It’s 2015. It’s Austin. It’s time to get out your BS meter and kick the tires on the latest in education.
Plan your time well with this year’s Buzzword Bingo!
Category: resources
Places to go for more information or technology tools.
Buzzword BINGO – SxSWedu 2014
Hi to all my Austin friends…sorry to be missing this year’s event.
It’s March, and that means time for the fastest growing (and arguably hippest) education conference in the United States – SxSWedu in Austin. More people, more presentations, more great opportunities for learning.
If you are just jumping into the world of edtech, use this BINGO card to ensure an introduction to the latest trends.
If you are well-versed on the intersection of education and technology, keep an eye out for these buzzwords and challenge startups and presenters to go deeper than a marketing pitch.
ISTE buzzword bingo 2013
It’s time for ISTE again, one of the world’s largest edtech conferences – this year in San Antonio, TX. With 4 days worth of events and tens of thousands of participants, it can be difficult to figure out what sessions to attend. If this is your indoctrination into the world of edtech, try playing ISTE BINGO to exposure yourself to a range of current pedagogical philosophies. If you are an ISTE veteran, shoot to cover the entire card over the course of the conference.
For the ultimate win, try and find a vendor with a tagline that scores a BINGO! There will be at least one on the floor:
Modeling collaborative learning: edCamp Seattle
Seattle’s first local edCamp occurred on November 17th, 2012 at SPU. Over 60 educators from public and private schools, non-profits and universities attended the event.
The event was Storified using social media and the results are below (here’s a link for feed readers):
Apple Distinguished Educator 2013 application period opens
Today Apple opened their application process for the Apple Distinguished Educator Class of 2013. The ADE program currently includes 1500+ international teachers who use fluency with Apple’s products to push the boundaries of education.
Free Google Earth in Edu webinar
Master teachers Jerome Burg and Thomas Petra are hosting a free Google OnAir discussion of best practices and curricular ideas for using Google Earth in education on November 2nd, 2012 at 7pm EST.
I’ve been stealing inspired teaching ideas from these two since the summer of 2008 – I guarantee you’ll walk away from the discussion with new ideas that can be implemented immediately!
Free iBook: Student Guide to iPads & iOS 6
The iPhone User Guide for iOS 6 has been out for a few weeks now, but Apple hasn’t yet released one for the iPad & iOS 6. Rather than wait, I decided to write a bare-bones intro to iPad & iOS 6 for my students – just enough to get comfortable with basic iPad use and get organized.
I just published The Student Guide to iPads & iOS 6 to the iBookstore for free, in case other students/teachers find it useful.
Constructive feedback is welcomed, and please take the time to review if you find the information useful.
Thanks.
TED.org is flipping lectures
TED.org is teaming educators with animators to create TED-Ed flipped lectures. Anyone can choose a YouTube video and then place it side-by-side with a variety of questions, allowing viewers to assess their own recall and understanding.
I was honored to be invited to present a lesson while in Chicago for #FlipCon12 back in June. My recording went live today! You can view the entire lesson directly at Ted-Ed: Why do competitors open their stores next to one another? – Jac de Haan or watch the video below:
Thanks to Logan, Jordan, Stephanie, Jon & Aaron for making this happen! And thanks to Luke Rowsell for bringing the story to life.
Learning is a social endeavor
E-180 out of Montreal is looking to undo the systemization of education by getting back to the social roots of learning. The concept is straight-forward: let people know what you know, and they can contact you through the website if they’d like to meet up and discuss.
Looks like E-180 may make it to SxSWedu this year, and their voices would be a nice contrast to the big-time sponsors.
iOS 6 – MDM not yet ready for new restrictions
If you are planning on upgrading your school-based deployment of iPads & iPod Touches, check your Restriction Profiles to ensure the new feature settings are compliant with your school policy.
Today Apple released iOS 6 – the new operating system for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. iOS 6 contains tighter social network integration, with deep links to Twitter and Facebook.
For those of use deploying devices to students under 13, it is nice to be able to restrict this account integration as it isn’t technically legal for our students to have social network accounts.
Devices can be managed by touching every single one, navigating to the Settings>Restrictions screen, enabling Restrictions and then switching off Twitter & Facebook. But for those of us with hundreds or thousands of machines to manage, this isn’t easy to do.
Most iOS device managers use a combination of Apple Configurator for tethered updates and a mobile device management (MDM) tool for over-the-air (OTA) updates.
I’ve been testing this afternoon and it doesn’t seem like any of these management tools have updated their Restriction profiles to allow for the management of these new Restriction features.
Keep an eye out for Configurator updates in the new few weeks to help us support our deployments. If you have an MDM solution that has been upgraded, please comment or tweet back!