a great deal about youngsters’ reasoning.

Why Math Games?

Math games give a structure and procedure to youngsters to participate in critical thinking so as to arrive at a specific objective or goal. Arriving at that objective may be testing, however the test is additionally what makes game-playing fun. In a game, kids can play alone or with a gathering, they can settle on their own choices about the moves they will make, and they can play again and again evaluating various methodologies.

Notwithstanding all the central science picking up going on while they mess around, kids are building their certainty as issue solvers and rehearsing significant social-passionate aptitudes. Games in the preschool study hall additionally give instructors the chance to pick up bits of knowledge into kids’ creating numerical reasoning.

Diligence and critical thinking Games are a perfect vehicle for youngsters to rehearse perseverance and critical thinking as they evaluate new procedures and experience challenges. They can perceive what works and why, and attempt again without the weight of doing it “right.” Teachers can bolster the advancement of kids’ determination at testing games and of their certainty as issue solvers.

Social-passionate improvement Playing games with cohorts encourage social and enthusiastic aptitudes like showing restraint, alternating, and tackling issues cooperatively. Games with a component of rivalry additionally offer youngsters a chance to work on winning and losing benevolently and with deference.

Educator perception As kids take part in game-play, preschool instructors have a rich chance to watch kids’ reasoning, thinking, and math aptitudes at work. For instance, as a kid moves a game piece along a number way in a tabletop game, the educator can see whether the kid can discuss the number of successions precisely and keep up a coordinated correspondence.

Reiteration and practice Finally, games give youngsters rehashed practice, as they appreciate playing similar games again and again.

What’s the Math?

Utilizing games as an establishment for learning, and with contribution from more than one hundred Head Start instructors, EDC’s Games for Young Mathematicians has built up a lot of instructional materials for preschool educators that are fun, drawing in, and simple to-utilize. Games and going with assets on the Young Mathematicians site center all in all around tallying, activities, arithmetical reasoning, and geometry.

These games are intended to be versatile, with various sections focuses so they are fittingly hard for all kids. For instance, youngsters who are toward the start of their science learning can connect with little numbers and less complex variants of the games; kids who are further along are tested with extra decisions (e.g., you can include or subtract the amounts a bite the dust).

The following is an example of games concentrated on number sense. Number and task abilities are central for later arithmetic learning [1] and speak to a huge segment of early youth math learning principles. The accompanying games are models that feature these key number and activity abilities:

• perceiving and realizing the number word list,
• subitizing (knowing what number of in a little set right away),
• cardinality (realizing that the last number of articles included is the number in the set),
• coordinated checking correspondence (blending one article with precisely one number word),
• composed number images,
• looking at numbers (progressively, less, same), and
• creating and breaking down numbers (expansion and subtraction).

Games with Fingers

Straightforward games with fingers center around key abilities including checking, cardinality, subitizing, and joining and dismantling sets. New research shows that utilizing fingers assumes a significant job in learning and getting math (in spite of what we might’ve been told!). [2] You can likewise play finger games whenever—since your fingers are consistent with you!

Attempt this basic finger game. Conceal your hands behind your back, at that point show your hands holding up a couple of fingers on each hand. For instance, show three fingers on your correct hand and two fingers on your left hand. Kids love it when you serenade a little rhyme before uncovering your fingers: “Fingers, fingers, 1,2,3, how many fingers do you see?” Children at that point get out what number of fingers you are holding up.

To make the game somewhat more testing, request that youngsters utilize two hands and show five of every an alternate way. You can likewise ask kids to show you on their fingers one more or one less than the number of fingers you held up. As youngsters get more established and have more practice, you can even ask them what number of fingers you are not raising.

Games with Dot Cards

Dab cards give an abundance of game choices for little youngsters to work on subitizing, tallying, and cardinality. Youngsters use cards that have from one to ten black dabs orchestrated in various configura­tions—direct (straight line), rectangular, dice example, round, and dispersed. The specks are masterminded in various designs in light of the fact that the assortment assists kids with creating numerous psychological pictures of amounts. Kids need practice with objects in heaps of various courses of action. Specifically, round and dissipated plans are more diligently to tally individually.

Youngsters can likewise play with these cards in various manners: covering spots, duplicating the examples, coordinating cards, finding a specific card, and making sense of one more or one less. For a book interface, we recommend the image book Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. Kids can utilize this as a motivation to make their own outlines with specks at the workmanship table. For a home connection, educators can send home the smaller than normal book Can You Find? for youngsters to peruse with their families. On each page, youngsters attempt to discover the card with a specific number of dabs.

Bouncing on the Lily Pads

Kids play Jumping on the Lily Pads with a lily cushion number-way board, spot solid shapes, and frog game pieces (or different tokens). This game assists youngsters with building up a psychological number line and comprehend that entire numbers are separated similarly along a number line. The more that kids build up a psychological number line, the more set they up are for the math errands that anticipate them in kindergarten.

To play the game, kids alternate rolling the speck block and moving their frogs along the game board. The objective is to be the first to arrive at the lake. While playing this game, kids are rehearsing numeral acknowledgment, utilizing coordinated correspondence (while proceeding onward the board), and utilizing jargon, for example, previously, after, closer, further. Hopping on the Lily Pads give understudies involvement in a numerically significant device—the number line—and vital utilization of that instrument.

