Beyond the Digital Conversion: Engaging, Enabling and Empowering Innovation in the Classroom

Join Julie Evans tomorrow for her free keynote session during the Reinventing the Classroom conference: "How Ed Tech Is Reshaping the Classroom Experience." This is a free event bringing together classroom educators and innovators around the world. The entire conference takes place in a webinar format, and specifically encourages teachers to share their best practices with their peers.

When: tomorrow, May 1st, at 6PM PT

Where: log in at http://bit.ly/1n05N5Z

What: Julie Evan's keynote session, "Beyond the Digital Conversion: Engaging, Enabling and Empowering Innovation in the Classroom"

Keynote information: The dynamic profusion of emerging technologies, both in school and out of school, is propelling today’s K-12 students to make new demands on their schools for a dramatically different kind of educational experience. Enabled, empowered and engaged, our students have a unique vision for 21st century education that reflects their desires for social-based learning experiences that are un-tethered to the traditional classroom and rich in digital media and content. The annual Speak Up National Research Project provides an exclusive window into the views of students on 21st century learning and technology. In this session we will share the latest Speak Up national findings from over 403,000 K-12 students, parents and educators with a special emphasis on the how today’s students want to be engaged with mobile learning, online and blended learning, and e-textbooks and digital content. The session will provide new insights into the digital disconnect between students and educators and stimulate conversations about how to effectively leverage emerging technologies to drive both increased student achievement and teacher productivity by re-inventing the classroom.

Don't forget to log in to http://bit.ly/1n05N5Z at 6PM PT tomorrow. Be sure to use the hashtag #reinvent14 and mention @SpeakUpEd, @ProjectTomorrow, and/or @Julie_EvansPT if you are taking the conversation to Twitter!

Open textbooks: an alternative to hefty textbook prices

It's no secret that the prices of college course textbooks have significantly risen in the past few years. This change has left some students to choose between buying certain textbooks or not buying any at all, the latter in which they turn to alternatives such as PDFs, or borrowing textbooks from the school library or classmates. Some professors have noted the hefty price of textbooks and have begun assigning open-source textbooks, which are course materials that are offered for free online by their authors under a nonrestrictive license.

"The degree of unaffordability is getting to the point that it's hurting learning," said David Wiley, co-founder of Lumen Learning, an organization which helps schools adopt open educational researchers. A 2014 study by the Student Public Interest Research Groups found that textbook costs are deterring students from purchasing course materials and are therefore impacting their studies.

Not only do open textbooks help students save money on school materials, but they also enable students to study on the go. Furthermore, despite criticisms that open-textbooks and easy online access to information may prevent students from attending class, professors have found that these open educational resources have actually improved their classes; they found that it places a premium on classroom interactions and forces students and educators to make better use of their time together in the classroom.

While not all schools have adopted open textbooks and online educational resources, several are catching on as tuition fees rise. Given that open textbooks are a fairly recent practice, educators are still evaluating it before fully adopting the resources. Ben Benderson, the executive director of University of Maryland's Teaching and Learning Transformation Center, noted, "As we develop a better understanding of what makes nonpaid resources work well, then we can start to encourage it more and more."

Want to learn more about open textbooks? Check out the original article "How some colleges are offering free textbooks" by CNN, or follow the report by The Student Public Interest Research Groups. Have you ever used open textbooks in class or elsewhere? Let us know about your experiences!

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!

Be sure to check back each week for our Around the Web Wednesday series. Have a great day!

- The Project Tomorrow Team

SanDisk Donates $1 Million to UC Berkeley - Market Watch

EverFi Partners With National Education Association (NEA) Foundation - Broadway World

College Board unveils changes in SAT that make test more practical - eSchool News

4 questions every tech leader should answer - eSchool News

Apps and Games for STEM Learning - National Environmental Education Week

How some colleges are offering free textbooks - CNN

Is the U.S. losing the tech race? - Los Angeles Times

4 Online Education Trends for 2014 - Tech Cocktail

Lego & National Instruments Promote "Hands-On" STEM Education

Lego, the toy-block company we all know and love, has teamed up with National Instruments to provide a more hands-on approach to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. By teaming up with National Instruments and its software, Lego enables students to improve their reasoning and problem-solving skills by programming robots they built out of robots. "Learning in books alone isn't going to be very engaging or effective. By actually using the same tools and concepts and technology that [students are] going to use later on, they can actually build on the same architecture, the same platform they can use [both in and out of school]," said Jennifer Dawkins, the STEM program manager at National Instruments.

