Memo #4 from Mobile Learning Week 2015

Paris, France
February 26, 2015

This year’s Mobile Learning Week was a collaboration of UNESCO and UN-Women.  The collaboration led to a unique theme of how to empower women and girls with mobile devices.  The keynotes, panels and breakout sessions therefore focused on this intersection of technology and gender, and the topic of gender-sensitivity was front and center throughout the week.  But let’s be candid.  Some people do not know what gender-sensitivity means, and too many people have misunderstandings and wrong assumptions around women and girls’ interests in mobile learning.  My goal with this blog posting is to demystify the important topic based upon the research that we did for this week’s workshop. Let’s jump in by examining this gender-sensitivity from several levels!

Why is this topic important? 
Based upon the Speak Up data as well as results from several mobile learning evaluations conducted by Project Tomorrow, we have observed that mobile learning has a gender component.  When students are asked about how they want to use a mobile device to support their learning, girls and boys have different aspirations for schoolwork usage. For example, middle school boys want to use a mobile device to find online videos to help them with homework. Comparatively, middle school girls are often more interested in using their smartphone or tablet for collaborations with classmates, taking notes in class and communicating with classmates and teachers. Despite best efforts, instructional materials including digital content that are used with mobile devices may not be as gender sensitive as they could be.  Given that reality, it makes sense that we should dig more deeply into how digital tools and resources are either reinforcing or debunking traditional gender based norms and/or stereotypes. The goal therefore should be to more gender-sensitive or responsive in our plans for and use of those digital tools so that all students have an equitable opportunity for education.    

What is the definition of gender-sensitivity?  
There is an extensive body of research on the many terms used when discussing gender issues in education including gender-unequal, gender-blind, gender-specific and gender-sensitive.  Per the research, the three defining characteristics of gender-sensitivity are as follows:

• Gender-sensitivity considers gender norms, role and relationships 
• It takes into account the impact of policies, projects and programs on women/girls and men/boys 
• And it tries to mitigate negative consequences of the gender impact.

Comparatively, gender-blind see no differences between how girls and boys approach instructional materials or technology.  Instructional materials that are gender-unequal or bias are developed to favor one gender over another.  Gender-specific is similar but without the inherent negative consequences.

How can we become more gender-sensitive in our selection of instructional materials for use in classrooms by girls and boys?
As noted above, the research on this topic including case studies and implications for a wide range of instructional materials is available through multiple sources.  However, despite the extensiveness of the research, there is surprisingly very few resources that could be used by a teacher, school or district to evaluate the tools and content that they are using within instruction. For our workshop on Monday, therefore, we developed that kind of tool that can help you identify the gender-sensitivity of the digital content you may be using with students right now.  The Guide for Evaluating Gender-Sensitivity within Digital Content includes a list of “questions for consideration.”  The questions are categorized into four themes:  categorization, imagery and language, storyline and results.  While the guide will not give you a grade or score for your digital content, it will help to instigate new discussions around gender-sensitivity, the use of digital content within instruction, and education equity.  The best news is that you can access this guide on our website.  Check out both versions of the guide (one for digital content and a similar one for digital games) at www.tomorrow.org/UNESCOworkshop.html.  If you use the guide within your school, district or organization, let us know your thoughts on this new tool.

Speak Up News - March 2015

Quick links: ▪ Announcing our first Congressional Briefing! Learn more about the date and details of our first briefing. ▪ Mobile Learning Week 2015: Catch up on UNESCO's Mobile Learning Week through Julie Evans' takeaway blog posts. ▪ Flipped Learning Report: We teamed up with the Flipped Learning Network to create a whitepaper based on Speak Up 2014 data.  ▪ Leading the Digital Learning Transition: Learn how to create Future Ready schools through the Friday Institute's upcoming MOOC.  ▪ Your survey results are now available! All Speak Up 2014 participants can access their school or district data. ▪ Speak Up on the go! Learn more about upcoming presentations with our CEO, Julie Evans.  Thanks for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog. -The Project Tomorrow team

National Release of Speak Up 2014 National Findings 2015 Congressional Briefing Thursday, April 30, 2015 12:00-1:30PM Hart Senate Office Building Room 902 Washington, D.C. Please join us for the release of the Speak Up 2014 National Findings. This is the first of two Congressional Briefings on the data results from the 521,000 online Speak Up surveys submitted from education stakeholders nationwide in fall 2014. The April 30th briefing will include a presentation of the national findings and a moderated panel discussion with students and educators. This year’s national report on the findings will be distributed to all attendees. Click here to RSVP to attend the briefing; click here to request a copy of the report. If your district is interested in having students participate in our student panel, please contact Lisa Chu at lchu@tomorrow.org or (949) 609-4660 ext. 12. If you need additional information about Speak Up or the Congressional Briefing, please feel free to contact Jenny Hostert at jhostert@tomorrow.org or (949) 609-4660 ext 17.

