"Avoid catastrophic thinking. Instead of thinking, “I’m a mess, I’ll never have enough time to study for this exam,” look at it like, “I may be a little late to study as much as I’d like, but since I’m doing it now, I’ll get most of it done.”"

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Reading on Edu-Technology Trends

10 Major Technology Trends in Education

Chris Riedel
02/03/14

Readings: Faculty Activism Education Laggards, Big Data ..

Northwestern orders professor to stay away.

Indian Education- Late by 50 years?

On Student Data Practices

Model Policy' for Handling Student Data

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Economic Times Reports
Nine of the 10 Indian Universities ranked 700th or above in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings 2016/17 have lost ground compared to last year in terms of both academic reputation and employer reputation.

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/54026745.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

India's Universities Low Down

Business Standard reports...

A relatively low number of doctoral students coupled with globally insufficient faculty-student ratio have resulted in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, along with six of seven top-ranked Indian Institutes of Technology(IITs), slip in the 13th edition of the QS World University Rankings 2016-17.

Business Standard Report

Global University Rankings

University Rankings -World

University Rankings - Australia

Rankings of Aussie Universities

Smart campus for smart communities in smart cities.

SMART CAMPUS INITIATIVE & INNOVATIONS
Check out this link;

Chicago Internet 2

Friday, September 2, 2016

Case Study of a Smart Campus project (The Indian Institute of Science- IISc)

The Indian Institute of Science is developing an open, integrated and extensible Internet of Things (IoT) technology stack for Smart Management of campus utilities.

The IoT stack brings together:

hybrid sensing with physical and crowd-sourced sensors,

diverse networking technologies,

Big Data Analytics platforms,

Sensor driven utility management.

The project is a "laboratory" to test and validate IoT research and technologies for India.

About 30 buildings on campus fitted with IoT networking and water sensors.Intelligent water management to take over for a sustainable campus environment.This will document water arrangements, patterns in buildings and labsReduce wastage due to leakages (“drips”)Ensure quality & maintenance of waterMonitor quality of water on tanks and outletsAlert users on potential quality issuesCrowdsource to report maintenance issues

IoT connects large numbers of sensors through the Internet

Allows sensing and data collection in real-time

Creates a feed-back loop,

IoT stack contains:

Sensors: Physical and Crowd-sourced sensors using Android App

Wireless Network: On the field to connect sensors with IISc LAN

Big Data Platform: Collect, store & analyse large data in real-time

Analytics: Algorithms for smart management decisions

IoT applications are data intensive.

Big Data platforms support such applications

Data arrives at high velocity from sensors

Applications obtain large volumes over time

Apache Storm ensures fast data processing

Hadoop/HBase for large data storage & query

Intelligent use of Edge Devices & Clouds

Reduce B/W, Improve privacy.

Source http://smartx.cds.iisc.ac.in/

(Stack refers to the layers (TCP, IP, and sometimes others) through which all data passes at both client and server ends of a data exchange. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the basic communication language or protocol of the Internet.)

(Apache Storm is a free and open source distributed realtime computation system. Storm makes it easy to reliably process unbounded streams of data, doing for realtime processing )

(Data ingestion is bringing data into your system, so the system can start acting upon it.)

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Smart Campus within a Smart City

“A Smart Campus” could be envisaged as a community of technologically interconnected academics and students within a Smart City. To launch a Smart Campus, one would need to identify specialized technical and non-technical skills available on a real time basis.

How would Smart Campus help?

Higher education researchers, educators, and students are in a vantage position to lead in inventing, innovating, discovering and developing IoT devices, applications, systems, and services.
It (Smart Campus) would lay the foundation for adding thrust to connectivity within the Smart City linking unconnected/non- networked points.
It should give an impetus to innovation – be the intellectual innovation lab of the Smart City.
It could evolve digitalized trading platforms (electronic bourses) so that trading at cheaper prices is feasible.
It could experiment in security intended monitoring and surveillance.
It could help erect/ commission smart buildings (energy efficient, ecologically sustainable, cost affordable).
It could use analytics to predictively mine Big data. The use of predictive analytics in learning would help dynamic behavioural pattern identification and help appreciate how students learn and respond to different types and levels of interventions. This could be extended to all city residents eventually.
Could be into operations' research on operational cost reduction and enhanced productivity. Potential cost savings include the areas of smart lighting, smart waste management, smart traffic signalling, smart parking, smart building optimisation.
Technology’s capacity to drive a better experience and outcome for students. The transmission of information flow would be dynamic, with real time assimilation of data flows with contacts between mobile and stationary elements and mobile to mobile elements. Elements.
The new Smart Campuses should fructify private-public partnerships.