Not only has Lego teamed up with National Instruments to provide hands-on STEM learning, but they have also partnered with National Initiative in an effort to change how STEM and other subjects are taught in classrooms throughout the country. This shift in STEM education guidelines is aimed at learning how to do science rather than just teaching kids about science. "What we know from the learning sciences is that the more actively a person engages with the material that they're learning, the better the retention and ability to apply that knowledge or that skill is," says Kemi Jona, the director of the Northwestern University Office of STEM Education Partnerships.

"Allowing those other perspectives to become part of what it means to learn science has been shown to engage a lot more students from lots of different backgrounds and help them see this is what they can do too: that they have the ability and the expertise and the knowledge to do it successfully," says Ann Rivet, an associate professor of science education at Teachers College at Columbia University. Through this new hands-on approach, Lego, National Instruments, and STEM educators throughout the country hope to make STEM fields more diverse.

To learn more about Lego and National Instruments' hands-on approach to STEM education, watch the video above or check out the article by US News. What do you think about this new approach to STEM learning? Let us know!

Speak Up in the news!

In accordance with our first Congressional Briefing earlier this month, the Speak Up 2013 survey data has been featured on several websites and publications - this time it was featured in EdTech Magazine and on the ISTE Connects Blog. Here are some highlighted results from the articles:

• 89% of high school satudents have access to smartphones, while only 50% have access to tablets.
• Girls play digital games just as much as boys do — and in some cases more.
• About a quarter of the teachers surveyed this year reported integrating digital games into their instructional plans.
• 39% of high school students and 48% of middle school students have access to E-Readers.

To view more Speak Up 2013 data, check out Report Card: What’s Happening in the World of Education Technology? (EdTech Magazine) and Could games be the key to piquing girls’ interest in STEM? (ISTE), or download the full report from our website.

EdTech: Focus on K–12 helps school district technology managers do their jobs better. The publication offers best practices, features, product reviews and case studies from the field that show how technology can be leveraged to improve teaching, learning and administrative services on school campuses of all types and sizes.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) is the premier nonprofit organization serving educators and education leaders committed to empowering connected learners in a connected world. ISTE serves more than 100,000 education stakeholders throughout the world.

Using Online Learning Tools to Prepare America’s Students for Success

Recently, our CEO Julie Evans sat down with our friends at Learning Outside the Lines to discuss how superintendents and teachers should look to a student-driven vision of the 21st Century Classroom using digital learning tools to foster collaboration, open access, and enriched learning, to personalize learning and best meet student achievement goals. 

Click on the video above to listen to Julie’s thoughts on this topic and several other key issues related to online learning and STEM education.

Learning Outside the Lines is provided by Fuel Education; it is an online publication brings together the insights of experts in online learning with superintendents, technologists, and those administering online learning programs to address the transformation of education. Learning Outside the Lines covers a range of topics from blended and fully online learning and the integration of technology into the classroom, to alternative education programs, remedial education, and current learning standards. Their experts engage in these discussions, share their experiences, and outline best practices to help define a better, brighter, educational future for your school district. Click here to learn more about the Learning Outside the Lines and Fuel Education.

Speak Up 2013 data featured on eSchool News!

This year's Speak Up report focused on how K-12 students use technology both in and out of the classroom, as well as their future career/academic choices regarding STEM and technology. The report was featured on eSchool News - check out some select findings below:

• Students increasingly use social media apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine (44 percent of students in grades 6-12) while use of Facebook has declined.
• Digital reader access is highest in grades 6-8, with 48 percent of students reporting they had access to such devices.
• Online assessments have grown with 47 percent of middle school students taking online tests, compared with 32 percent four years ago.

 To view more data from the report, check out Speak Up: The current state of digital learning by Laura DeVaney or download the full report from our website.

eSchool News covers education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to case studies, to purchasing practices and new products. First published in March of 1998, eSchool News is a monthly print and digital newspaper providing the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and the internet to transform North America’s schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals. The newspaper is read by more than 300,000 school leaders, and a companion web site—eSchool News Online (http://www.eschoolnews.com ) is visited by more than 500,000 unique visitors each month, including over 280,000 registered members.