Mobile Learning Week 2015 February 23-27 in Paris, France Mobile Learning Week 2015 - hosted by UNESCOand UN Women - includes inspiring keynotes, plenary sessions, and a myriad of small, TedTalk like sessions on all kinds of topics related to girls, women, and mobile learning. This annual symposium spans the course of five days in Paris, France, and features 100+ speakers, 12 workshops, 80 presentations, and 1000+ participants from over 70 countries worldwide in order to explore the intersection of technology, education, and gender. This week, Project Tomorrow CEO Julie Evans is in Paris to participate in two workshops. The first workshop, "Inspiring girls through games and coding: A hands-on exploration," held by our friends at BrainPOP, focuses on girls' interest in playing learning games, creating their own games, and learning how to code using mobile devices - with data provided by Speak Up. The second workshop, "Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Gender-sensitive Mobile Learning Projects within Educational Settings" was held by Julie herself, along with Dr. Kari Stubbs from BrainPOP, and addresses how to design mobile learning projects that are constructed with gender-sensitivity as well as cultural awareness. You can learn more about this workshop on our website. Be a part of the experience by following Julie on Twitter (@JulieEvans_PT) for live updates. You can also read Julie's daily takeaway blog posts - which feature recaps of each day of the symposium - on the Project Tomorrow blog.

New Whitepaper from the Flipped Learning Network Speak Up 2014 National Research Project Findings Flipped Learning continues to trend for third year To continue watching the Flipped Learning trend, for the third year in a row we have partnered with the Flipped Learning Network to ask specific questions on flipped learning in the Speak Up 2014 surveys. In this new whitepaper, the Flipped Learning Network focuses on data from teachers, librarians, building and district administrators, technology leaders and students regarding their use of videos in the classroom, digital content, and other flipped learning related experiences. Additionally, educators and administrators weighed in on professional development when learning how to flip a class. Students lent their voices on flipped learning, videos as homework, and how (and how often) they use learning and social media tools. To read the full report, click here.

Leading the Digital Learning Transition: Creating Future Ready Schools March 2 - April 26 Learn more and register here This Massive Open Online Course for Educators (MOOC-Ed) is designed for school and district leaders, and any others involved in planning and implementing K-12 digital learning initiatives. Everyone involved in digital learning (also known as blended learning, e-learning and instructional technology) in a K-12 school or district is welcome to join the course. This course will help you: ▪ Understand the potential of digital learning in K-12 schools ▪ Assess progress and set future goals for your school or district ▪ Begin to develop a plan to achieve your digital learning goals. The DLT MOOC-Ed consists of five units scheduled over eight weeks. Participants are invited to work in all the units or to select those that are most relevant to their personal learning goals. A certificate of completion to obtain CEUs is available for those who complete certain requirements. There is no cost for participating in the DLT MOOC-Ed. Dr. Glenn Kleiman and Dr. Mary Ann Wolf are the program directors, with many others from school districts and other organizations throughout the country contributing to planning and facilitating the course. Other MOOC-Ed courses currently open for registration include Learning Differences, Disciplinary Literacy for Deeper Learning, Coaching Digital Learning, and Teaching Statistics through Data Investigations. More information about these courses can be found at mooc-ed.org.

Your Speak Up data is now available! If your school or district participated in Speak Up between October and December of 2014, it’s time to dig in and see what your students, teachers, parents and community members had to say. Click here to view your data, retrieve forgotten passwords, and more.

Speak Up On the Go! Upcoming presentations Paying it Forward: Leveraging Today’s Female Voice Tuesday, March 10 SXSWedu The Road To TEACH Wednesday, March 11 SXSWedu The Eight Essentials for Success in Mobile Learning Tuesday, March 17 CoSN 2015 Annual Conference

Thank you for your interest and continued support of Speak Up! Be sure to stay updated on all things Speak Up by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our Blog. If you have any questions please feel free to contact our Speak Up Operations Manager, Jenny Hostert, at jhostert@tomorrow.org or via phone at (949) 609-4660 ext. 17.

