June 9, 2008
Digital Directions, Vol. 02, Issue Spring/Summer 2008
Curriculum
Reviewing E-Books
Virtual textbooks—some with interactive zing to better teach a generation of students weaned on Xbox and iTunes—are attracting attention from more schools.
Science
Tools of the Trade
While “probeware” may not be a household word, it has grown more familiar to science educators as new instruments for collecting and analyzing data from the physical world.
Classroom Technology
Blackboard vs. Moodle
A growing number of K-12 educators are using course-management systems to distribute information to students and their parents.
Science
Opinion
Where Are the ‘T’ and ‘E’ in STEM?
Some ed-tech experts are concerned that policymakers are overemphasizing the math and science parts of STEM at the expense of technology and engineering.
IT Infrastructure & Management
Friend or Foe? Balancing the Good and Bad of Social-Networking Sites
With the advent and rapid growth of social-networking sites, the result is that school leaders are being forced to deal with a host of unsettled and even unsavory issues.
IT Infrastructure & Management
Classroom Connections
Educators are mulling ways to use the influence of social-networking sites to foster deeper ties to schools and education.
Ed-Tech Policy
The School’s Role
Our guests discussed how social-networking technologies can be used to help students learn and monitor their behavior.
Classroom Technology
Happy Birthday, DD!
In the first issue, we told you that our goal was to build a publication whose sole purpose was to help ed-tech leaders do their jobs better. A year later, we feel that we are heading in the right direction.
Classroom Technology
A School Where STEM is King
For the past two decades, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute has remolded its curriculum around blending disciplines known as STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
IT Infrastructure & Management
What Is a CMS
EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of information technology in education, provided a definition of course-management systems in a paper on the topic prepared in 2003 by the group’s Emerging Technologies Committee. “At its simplest, a course-management system is a tool that allows an instructor to post information on the Web without that instructor having to know or understand HTML or other computer languages. A more complete definition of a CMS is that it provides an instructor with a set of tools and a framework that allows the relatively easy creation of online course content and the subsequent teaching and management of that course, including various interactions with students taking the course.”The Teacher Education Center at Illinois State University notes that most online course-management systems include:
IT Infrastructure & Management
The Ed-Tech View from Washington
Timothy J. Magner, the director of the U.S. Department of Education’s office of educational technology, talks about the big picture and emerging issues.
IT Infrastructure & Management
A Novel Idea Crafted on a Cellphone
If U.S. students embrace the literary phenomenon now sweeping Japan, the next great American novel could be written on a cellphone.
School & District Management
Total Cost to You...$0
Building an ethical playbook for dealing with IT vendors could save your job.
Classroom Technology
Checking Sources
The Internet has become a place where hidden agendas and false information about history and social studies can trip up both students and teachers.
IT Infrastructure & Management
'Data Leakage'
School districts store vast amounts of confidential data in their computer systems. But that information doesn’t always stay private.