Is Internet Access a Fundamental Human Right? You Betcha!

This administrations commitment to expand broadband internet access for all people is akin to providing every child a free public education. There are more than 11 trillion pages of knowledge available on the web and it is growing at a rate of more than 200 million pages per month. Google is close to posting every book ever published online which means for the first time in world history anyone with an internet connection will have access to all of the world published knowledge. In addition, the global marketplace the internet facilitates makes it possible for anyone to create and sell products or services anywhere in the world. There are many other arguments that can made about making internet access a fundamental human right, but I believe education and economics are simply the most powerful. Your thoughts?

1 TO 1 Laptop Programs for Students Only As Good As the Teachers Who Integrate Them... Duh!

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/02/16/11-programs-only-as-good-as-their-teachers/

A recent set of studies compiled in an article published in studies were published in January by the the Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment suggests that 1:1 laptop programs employed by schools show positive academic gains in students ONLY when used in a classroom with an effective teacher who has the skills and pedagogical style necessary to use them as an effective tool for teaching and learning.  I am not sure that these are groudbreaking studies since nearly all data collected in classrooms about impacts on student achievement suggest the same thing: its the teacher stupid.  Having worked with technology and teachers for nearly fifteen years at all levels, I have never thought for one moment that ubiquitous access to technology for students was a panacea for increased academic achievement. Anecdotaly, I have been in classrooms where every student had a laptop and the teacher stood at the front of the room lecturing while clicking through slides on their smartboard. This is a technology rich classroom but not learning rich. On the other hand, I have witnessed teachers with only one computer in the classroom utilize it's power as one of many interesting and purposeful learning stations that students engaged in throughout the course of a class period. The difference no matter what instructional tool or resource you provide is the quality of the teacher using it.

SecondLife in FirstLife - The mashup of augmented reality with live online maps and it's potential impact on education

This recent TED Conference presentation by Blaise Aguera y Arcas we see a glimpse of the not so distant future in which video and mapping/gps converge on the phone and desktop to provide a live feed of personal presence and interaction. I have been prognosticating about this technological advance for about three years after having a debate with a colleague over the future of SecondLife, a virtual world where people assume avatars and interact in real-time in a computer generated environment. We have toyed with this world as a potential teaching tool, but our experience mimicked that of many other teachers referenced in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education highlighting most educators dismay with the virtual world concept and eventual disinterest in using it as a teaching and learning tool. I argued early on that SecondLife offered a glimpse of what could be in the real world if technology permitted us to have a virtual presence in our existing environment. The educational possibilities would be enormous. Now we see a glimpse of how this might work out and I am wondering what other people think of this as a burgeoning learning space. How could it supplement, enhance or otherwise replace our current classrooms?