Many thanks to our sponsors and partners for the support of Speak Up 2014: Blackboard Inc., BrainPOP, Fuel Education, DreamBox Learning, Schoolwires, Qualcomm Wireless Reach, Rosetta Stone, American Association of School Administrators, Consortium for School Networking, Digital Learning Day, Digital Promise, edWeb, International Association for K-12 Online Learning, International Society for Technology in Education, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National School Boards Association, Secondary Education Teachers’ Association, and the Southern Regional Education Board.

Memo #3 from Mobile Learning Week 2015

Paris, France

February 25, 2015

While all of the keynotes, plenary sessions and small group discussions at Mobile Learning Week have been fabulous, my personal favorite so far has been a panel discussion on the intersection of mobile devices, girls and literacy.  As I tweeted earlier today, it was hard to keep up with all of the insightful comments, ideas and suggestions from the rock star panel.  Speak of rock stars, check out this panel lineup – and if you don’t know these folks, I highly recommend that you Google them and connect with them on social media. That is exactly what I did today!

• Shaheen Attiqu-Ur-Rahman (Bunyad Literacy Council)
• Gulser Corat (UNESCO)
• Shafika Isaacs (International Education Consultant) 
• Matt Keller (XPrize Foundation)
• Steve Vosloo (Pearson, South Africa) 
• Dan Wagner (University of Pennsylvania)  

It is hard to digest the entire 70 minute panel discussion in one blog posting, but here are 5 key takeaways that 12 hours later I am still thinking about.  Remember, the topic was about how mobiles can enhance literacy for all people, especially girls.

1. Mobile devices enable two-way communications for adults and kids to comment and discuss what they are reading.  A printed book does not allow you to give immediate feedback on the content or to facilitate a discussion with folks around the world. 
2. The inclusion of mobiles into discussions around how to improve literacy is actually instigating new conversations about what we mean when we say literacy in 2015.  The expanded version of literacy now seems to include not just reading, but different forms of writing including commentary, ICT or technology literacy skills, and critical thinking skills. 
3. As per Ms. Attiq-Ur-Rahman, mobiles enable women in particular to have a voice; having that voice supports greater self-confidence and efficacy; having that new self-image promote the ability to create changes that impact women’s lives.  Those changes can positively impact not only the woman, but also her children, her family, her community and her society. 
4. Having a stake and a voice in her life empowers the woman or girl to think beyond simply being a consumer of content and technology, and instead becoming a creator of digital tools and resources. 
5. Mobile devices, wireless technology and mobile learning resources are uniquely qualified to nurture, support and sustain changes in how all people, adults and youth, look at their world and their place within it.  The ability to tap into knowledge through your fingertips, to have tools in the palm of your hand to support learning, and to be able to conveniently and effectively follow a passion for learning or entrepreneurship may seem second nature today in the US, but in most of the developing world, these are dramatic game changers. Despite this potential, a unique refrain throughout this week has been the challenge of how to scale and sustain mobile learning projects.  Much more work is needed here in both the developed and developing world. 

Tomorrow in our 4th Memo from Mobile Learning Week I am going to discuss the issue of gender sensitivity and digital learning.  This has very direct implications for how we are going to universally tackle the sticky challenge of scale and sustainability.  Despite that, I am impressed that UNESCO in collaboration with UN-Women has taken on this big topic of women, girls and mobiles for this year’s MLW.  While there were many very thoughtful leaders talking about this topic during the Symposium, let’s be candid: too many people have misunderstandings and wrong assumptions around women and girls’ interests in mobile learning.  My goal with tomorrow’s blog posting is to demystify it a bit based upon the research that we did for this week’s workshop.  Stay tuned!

Memo #2 from Mobile Learning Week 2015

Paris, France

February 24, 2015

It is not often that I have the opportunity to attend a conference and focus on my own learning. Too often, I am consumed by preparation for my own sessions and presentations without any time to really absorb the energy or ideas generated by the event itself.  Not today.  Not at MLW2015.  With over 500 attendees representing over 80 countries here at this week’s Mobile Learning Week, I cannot help but sit back and be a student at this conference.  Here are 3 things that I learned today that I wanted to share with you.

