SherWeb

Ever wonder why one out of every ten American kids between the ages of 4 and 17 are being diagnosed with ADHD?  No? Just me? Fine, be that way!  But you have to admit, it seems kinda odd that all of a sudden, ever since around 2003, cases of ADHD have been dramatically on the rise, increasing by as much as 23%!  I have my theories, the main one is diet, which I won’t talk about here, but my second theory involves technology and education.  Let me know if you think this sounds insane.

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Kids these days are being raised on huge flat screened televisions with digitally-enhanced, high-definition images being pumped into their little brains; they’re entering fantastic new worlds by playing the most sophisticated videogames ever created on these enormous screens; in order to be silenced, little ones are being handed iPhones to play with at restaurant dinner tables, while the teenagers tune everyone out by plugging into their P2Ps.  Then they go home and plug into the Internet!

Hours and hours of these vivid colors, sharp images, exhilarating soundtracks and instantly gratifying feedback at their fingertips each day, and people wonder why these kids can’t sit still in a classroom for more than 2 minutes, while Mrs. McGillicuddy talks about isosceles triangles on a black and white chalk board.  These kids are bored out of their skulls!

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The more we include technology in our education system, the more we make the classroom look like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, the more we will capture the imaginations and attention spans of today’s already tech-savvy youth (youths?).  The following are some great devices, software and techno-friendly practices which are greatly improving the way our kids learn their A(-b±√(b^2-4ac))/2a    B √(a^2+b^2 )  C∑_(0≤ i ≤ m@0<j<n ) P(i,j)  s.

From Chalkboards to Whiteboards

Slowly making their way into more and more classrooms, interactive whiteboards or the branded “Smartboards” will soon replace chalkboards as the teacher’s main communication interface.  Hooked up to a computer and a projector, teachers can use a keyboard, a mouse, a pen and even their fingers to navigate the board.  Remember how exciting it was to see actual colors whenever the teacher whipped out the ole overhead projector?  Well now students minds can be stimulated with videos, sounds and all the colors of the double rainbow!

From Books to iPads

This past December, before the students of  Roslyn High School in Long Island went home for Christmas, almost fifty of them were given iPads to bring home for the holidays.  The goal is to eventually provide an iPad to all of the school’s 1,100 students in an attempt to replace textbooks.  Students will be able to bring the classroom home with them, where they can complete assignments and interact with the subject matter like never before.

There are plenty of iPad math games to improve arithmetic skills, interactive 3D world maps with images and videos teaching kids about foreign cultures, their habitats and languages, the complete works of William Shakespeare and more.  The days of bullies knocking all your books on the ground are over, and it’s much harder for the dog to eat your iPad.

From Here to Everywhere

Thanks to technology you can now get a degree from universities on the other side of the planet, without ever having to wear pants.  Less than five years ago there were over 3 million U.S. students taking online courses in some form or another, with more and more jumping on board every day.
There are two types of distance technologies used in education: synchronous and asynchronous.  Synchronous usually employs video conferencing and web conferencing technologies, as all the students taking a particular class need to be present at the same time.  Asynchronous technologies usually involve online forums, emails, recorded audio and video, as students participate according to their own schedules.

From the Classroom to the Cell Phone

Launched in November 2009 and in partnership with BBC Learning English, BBC Janala is a multi-platform project that employs multimedia technology to bring education to populations ordinarily unable to afford it, specifically the millions of people in Bangladesh.  With more than 50  million mobile phone users in Bangladesh, you potentially have 50 million students with access to a higher education.  By simply dialing 3000, people can take advantage of hundreds of audio lessons and quizzes teaching them English.

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“Content is updated weekly and caters to all levels of experience with ‘Essential English’ for beginners, ‘Pronunciation’ for intermediaries and ‘Vocabulary in the News’ for those more advanced.

To make the lessons affordable, BBC Janala has teamed up with all six of Bangladesh’s mobile operators who have agreed to cut the cost of calls to the service by up to 75%. Each lesson lasts three minutes and costs less than the price of a cup of tea from a Dhaka tea stall (or 3 pence).

At the end of December 2009 – a month after launching – over 750,000 calls had been made to the mobile phone service.” Source

From the Past into the Future

Less than a decade ago, the schools in Kent County, England were in dire straights.  Less and less students were attending classes and those who did were scoring lower and lower on their exams.  Something needed to be done.  Actually, all things needed to be done.  The entire educational system needed a facelift, and so the New Line Learning Academy was born.

Kent received the largest piece of the pie when Tony Blair was handing out educational rebuilding funds, which they put to impressive use.  They hired education technology specialists from Microsoft, and Gensler architects were put in charge of the school’s design.  Now instead of 30-student classrooms with one teacher broadcasting with the help of a blackboard, the Academy has 120-student “learning plazas” with more interaction between the students, the teachers, and the in-class technology.  Three teachers and two assistants circulate throughout the plaza, and these smart plazas are of course fully equipped with the latest multi-media educational technology.