Jerrys Educations News and Report

Volume 1 March 1, 2013

State of Ohio Funding of Education

The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 STEM education is growing beyond the bounds of taking material and building a workable product out of it. The use of the internet and its ability to provide limitless area of data, applications, games, reality, and education is growing every day. What is called the cloud is now being used by schools and businesses to provide resources for their employees and customers and schools are using it in educating students for work in the workforce and educating students in multiple locations 24 hours a day. Now STEM students are provided the opportunity to develop and improve the environment for cloud computing. They are now being offered to develop apps, set up virtual applications to be sued remotely set up servers to be accessed over the internet and other related studies. According to the report the use of cloud computing, apps, social networking, and collaborative environments are a priority and are reachable goals in the next year. STEM can be used to improve the effectiveness and provide security for these fields. For the next two years the following are STEM areas to be adopted: Augmented Reality, Learning Analytics, Massively Open Online Courses and Personal Learning Environments. These areas deal with the future of education and colleges are starting to use these areas now. Augmented reality deals with specialized software that represents something real and physical in nature. Learning analytics deal with data and the ability to 1

With the new two year budget due by July 1 of this year the governor has recommended his model for education in the state of Ohio for the next two years. It includes no decreases in funding from current levels and an increase for schools in poorer areas of the state. No news has been given recently on the new funding and how the district superintendents and teachers will react to the new budget and whether they will support it or not. Details have been released slowly and corrections have been issued also. Schools and communities are fighting for more tax dollars to be paid by its citizens and over the past two to three years citizens are not willing to pay extra for police, fire, and schools. So we will see what happens as the summer approaches.

Jerrys Educations News and Report

mine it for studying and use. Online courses and personal learning environment deal with online course and how the instructor delivers the material to the student. For the next four years STEM will can begin adopting: Collective Intelligence, The Internet of Things, Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) , and Wearable Technology. Collective intelligence deals with how to store information on the internet as data stores and how to access them. The internet of things deals with objects being used to store information and also send information. NUIs are our smart phones, smart TVs, and other devices we interact with. Last is wearable technology which is a new category that deals with clothing as technology. The trends and challenges for STEM to work in large and exciting. Students can now see how the world is changing but can participate in the changes. The methods the teacher uses are numerous but with training and consultation with others can make the sTEM program a success. NMC Horizon Report 2012 Higher Education Edition In this report they begin by talking about the key trends shaping educational technology. They are students expect to learn anywhere there is technology. Course are to be more cloud based and on demand. That school work will be more collaborative and available on the internet. Lastly more education online and more challenge based. This is changing the way a university will teach courses and the changes in the paradigm of how a typical university will operate. There will be also economic challenges to a university for the shift in the way they deliver classes and the metrics they use for grading. Lastly the digitizing of curriculum and media for which the university will deliver its material will be great. The six technologies to watch for in the next year are the increases in mobile apps and the use of tablets in universities and in the work force. The students are expecting that the apps and their tablet to deliver their education to them and this will transform what they will do out in the workforce. This will increase the demand for colleges to make sure they have enough resources to deliver and store this data and also enough bandwidth to accommodate all the traffic transversing in the college. Next we are experiencing game based learning in the high schools to engage students in all aspects of the curriculum. Games are used to teach history, computer technology, entrepreneurship, and the basic math and English. The fourth is learning analytics which is the tools use to gather and analyze the exchange of data and material between instructor and student. The last two areas which are considered to be years to come are 2

Jerrys Educations News and Report

gesture based computers which replace a keyboard and mouse with body movements and a new term called the Internet of Things which is everyday items that contain bits of information imbedded in the object. This report was a result of ten years of research and data collecting to change the way education is to be delivered and the technologies and challenges that lie ahead. simulate field trips and virtual animals and scenes. Tools, applications, and user interfaces are to added to student learning. The biggest challenges schools face is the established paradigm of its establishment. The education of boards, superintendents, and parents are a big task ahead of them. Also the continued education of established teachers form formal to informal learning and the way it is delivered. Also bringing outside world and experiences will be challenge for teachers and school districts. Last and it is not mentioned in the article is the cost of transforming the schools to this model. With limited funds technologies are the first to be cut from a budget and fighting and holding on to those moneys are key. State of Ohio Returns Special Education Funding to Schools NMC Horizon Project 2012 K-12 Edition Similar to the STEM and Higher Education the technologies geared for K12 are mostly the same. Within the first year schools need to adopt and implement Cloud computing, collaborative environments with other schools to bring the world to the students. Mobile apps and use of tablets to enhance learning and to deliver content to the students is a priority for schools. With these items in place more enhancements can be made in the next year with digital identity, game based learning, student-teacher learning analytics, and developing a personal learning environment for each student. Last during the fourth year augmented reality can be brought in which can A new detail about the Governors new education program for the state of Ohio is that money previously given to county educational service centers are being returned to the schools for management of those populations. Also a new detail stating that is a school has a student population of 2000 students or more must have on site a speech language pathologist and a psychologist has been waived. These two areas are being returned to the schools for their management of those students who need special education. The reasoning is that schools were being mandated to spend money that they felt they did not need to and that each school district is different and so is the special educational needs. There has been no response yet from these recommended changes or the county educations service centers from where the money is coming from. 3