1.       There are so many innovative and amazing projects involving mobile devices and digital content going on all around the globe.  With this week’s focus on women and girls, the projects are even more interesting for their emphasis on female empowerment and equity of opportunity.  I am also so impressed with the passion of the project leaders – whether that is a nonprofit/NGO, a government agency, an affiliate of the United Nations, or a company – everyone is excited and eager to share their story, what they have learned from their projects, and ask for help where needed.  The spirit of partnership development is alive and well here.  However, just as we see in the US conferences, too many projects are still “campfires of innovation” without any real plans or processes in place to scale, replicate or sustain their efforts.  Scaling projects is tough work – and often takes a different set of skills than project implementation.  I learned that this challenge is truly a universal one and that is actually good news. It means that there is a unique opportunity to share ideas and strategies beyond borders – and with a greater number of participants.  Two (or two million) brains are better than one on these types of challenges!

2.       Cherie Blair of the Cherie Blair Foundation forWomen was a speaker at today’s Symposium. Her foundation is doing important work supporting women’s education especially in terms of driving self-sufficiency and economic development.  They are a high impact nonprofit organization that has focused on collaborative projects to extend their impact – smart.  I was especially impressed with how they are engaging with technology to support their mission.  Mrs. Blair gave several examples of using mobile devices and blended learning help women develop the skills they need to be successful entrepreneurs in Africa.  My takeaway from her talk was some new ideas around how digital tools such as mobile devices can not only extend learning for students, but can be employed to support life-long, life-wide, life-deep learning in all kinds of communities, with all kinds of different goals.  In that sense, mobile provides a way for the learning to come directly to the learner. 

3.       One of the day’s high profile panels was about providing equitable access to women and girls and thus, equalizing opportunity. The panel was top notch and included speakers from Intel, the Wikipedia Foundation and Mozilla amongst others.  All women, all passionate about equity, opportunity and the future.  I was especially impressed with Doreen Bogdan, who is the Chief of Strategic Planning and Membership for ITU, the International Telecommunications Union, a specialized agency with the United Nations.  The mission of this agency is to connect the world – simple task.  Her remarks focused on the need to connect more girls to technology careers and she shared some startling statistics on the decrease over the last few years in women’s interest in STEM careers.  We have tracked through the Speak Up data the lack of any real movement in terms of increasing girls’ interest in STEM fields, but the idea that we are slipping backwards was frightening.  ITU supports an interesting initiative called “Girls in ICT Day” which is a global event to shine a light on technology career opportunities for girls and women.  This year the event will be held on April 23.  As someone who has spent a career in the technology field, this hits home to me.  Check this out – and let me know how you think we can work together on this with your organization, school or district.           

Wednesday is the second day of the two day Mobile Learning Symposium.  The Symposium includes inspiring keynotes and plenary sessions – and a myriad of small, Tedtalk like sessions on all kinds of topics related to girls, women and mobile learning.  Another full day of learning!  Be part of the experience by following me on Twitter (@JulieEvans_PT).  I can’t wait to share with you tomorrow my insights from this event (and the people I am meeting) in our Memo #3 from Mobile Learning Week 2015!  

Memo #1 from Mobile Learning Week 2015

Paris, France

February 23, 2015

According to Dr. Patience Stephens, Director/Special Advisor on Education for UN-Women, it is no longer appropriate or tolerable to do a minimalist job of providing girls and women with the tools they need to improve their lives – most notably with a second-class education. What a true statement – so obvious, but still not reality, especially not in many places around the globe.  With that inspiration and a call to more fully examine how mobile devices in particular can enable and empower change for girls and women, this year’s Mobile Learning Week 2015 was off to a great start.  Today was the workshop day of the weeklong event and I was honored to be chosen from a field of 70 proposals to lead one of the 12 workshops today.  Additionally, our good friend, Dr. Kari Stubbs, Vice President of Innovation and Learning at BrainPOP asked me to participate in her workshop to provide Speak Up research support.  It was a fun and exciting day examining the intersections of STEM, digital learning, games, coding, mobile devices – and girls!  I am excited to share with you 2 big takeaways based upon the workshops today that I hope may lead to deeper discussions on these important issues in your schools, districts, organizations and communities. If they do, I would love to hear back from you!