As you bring more math into your study hall, be certain! Your frame of mind matters so has some good times presenting and coordinating math exercises. Use books and games to advance perky math encounters. It’s as simple as playing finger games, games, and tabletop games to fabricate small kids’ comprehension of numbers and the number line!

Did you know that it’s been nearly twenty years since the first website was placed online? Have you ever thought about how the Internet and the web have evolved in time?

Ponder it: the Internet, a complex series of interconnected networks, protocols, servers, cables, and computers, has evolved from its early days as U.S. Department of Defense research project into the foundation for the World Wide Web, what we use today to interact with one another via browsers, email, Twitter, Skype (Skype), and millions of other online tools.

As we approach the imminent launch of the Apple Tablet and analyze new trends coming out of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (our full coverage), now is a good time to reflect on what the web will look like in the next decade — and beyond.

I have four big predictions to share for what the web will look like in the near future. This is what I expect in the evolution of our online lives:

The Web Will Be Accessible Anywhere

Our society couldn’t operate today without Wi-Fi, but it didn’t become prevalent until the early to mid-2000s. Before that, we used Ethernet cables and before that, our primary method of connecting to the web was via phone lines. Every few years, our method of accessing web changes to be faster and more accessible.

Two things make me believe that the web will be accessible from anywhere and at any time: the rise of wireless 3G and 4G networks and the likelihood for nationwide Wi-Fi to blanket the U.S. and beyond.

Let’s first talk about 3G: since its introduction in the early 2000s, it has quickly spread to major cities worldwide. Accessing the web is now as simple as pulling out your smartphone, and it’s getting faster with the introduction of 4G networks and 4G phones. The Apple Tablet is even rumored to have a data plan on Verizon and AT&T’s 3G networks. More and more laptops come with built-in 3G access as well.

Nationwide Wi-Fi is the more exciting prospect, though. In 2008, the FCC had an auction for the 700 MHz wireless spectrum. A lot of attention was focused on that auction when Google (Google) joined as a multi-billion dollar bidder. Some speculated that Google wanted to turn the spectrum into a nationwide Wi-Fi network. While Verizon eventually won, a nationwide Wi-Fi network is still very possible and, in fact, seems logical given the direction of web technology today.

The point is that more devices will have access to these networks and that these networks will be more prevalent as time goes on. Ten to twenty years down the road, people will wonder how we managed with laptops disconnected from a Wi-Fi or 4G signal.

Web Access Will Not Focus Around the Computer

In a column on CNN earlier this month, Mashable’s Adam Ostrow explored one of the biggest trends at CES: the embedding of the web outside of the computer. At present, we focus our Internet use in the U.S. on our laptops. In Japan though, many more access the web primarily through their phones, a trend that is just beginning to sweep the states.

This is just the beginning. New Internet-enabled TVs will allow us to browse from the living room and soon our cars will become Wi-Fi hotspots.

The Apple Tablet looks to be the next stage of this evolution. Rumor has it that not only is the device going to have 3G access, but Apple envisions it is a shared piece of hardware among the family. Instead of having to jump onto the computer to check your email, you can just have your girlfriend or boyfriend pass you the tablet to check out what’s going on.

In ten years, computers will only be a small percentage of how we use our web. We’re going to be accessing it from nearly every device and appliance we own.

The Web Will Be Media-Centric

The time of text-based interactions is going to diminish until they’re just a minor component of our web experience. Yes, we will always write, blog, and tweet, but as more and more devices adopt touchscreen interfaces and alternatives to the keyboard and mouse (it’s already happening), our reliance on videos from YouTube (YouTube) and Hulu (Hulu), social games like FarmVille, and interactive interfaces like the iPhone OS will grow rapidly.

Here are some of my thoughts on how I think this media-centric web will come to be:

• Voice-to-text technology will be a major part of the media-centric web. The technology isn’t accurate enough to use daily yet, but devices like the Nexus One are pushing its limits. In a decade or two, it’ll be accurate enough to be a viable replacement to our keyboards.
• Interfaces that rely on motions are going to be more important to computing and the media-focused web. Apple popularized phone touchscreen interfaces, and the Tablet has a good shot and popularizing that type of interface on larger-sized screens. While we have a lot more to figure out before touchscreens are popularized on the desktop, I do think it’s time isn’t far away. I look forward to abandoning the old mouse and keyboard interface.
• In the future, you won’t even have to touch the screen. HP’s “Wall of Touch” actually doesn’t require users to touch the screen in order to interact with it, and Microsoft’s Project Natal looks to turn gaming into a controller-less experience. This is the future.
• These interfaces simply make it easier to bring up images, videos, music, and other multi-media.
• It’s not about keyboard commands, but about apps, drag-and-drop, and having an immersive experience.

Social Media Will Be Its Largest Component

Stats published by Nielsen show that social media usage has increased by 82% in the last year, an astronomical rise. Facebook (Facebook), Twitter (Twitter), YouTube, blogs, and social interaction are becoming the focus of our online interactions, even more than search.

We’re social creatures, so it was only a matter of time until we figured out how to make the web an efficient medium for communication, sharing, and forging friendships. Now that we’re finally implementing the social layer though, it’s tough to find a scenario where the rise of social media doesn’t continue.

In ten years, when you access the web, most of the time you spend will be to connect with your friends. Almost all of that will be on social networks and through social media. It will be the #1 reason why we ever pull out our phones, tablets, or computers.