Examples

At Virginia Tech, the VT Alerts system notifies students, staff, and faculty of a campus emergency situation. Smart campuses could use smartphones and wearables like students' smartwatches etc. as a connectable communications mechanism.
The University of Washington, a student-developed app— OneBusAway—provides real-time information for metro-area bus systems.
University of Wisconsin: Students create IoT apps end-to-end systems from devices speaking with other local devices such as in a smart home, communicating over a network to centralized management systems and to applications in the cloud. The UW-Madison IoT lab helps evolve new business models innovations, using IoT-enabled systems. This creates new services and integrate and analyses data from systems to increase add value to businesses and consumers. The University has a multidisciplinary approach.

References:

1 SmartCampus: A user-centric testbed for Internet of Things experimentation Michele Nati, Alexander Gluhak, Hamidreza Abangar and William Headley Centre for Communication Systems Research University of Surrey

2 Internet of Everything – Powering the Smart Campus & the Smart City Geelong’s Transformation to a Smart City, Report by Brad Davies, dandolo partners

3 The Internet of Things is Here by Florence D Hudson

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Why Towards a Smart Campus.

In a fast and furiously evolving technology driven world, all players, individual and organizational, will find themselves among the least or less skilled. Re-skilling accompanied by a large measure of de-skilling is important. One cannot be frozen in the past for individuals and organizations. If they do, there could be a Nokia moment. The competition will leave you behind. Samsung and Apple overtake you.

Dis-inter-mediation is here to stay:

Teachers by on line learning;
Doctors by robotic , precision surgeons;
Drivers by sensor driven cars;
Bankers by on line banking;
Mall employees by e tailers;
Book distributors by Amazon and Barnes & Noble or Flipkart.

One has no place to hide .
The biggest item in the agenda then is a psychological bin: discard and relearn.
Therein is the importance of Smart Campus. Re-learning assumes import at the pace acceptable to the learner and a mode accessible.

"A survey of 1,381 students (in the district) showed nearly 74 percent were more engaged, and 89 percent agreed they could solve problems or create presentations by researching online " (Source: Blended 2.0 shifts learning in schools Next phase of tech-infused teaching model goes deeper on personalization and authenticity:

https://www.districtadministration.com/article/blended-20-shifts-learning)

Blended Learning is here to stay within Smart Campuses accessible from homes.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

1.Lacking other meaningful data, university faculty devise their own teaching evaluation systems

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2016/aug/lacking-other-meaningful-data-university-faculty-devise-their-own-teaching-evaluat

2.

The Future Of Educational Technology: How Edtech Is Still Ignoring Its Biggest Market

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2016/08/23/the-future-of-educational-technology-how-edtech-is-still-ignoring-its-biggest-market/#35a05ed2640b

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Blended Learning : Lessons for Schools Intending to Change

"Every organisation must prepare to abandon

everything it does"

Peter Drucker

Extracts On Learning from DC on Blended Learning:

“District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS)[1] has developed three main blended learning initiatives over the past several years:

1. Since the 2013–14 school year, district and school leaders have redesigned 17 schools (10 elementary schools, four middle schools, and three high schools) to incorporate blended learning. Students who are introduced to blended learning in elementary school do not have to change instructional methods as they progress through schools.

2. Many schools not selected for redesigns are also using blended learning in a variety of grade levels and subject areas to meet their school-level academic goals.

3. High schools offer credit-recovery programs using the Enriched Virtual model of blended learning in which content is delivered online and students meet with highly qualified teachers in their content areas at least two or three times per week.

The district has made significant investments in online curriculum, network and wireless infrastructure, end-user devices, and professional development.

It has also established a dedicated team at the central office to research, implement, and evaluate blended learning. DCPS has recorded extensive and well-studied student gains in math and reading on district-wide assessments and the National Assessment of Educational Progress since implementing blended learning.

The redesigned elementary schools use the Station Rotation model of blended learning for math and reading, with some variation based on decisions made by school leaders. The redesigned middle school uses the Individual Rotation model of blended learning for math and has worked with New Classrooms to design and implement the blended model.

Across all schools (not just the blended schools), the district uses a variety of online curriculum products, including Lexia and myON for reading and ST Math, First in Math, and i-Ready for math. Science, social studies, and world languages classes also use online curriculum.