Take-away #1:  The morning workshop was led by the BrainPOP team and focused on girls’ interest in playing learning games, creating their own games, and learning how to code using mobile devices. Speak Up data provided the contextual background for many of the learning experiences within this workshop.  What I especially liked was the high level of audience participation and interactivity within the workshop.  Participants had multiple opportunities to play different kinds of games and even try their hand at coding.  While playing learning games is always fun, the play/learn experiences was grounded in examining the content through the lens of gender-sensitivity.  While it may seem easy to identify Game X as a “boy-oriented” game and Game Y as “girl-focused,” the audience quickly realized that those superficial stereotypes were inconclusive.  Using a guide developed by Project Tomorrow for this workshop, the participants had a chance to do a deeper dive as game and content evaluators and in the process, learned a lot of about their own biases and potential blindness to gender issues in digital content, games and other instructional materials.  The guide is available with other workshop materials at http://www.tomorrow.org/UNESCOworkshop.html.   We already know that the inclusion of mobile devices increases student engagement in learning. But what if we could prove that using mobile devices helps create more gender-responsive, transformative learning environments for all students?    We have much more work to do in this arena but I was excited to see the level of interest in this topic amongst the Mobile Learning Week attendees. 

Take-away #2:  In the afternoon workshop, the focus was on how to design, implement and evaluate a gender-sensitive mobile learning project.  I led this workshop with support this time from Dr. Stubbs. Based upon Project Tomorrow research in this area, we shared a new way of thinking about the evolution of a mobile planning project from a gender-sensitivity perspective, starting from the identification of your project purpose through the synthesis of research data to share with stakeholders.  But first we had to review what we meant by gender-sensitivity.  A simplified version is basically becoming more aware of gender norms, roles and relationships and how those inherent or un-intended biases or opinions influences students’ learning. The real goal here is to develop new mobile learning projects that recognize gender issues and then, strategically and deliberately create ways to minimize the impact of any gender-blind or unequal priorities or values. As you might imagine these workshop topics instigated new questions and ideas about understanding and identifying gender-sensitivity.  Several points that the audience made on this topic intrigued me; I need to do more thinking on several of the points raised. However, several questions came up as to whether the goal of gender-sensitivity was to right the wrongs of the past in terms of unequal learning opportunities for girls, or to aim for how gender issues can be mitigated to the point of truly equal education for all genders. Both approaches are important to consider especially because in some communities, there is an emerging “boy crisis” where male students are feeling like second class citizens in their schools and that perception is affecting their school performance.  Sound familiar?  So, how do we really design, implement and evaluate new mobile learning projects that enable girls to reach for the stars in educational opportunities while not dashing the dreams and aspirations of their brothers?   I have a few suggestions.  Check out the PowerPoint from today’s workshop.  Spoiler alert – the powerpoint includes brand new data findings from Speak Up 2014. Review, enjoy and pass it on: http://www.tomorrow.org/UNESCOworkshop.html.

Tuesday is the first day of the two day Mobile Learning Symposium.  The Symposium includes inspiring keynotes and plenary sessions – and a myriad of small, TedTalk like sessions on all kinds of topics related to girls, women and mobile learning.  It is going to be a full day.  Be part of the experience by following me on Twitter (@JulieEvans_PT).  I can’t wait to share with you tomorrow my new learnings from this event in our Memo #2 from Mobile Learning Week 2015!  

Leading the Digital Learning Transition: Creating Future Ready Schools

March 2 - April 26

Learn more and register at courses.mooc-ed.org/dlt4

This Massive Open Online Course for Educators (MOOC-Ed) is designed for school and district leaders, and any others involved in planning and implementing K-12 digital learning initiatives. Everyone involved in digital learning (also known as blended learning, e-learning and instructional technology) in a K-12 school or district is welcome to join the course.

This course will help you:

• Understand the potential of digital learning in K-12 schools
• Assess progress and set future goals for your school or district
• Begin to develop a plan to achieve your digital learning goals

The DLT MOOC-Ed is organized around the Future Ready Schools Digital Learning Framework. This framework shows the Digital Learning Transition Vision-Plan-Implement-Assess cycle around the seven DLT planning elements, which are all centered on improving student learning. It also shows, in the outer circle, that leadership is critical throughout the transition process.

The DLT MOOC-Ed consists of five units scheduled over eight weeks. Participants are invited to work in all the units or to select those that are most relevant to their personal learning goals. A certificate of completion to obtain CEUs is available for those who complete certain requirements. There is no cost for participating in the DLT MOOC-Ed.

