Items tagged with school
It's hard to believe that anyone would think that a $1.3 billion roll out of iPads to students would be a good idea, or deliver the kind of return-of-investment to warrant it, but it's apparent that a Los Angeles school district did. Earlier this year, we reported on how the pilot program failed spectacularly. There weren't enough iPads to go around, and that tends to be a major issue when it's expected that everyone will have one. We'd imagine that if lesser-expensive tablets were chosen, not top-tier models, that issue might not have been encountered. In addition to the iPads themselves, part of this funding went towards educational software that was to be used, which supposedly turned out...
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If your kiddos are griping about how soon they start back to school (or, if you are heading that way yourself, begrudgingly), it's probably high time you took inventory. Is that aging netbook really going to get you through another semester? Is that Gingerbread handset up to the task of piloting you through yet another straight-A year? Take solace, a tech refresh or complete makeover can be rather refreshing.Back to school season is in full swing, and we're here to offer up the best of the best in a few key categories. If you're shopping for phones, desktops, laptops, or accessories, we've got picks for each. We've taken budget, form factor, and ease-of-use into account, and for most items, we'll...
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A research group in the UK has found that nearly 70 percent of schools there are using tablets in the classroom. That probably won’t surprise teachers in the U.S., where Apple has already delivered more than 10 million iPads to schools. It’s easy to see why teachers and administrators favor tablets and inexpensive laptops (like Google’s Chromebook, which has also been making inroads in the education market): they’re easy to distribute, easy to use, and easy to collect and put away when necessary. What’s less clear is whether the flood of computing devices is actually improving education for students.Images credit: AppleThe study, run by research group Family, Kids and Youth, couldn’t make a connection...
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It's that time again. The time of year when students and parents frantically hit e-tailers that offer fast shipping in order to get that all-important back-to-school technology into a dorm room or backpack before classes begins. It's back-to-school season, and whether you've started classes recently or are awaiting (dreading?) that first 8AM lecture, there may be a few bits of techno-shopping that need to be taken care of before you can be on your way to that straight-A report card. Whether you're about to begin the Fall semester of college or your senior year in high school (or something else entirely), you'll probably need the right hardware to get you through. In the pages ahead, we'll be...
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It's that time again. The time of year when students and parents frantically hit e-tailers that offer fast shipping in order to get that all-important back-to-school technology into a dorm room or backpack before classes begins. It's back-to-school season, and whether you've started classes recently or are awaiting (dreading?) that first 8AM lecture, there may be a few bits of techno-shopping that need to be taken care of before you can be on your way to that straight-A report card. Hot Hardware's Back-To-School Shopping Guide In the pages ahead, we'll be taking a look at today's latest and greatest when it comes to full systems, mobile devices, and peripherals that could prove useful for any...
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Privacy and security have been steaming-hot topics these past few months, and as evidenced in comment sections around the Web, they're topics not everyone can agree on. This latest story, of a school district in Glendale, California, is likely to have the same divided opinion. To help keep an eye on student goings-on for the sake of "student safety", the Glendale Unified School District has hired a company called Geo Listening that specializes in monitoring the social networking accounts of students. The company is clear to state that it monitors only public posts, which would make sense given private posts would be (or should be) inaccessible to them. Geo Listening works not by having real people...
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What if you could take an online course from a third-party site (not necessarily a university), and get college credit for it? Wouldn't that be ideal? In today's take on "Living In The Future," we're seeing a Silicon Valley start-up partner with San Jose State University in order to make those kinds of dreams come true. Udacity is in the business of creating online college courses, while SJSU is in the business of handing out degrees to those who complete coursework, and preparing the younger generation for the working world ahead. Udacity falls into the MOOC sector -- also known as "massive open online course." In general, these are frowned upon, seen as "not real" schoolwork. But in the Internet...
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It's back-to-school season again, and whether you've started classes recently or are awaiting (dreading?) that first 8AM lecture, there may be a few bits of techno-shopping that need to be taken care of before you can be on your way to that straight-A report card. Whether you're about to begin the fall semester of college or your senior year in high school (or something else entirely), you'll probably need the right hardware to get you through. In the pages to come, we're taking a look at today's latest and greatest when it comes to systems, hardware and peripherals that could prove useful for any dutiful student. Handling 21 hours of classes while still maintaining some sort of social life (which...
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It's that time again. The time of year when students and parents frantically hit e-tailers with fast shipping in order to get that all-important back-to-school technology into a dorm room or backpack before classes begins. It's back-to-school season, and whether you've started classes recently or are awaiting (dreading?) that first 8AM lecture, there may be a few bits of techno-shopping that need to be taken care of before you can be on your way to that straight-A report card. Credit: Seton Hall University Whether you're about to begin the Fall semester of college or your senior year in high school (or something...
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Lenovo is hoping to attract the attention of schools and students with the introduction of a new laptop that has been ruggedized for education. Lenovo recognizes that kids can be hard on electronics, so the company has designed the new ThinkPad X130e with a reinforced and extra durable top cover, keyboard and hinges. Key durability features include a top cover rubber bumper, reinforced and recessed ports, stronger hinges, and a stronger bezel. This 11.6-inch ultraportable laptop offers AMD Fusion E-300 and E-450 or Intel second generation Core i3-2367M ULV processors. You'll also find AMD Radeon or Intel HD-powered graphics onboard. The ThinkPad X130e weighs less than four pounds and touts a...
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The education market is changing rapidly, and in major ways. Just ten years ago, there was just one way to get a degree, and that was to show up at campus each day throughout the year and work away class after class. Today, you've got a variety of options, and the amount of alternatives are growing by the day. There are online courses and video conference classes for starters, but one thing that has continued to plague distance learners is exams. In a lot of scenarios, students have still been forced to show back up on campus to take vital exams, often because they simply "need" to be supervised. An American company is hoping to lend a hand. U.S. firm Software Secure has engineered a software...
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Former rapper Will Smith had it completely wrong when he waxed poetic about how parents just don't understand. It's the principal who has it all backwards, or at least that's what you'll hear if you talk to the students of Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. So what is it that has students in an uproar? In an email to parents earlier this week, Anthony Orsini, the school principal, pleaded with parents to turn their children away from social networking and to more closely monitor their text messaging. Here's part of what he wrote: Please do the following: sit down with your child (and they are just children still) and tell them that they are not allowed to be a member of...
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Uniforms, tighter schedules, banning of cellphones; could school possibly get any less organized? We're sure it could, but the higher-ups at Nintendo want to affect schools in a positive way by introducing their products into them, of course. We have previously heard of Dance Dance Revolution being used in select Physical Education programs in order to get students to become active when they otherwise wouldn't, but we have yet to hear of any school making a sweeping measure to accept gaming consoles as a part of their teachings. Nintendo Game Designer, Shigeru Miyamotocredit: Associated PressShigeru Miyamoto, who has had a hand in some of Nintendo's most popular titles,...
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"Kids these days" has never had a deeper meaning. Back in our day, rolling along on the school bus was a painful experience. The only chance we had to break from the misery was to bust out a textbook and start studying (not gonna happen), or if we were lucky, we'd get a driver nice enough to allow us to use our Walkman while riding.These days, kids have it made. A school in the south of Arizona has been experimenting with a new kind of bus, and apparently the results have been incredible. Bus No. 92 near Vail, AZ is equipped with Wi-Fi, and students are not only allowed to surf the Web while riding to and from school, they're encouraged to do so. It's not that having the Internet on a vehicle...
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