The district retrained its teacher evaluators, known as Master Educators, on evaluation techniques applicable to blended learning classrooms.

In elementary schools, students in reading and math classes rotate on a fixed schedule through three stations: one station is teacher-led small-group instruction, another is online learning, and a third is either independent practice or project-based learning.

In the redesigned middle school, all students have a laptop that allows them to move through online curriculum at their own pace, with support from a team of teachers. In addition to the redesigned schools, there are smaller blended-learning initiatives occurring in the district’s other schools that focus primarily on math and reading.

It has also focused on identifying strategies that improve outcomes for the lowest performing students. The district has recorded student gains in math and reading since implementing blended learning.”

Source given in Footnote

[1] http://www.kpk12.com/wp-content/uploads/DCPS.pdf

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Visualizing Internet of Things in Education:Autumn for Extant Teachers ?

Student Centric Learning Management Systems will rule the realm of Internet of Things. Students will learn with greater autonomy and will be on their own rather than be spoon fed.
Learning process would be driven by dashboard reflexes. Students would have access through a dashboard to all data that affect them.
Teachers will have a dashboard too. Manuals for teachers will set limits for dashboard usage; the role of on campus teacher will shrink.
Data from all connected IoT devices, including EI sensors, and student wearables will facilitate student technology solutions.
Skilled technological staff will extract, develop and provide solutions. Data analytics department will emerge as most important support service.
The solutions will be useful to management of students even when they are off campus. There will be enhanced use of mobile technologies. Academic management, study process management and support services will be digitized and integrated.
Students will be reassured with 24/7 sensor driven personal attention.
Applications will be developed to meet student needs ranging from knowledge doubts to mood swings to anxiety attacks. Apps might make learning game oriented. They will offer personalized strategies to combat absorption apprehensions in students’ minds.
Skill shortage of technology support providers will hit hard. There will be an influx of technology professionals in to the education industry.
Departments like language will 'wither away' to computer based learning. Extant language teachers may have to re-skill or exit. Skills gap will impact edu-thinking. As the industry transforms, EIs will realize they do not really have all the data and analytics skills that are required.
Information would have a micro and a micro dimension. At the micro level it is each student and teacher; at macro level it will be aggregated data watched keenly for trends.
Armed with sets of voluminous data and analytics, research will emerge as more important than teaching.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Internet of Things and Students

Sharing an informative article for school stakeholders from Tamara Chuang of the denverpost.com

Back to school with gadgets and other handy Internet of Things
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/22/back-to-school-technology-gadgets/

The Internet of Things: A teacher as a Displaced Person

A teacher could be a 'displaced person' (DP) under the internet of things as he / she is incompatible with the new connected system.

Customization incompatibility: Students need no face to face contact hours as students can tap online resources at their convenience. Computers do not ridicule, defer, or hurt.
Time incompatibility: In IoT, the sensors will alert systems on any deviation from parameter. The system will have predictive abilities to suggest solutions in real time. Teachers cannot match such reflexes.
Cost incompatibility: Costs are saved by IoT platforms. Brick and mortar and human elements are relegated to robotic response systems as they have high marginal costs. In IoT, fixed investments are already made and capacity utilization brings down costs- with every additional learner costs are spread.
Memory incompatibility: A teacher cannot remember all the things that a robotic system can. In volume and content, the teacher is no match.
Analytical Incompatibility: Systems will analyse student records and initiate prompt corrective action. The machines will be granular even as it is analytical using the Big Data it has at its command.
Perspective Incompatibility: The teacher cannot compete with the macro approach that is feasible.Subjectivity is reduced. They are subjective and oft carried away. Machines are impersonally efficient.
Approach Incompatibility: Teachers use a broad brush approach which will be seen as a non – specialism, non- student centric. In the IoT approach, machines take over monitoring. approach. Continuous learning is possible.
Record Keeping incompatibility. Electronic Student Records (ESR) will make it possible to react to data in rapid response system rendered feasible.
Privacy incompatibility: Anonymity of internet should help the backward student raise queries and seek responses from the system and participants.
Technology Skill incompatibility. Teachers cannot acquire the technological skills needed to be in world of IoT in a short period. Students are more tech savvy than the average teacher.

Jayaram Nayar

Monday, September 19, 2016

Readings in Internet of Education

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Recommended Readings on Internet of Schools

The Trends and Challenges Shaping Technology Adoption In Schools

The Connections Between Computer Use and Learning Outcomes in Students

Friday, September 9, 2016

Top Online Learning Places...