Dr. Glenn Kleiman and Dr. Mary Ann Wolf are the program directors, with many others from school districts and other orgnizations throughout the country contributing to planning and facilitating the course.

Other MOOC-Ed courses currently open for registration include Learning Differences, Disciplinary Literacy for Deeper Learning, Coaching Digital Learning, and Teaching Statistics through Data Investigations. More information about these courses can be found at mooc-ed.org.

MOOC-Ed.org is a project of the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at the NC State College of Education. Built on research-based models of effective professional development, professional learning communities, and online communities of practice, MOOC-Ed courses focus on authentic, project-based learning, collaboration, and peer-supported learning, rather than tests and grades that are needed in other types of MOOCs.

U.S. students slowly improving in math and science

Last month, the Pew Research Center released data showing that although U.S. students are slowly improving in math and science, they still are behind in the subjects when compared to other countries.

Only 29% of Americans rated their country's K-12 STEM education as above average; scientists were even more critical, with only 16% of American Association of the Advancement of Science members calling K-12 STEM education above average. Despite these low percentages, U.S. students are slowly improving in math and science, scoring higher on national assessments than they did two decades ago. However, the U.S. still has more work to do when compared internationally, as they still rank in the middle and behind several other nations.

Among these cross-national assessments is the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measures reading ability, math and science literacy, and other skills every three years; in 2012, the U.S. placed 35th out of 64 countries in math, and 27th in science (see below photo). Another assessment is the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which tests students every four years, placed the U.S. in the top ten countries

Interested in reading more? Check out the original article, "U.S. students improving – slowly – in math and science, but still lagging internationally" by Drew Desilver and check out the Pew Research Center's official website. You can learn more about the most recent PISA results by reading our old blog post, "PISA Results"

Here at Project Tomorrow, our vision is to ensure that today’s students are well prepared to be tomorrow’s innovators, leaders and engaged citizens of the world.  We believe that by supporting the innovative uses of science, math and technology resources in our K-12 schools and communities, students will develop the critical thinking, problem solving and creativity skills needed to compete and thrive in the 21st century. You can learn more about us and our various programs at http://www.tomorrow.org/

Around the Web Wednesday

Happy Around the Web Wednesday! Browse all the links below for the latest news and topics trending in education and technology. Be sure to let us know which article intrigued you the most!

- The Project Tomorrow Team

Technology takes hold in the early grades - EdSource

My top 6 gaming resources for STEM teaching - eSchool News

Common Core Driving Schools’ Technology Needs - EdTech: Focus on K-12

STEM Gender Gap in K-12 Evolving, Data Show - Education Week

Techniques for Unleashing Student Work from Learning Management Systems - Mind/Shift

Study: Large online literacy achievement gap exists - District Administration Magazine

9 IT Best Practices for BYOD Districts - The Journal

Last Chance to Register for the Making Learning Mobile 2.0 Webinar!

Time is running out! Don't miss this last opportunity to register for our webinar. Join executive leadership Michael Flood from Kajeet and Julie Evans from Project Tomorrow for a webinar on Wednesday, February 18 at 4 PM EST. This event will focus on the findings of a two-year long research study which took an in-depth look at the impact of 1-to-1 tablet implementation in elementary and middle schools. The project was sponsored by Kajeet with funding from Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach Initiative. Find out more about:

• Increased student engagement in lessons which resulted in higher scores
• Teacher adaptation to Mobile Learning which led to increased student reading and writing fluency
• At-home Internet access led to higher student/family engagement, contributing to academic success
• Detailed explanation of how Kajeet is working on bridging the digital divide

Click here to register

Date: Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015

Time: 4:00 PM EST

Problems Registering?

Please contact Ayesha Lodhi at alodhi@kajeet.com for assistance.

Exciting STEM opportunity for high school students

To encourage more students to purse the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), Edwards Lifesciences Foundation is sponsoring two scholarships for high school students (incoming juniors and seniors) to participate in the Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology at UCI’s CardioStart program.

This six-week program will take place between July 6 and August 14, 2015 and teaches students to explore the worlds of cells and tissue biology beyond the textbook through hands-on, bench top and research projects. Please see the above flyer and visit http://cardiovascular.eng.uci.edu/cardiostart to learn more.

Students 16 and over with a minimum GPA of 3.0 may apply by emailing cardio@uci.edu and requesting an application form. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 2, 2015.

February 18th Webinar: Learn How Technology is Improving the Classroom Experience

Join executive leadership Michael Flood from Kajeet and Julie Evans from Project Tomorrow, for a webinar on Wednesday, February 18 at 4 PM EST. This event will focus on the findings of a two year long research study which took an in-depth look at the impact of 1-to-1 tablet implementation in elementary and middle schools. The project was sponsored by Kajeet with funding from Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach Initiative. Find out more about:

• Increased student engagement in lessons which resulted in higher scores
• Teacher adaptation to Mobile Learning which led to increased student reading and writing fluency
• At-home Internet access led to higher student/family engagement, contributing to academic success
• Detailed explanation of how Kajeet is working on bridging the digital divide

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Time: 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Problems Registering?

Please contact Ayesha Lodhi at alodhi@kajeet.com for assistance.

Around the Web Wednesday

Happy Around the Web Wednesday! Browse all the links below for the latest news and topics trending in education and technology. Be sure to let us know which article intrigued you the most!

- The Project Tomorrow Team

TCEA 2015: 7 Twitter Tips to Help Teachers Become Tweeting Pros - EdTech: Focus on K-12

U.S. students improving – slowly – in math and science, but still lagging internationally - Pew Research Center

School Leaders Mostly Mystified by Computer Science Education - The Journal

Mobile broadband solution could ease access concerns - eSchool News

High-End Hardware Gives Colleges an Edge in IT Education - EdTech Magazine

Teaching in the Age of Minecraft - The Atlantic

4 ways a GoPro can boost your campus profile - eCampus News

What are your student data privacy predictions for the next five years?

Last month, the Florida Education Technology Conference (FETC), one of the largest conferences in the United States dedicated to educational technology, highlighted innovative ways in which educational technology is used in schools, as well as predictions for the future of student data privacy - a topic that has garnered much discussion in recent weeks.

"In five years, I think education technology will be completely ubiquitous, and it will be integrated into parts of the curriculum that we are just beginning to conceive of," said Leah Plunkett, a fellow at Berkman Center for Internet and Society, during her session on data privacy with Paulina Haduong. While the growing presence and use of educational technology will bring about new opportunities for learning for students, it will also require new privacy and security policies at schools.

During their session, Plunkett and Haduong tested the audience's attitudes towards privacy by posing hypothetical situations, such as the implementation of a robot hall monitor that notified parents if students were caught breaking school rules. The audience had several concerns about the situations, asking if the information would go into a cloud drive or private database, who the robot would be controlled by, and if students would even know if they were being monitored. The audience members also made the following data privacy predictions for the next five years:

• What's called education technology will become routine.
• In five years we'll be struggling to be more efficient.
• Within five years the U.S. will face a catastrophic public privacy issue in the public space in the cloud.
• We'll be trying to get teachers up to speed on technology. Students are there.
• A reciprocated relationship will develop between advanced teachers and inexperienced teachers who don't have the (technological) savviness.
• We might line up legislation to allow teachers to be innovative in the classroom to protect privacy.
• We'll learn what data we can safely put in the cloud.
• Our privacy concerns will diversify over new several platforms that will develop over the next few years.
• In five years, there will be more devices with more operating systems that will lead to more data being collected and more privacy breaches. (The Journal)

Interested in learning more? Read the original article, "Predictions for the Future of Student Data Privacy" by Patrick Peterson (The Journal), and be sure to view your Speak Up 2014 data if you have not already, as we asked questions regarding student data privacy.

What are your student data privacy predictions for the next five years? Let us know by commenting on this post, our Facebook page, or our Twitter account!

Project Tomorrow featured in The Journal

Earlier this week, Project Tomorrow, Kajeet, and Qualcomm's Wireless Reach Initiative were featured in Dian Schaffhauser's "Internet Access as Vital as Devices to Boosting the Learning Experience" in The Journal. The article discusses the results from our three-year study at Falconer Elementary School in Chicago, IL, which were published in our Making Learning Mobile 2.0 Report. Read an excerpt from Schaffhauser's article below:

 "Within the school 127 fifth grade students and their four teachers were outfitted with Samsung Android tablets and SmartSpots for personal use. Just over a third of the students told the researchers that they didn't have access to high-speed Internet at home. 

As part of the study, the four teachers also received 56 hours of professional development, coaching and mentoring 'to increase their effectiveness with using the tablets for instruction.' Because this was the second year of the study, the researchers initially thought the educators would have a greater 'comfort level' in their use of the device and online tools within their instruction. However, staffing changes meant that only two of the original four were part of the fifth grade class in the second year, which meant half the teacher team still had a learning curve. Yet, noted the report, 'The teachers' strong commitment to professional development and their willingness to incorporate new strategies and resources into their classroom is a hallmark of a successful and maturing mobile learning project.'"

Interested in learning more about the Making Learning Mobile study? Read the Journal's article, "Internet Access as Vital as Devices to Boosting the Learning Experience" by Dian Schaffhauser, and check out the Making Learning Mobile 2.0 Report.

THE Journal is dedicated to informing and educating K-12 senior-level district and school administrators, technologists, and tech-savvy educators within districts, schools, and classrooms to improve and advance the learning process through the use of technology. Launched in 1972, THE Journal was the first magazine to cover education technology. THE Journal is the leading resource for administrative, technical, and academic technology leaders in K-12 education.

Your Speak Up data is in!

We are excited to release the Speak Up 2014 data results to all participating organizations! If your school or district participated in Speak Up between October and December of last year, it’s time to dig in and see what your students, teachers, parents and community members had to say. Keep reading to learn how to access your data and more. Quick links: ▪ Your survey results are now available! Learn how to access your Speak Up data results. ▪ Exporting your data is easy: Simply print the results or copy and paste them into one of our templates. ▪ Need help with your Speak Up data? Learn more about our Speak Up services. ▪ Speak Up on the go! Learn more about upcoming presentations with our CEO, Julie Evans.  For more than a decade, Speak Up has been providing this service to schools and districts around the country. We’re excited to see how this data informs your initiatives, policies and practices. Drop us a note and let us know how you use the data this year or how we can make the surveys even more useful next year. We love hearing from you! Feel free to share your thoughts with us on Facebook,Twitter, and our Blog. -The Project Tomorrow team

Access your Speak Up results online All schools and districts around the country who registered for Speak up 2014 can now access their data for free - here's how: 1. Click here to access your reports. 2. Select either Option 1 to view District results or Option 2 to view individual School results. 3. Next, enter the state, the first few letters of your district or school name and your admin password. 4. To view data reports, select the number in the “# of District Surveys” column to display that survey type. 5. To view your open ended text responses, click on “District ” in the Open Ended Responses Column. 6. Print the results or copy and paste them into your own file or this Speak Up Data Excel Template. To view your data across audiences and by theme, use ourthematic report template to drop in your school or district’s data. *Please note, at least one survey must be present to display the survey results with state and national comparisons.

Exporting your Speak Up data Exporting your Speak Up data is quick and easy! Just follow these steps: 1. Highlight and copy the Speak Up data by survey type from our Speak Up data homepage. 2. Paste your data into our template Excel spreadsheet (click here to download) - the survey types are already organized by tab. 3. The file is already formatted to print, making it easy to view your data! Click here to learn more about accessing your data, or watch our quick how-to video here.

Need help? The Project Tomorrow staff is available to help you effectively use your data, here are just a few of the services we can provide you: ▪ Identify the top 5 trends in your school, district or state with national benchmarks ▪ Create a Speak Up presentation that you can use to share your Speak Up results in your school or district ▪ Provide Speak Up fast facts that can be used on your website, newsletters or promotional material ▪ Present your Speak Up data in person or via a webinar ▪ Prepare a summary of your specific Speak Up findings (school, district or state) that can be distributed to your stakeholders ▪ Write a case statement, using the Speak Up data, highlighting the benefits of investing in technology (school, district, state or national) ▪ Prepare a customized narrative report about your Speak Up data (school, district or state) Contact the Speak Up Team, to learn more about our consulting services and fees.

Speak Up On the Go! Upcoming presentations Webinar: Results from the Making Learning Mobile 2.0 Project in Chicago Hosted by Kajeet Wednesday, February 18th Register here The Current Pulse on Ed Tech NASSP Conference San Diego, CA Friday, February 20th Workshop: Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Gender-Sensitive Mobile Learning Projects in Educational Settings UNESCO's Mobile Learning Week Paris, France Monday, February 23rd