One of the key content areas where technology is making such a tremendous contribution is in the teaching of music. There are now a wide variety of web tools and mobile apps that teachers can use in their class to instruct their students on the various musical concepts from composition to distribution. Most of these tools are free and easy to use.
2014-09-27
Learning initiative for entrepreneurs - Online And Distance Learning
This free, HP Life online training program helps you gain the real-life IT and business skills needed to start or grow your business, in your own time, at your own pace. The courses are interactive and full of information and practical exercises that will give you the skills to meet the business challenges you face.
2014-09-26
Carbon map – which countries are responsible for climate change?
As heads of state from David Cameron to Barack Obama meet in New York for a UN climate summit hosted by Ban Ki-moon, expectations are high for bold commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Use this interactive, in-depth map to find out who the big polluters are internationally, how China’s emissions have grown stratospherically and see who is most vulnerable to global warming’s impacts.
22 maps and charts that will surprise you
A good visualization helps you see what the data is telling you. The best visualizations help you you see things you never thought the data would tell you. These 22 charts and maps are in that category: all of them tell you something surprising...
Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers: Google Tutorials
Google Tutorials
This page contains tutorials for using Google tools. The tutorials that I've created you are welcome to use in your own blog, website, or professional development session. Before using the tutorials created by others, please contact their creators.
"Dear Matafele Peinem" - A climate change poem
On 23 September 2014, 26 year old poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, from the Marshall Islands, addressed the Opening Ceremony of the UN Secretary-General's Climate Summit. Kathy performed a new poem entitled "Dear Matafele Peinem", written to her daughter. The poem received a standing ovation.
Click below to see Kathy's beautiful and incredibly moving performance of that poem set to images depicting the impact of climate change and also the people’s movement against the agents of that change.
2014-09-25
25 Killer Sites For Free Online Education - Online And Distance Learning
Whether you’re five or ninety five, the internet has a lot to offer. Particularly when the topic is education, the resources on the internet are endless. Best of all, many high quality sites are completely free. From history to coding, excellent free education awaits on the following 25 sites...
Marks and Spencer moves into online courses - Online And Distance Learning
Marks and Spencer is entering the online education market, launching a business course with Leeds University.
The massive open online course, or Mooc, is a free course on business innovation. It uses case studies, video from the company’s archive and support from university academics.
Alison Houston, head of the M&S archive, says the course teaches how “creative concepts are balanced with commercial thinking”.
2014-09-24
MDG Countdown 2014: Innovating for Impact - YouTube
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have accelerated progress in beating poverty worldwide. With just 15 months to go before we reach the 2015 due date, the MDG Countdown event will demonstrate how innovation is helping to achieve the goals and galvanise renewed commitments. Find out more at: http://ift.tt/Y3iB0P
2014-09-22
Expanding Africa’s Digital Frontier: Farmers Show the Way
Agricultural transformation is a priority for Africa. Across the continent, the significant information needs of farmers—accurate local weather forecasts, relevant advice on agricultural practices and input use, real time price information and market logistics—remain largely unmet. To the extent that rural regions are typically sparsely populated with limited infrastructure and dispersed markets, the use of innovative information and communication technologies (ICTs) overcome some of these information asymmetries and connect farmers to opportunities that weren't necessarily available to them earlier. Harnessing the rapid growth of digital technologies holds hope for transformative agricultural development.
2014-09-19
Using the UTAUT model to analyze students’ ICT adoption - Masters and PhDs
This paper seeks to provide further understanding of issues surrounding acceptance of information and communication technology (ICT) by students of tertiary institutions. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model Venkatesh et al (2003) was employed by the researchers to determine the strength of predictors for students’ intention to accept and use ICT for learning and research.
Why Apple's New Phones Won't Change the World But Nokia's Will
One reason mobile phones have a considerably greater impact in poor countries is because other information-based services are so weak. Only about one-quarter of people in sub-Saharan Africa have an account at a financial institution—let alone a Visa or American Express card. Mobile payments have leapfrogged the rollout of plastic payment systems across the region. As many as 60 percent of Kenyans use their mobile phone for financial transactions, and almost three times as many people in the country use mobile banking than have a debit or credit card.
There are limits to the mobile revolution, even in Africa. A phone can’t make up for electricity networks that cover a fraction of the population, schools that frequently graduate the illiterate, or legal systems that are corrupt or incompetent. And though mobile technology may have raised incomes in Africa by a few percentage points, GDP per capita in the U.S. is still only about 1,600 percent of the average in the sub-Saharan region. Even so, it’s worth remembering that while elegant styling and fancy tablets have made Apple successful, it’s the cheap Nokias (NOK) and the text-based mobile money systems that have really changed the world.
2014-09-17
Anakuran: A Path to Education for Children of Migrant Construction Workers - Masters and PhDs
‘If you cannot go to school, the school comes to you.’ Project Anakuran is an innovative design which seeks to provide formal education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the children of migrant construction labourers based at medium and large construction sites in urban locale.
This paper is published in the International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT) - an e-journal that provides free and open access to all of its content. It provides a space for researchers, practitioners and theoreticians to jointly explore ideas about ICT in education for development in hitherto less developed parts of the world.
A model for integrating ICT into teacher training programs in Bangladesh based on TPCK - Masters and PhDs
The discovery of modern technology is compelled teachers to encounter new challenges in their teaching. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for professional development programs to include ICT along with pedagogy and substantial (content) knowledge into teaching-learning context. In this paper, the author presents a model for integrating ICT for teacher training programs in Bangladesh, which is based on Technology Pedagogy Content knowledge (TPCK) model.
This paper is published in the International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT) - an e-journal that provides free and open access to all of its content. It provides a space for researchers, practitioners and theoreticians to jointly explore ideas about ICT in education for development in hitherto less developed parts of the world.
2014-09-16
Mobile learning in higher education in East Africa - Masters and PhDs
Recent penetration of mobile technologies and its services in East Africa has provided a new platform for institutions to widen access to education through mobile learning. Mobile technologies provide learners with flexibility and ubiquity to learn anytime and anywhere via wireless Internet. However, far too little research has been conducted to investigate factors that contribute towards students’ adoption and use of mobile learning in East Africa.
In this study the researchers applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to investigate students’ behavioural intention to adopt and use mobile learning in higher education in East Africa. The results showed that, four factors: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions had significant positive effects on students’ mobile learning acceptance with performance expectancy being the strongest predictor.
2014-09-15
10 Reasons Why I Will Continue to Give my Children Handheld Devices
Last week the Huffington Post ran this article titled 10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12.
As an educator who advocates for the intentional and appropriate use of technology, I could go on about this forever. But instead I’m writing here as a mother.
Here are my 10 reasons why I will continue giving my children handheld devices, and all other forms of technology as well.
2014-09-11
The ‘Connected Kinders’: Turning iPad Experiments into Adventures in Innovative Learning (EdSurge News)
"What would you do with $20,000 and the freedom to use it all for edtech in your classroom?
Last spring, a private donor funded an experiment. As an Eagle Cliffs Elementary classroom teacher in Billings, Montana, I had the opportunity to write to our Billings Education Foundation for a mini-classroom grant--a mere one thousand dollars. My classroom grant idea? Simple: two iPads.
The idea caught the eye of Mr. Wardell, a generous annual donor to the Foundation’s classroom grants, who then asked, “What would you really like to do in your classroom, and what would you need to equip your room the way you would prefer?”
If there was ever an opportunity to dream big, this was it."
2014-09-08
ICTs in Education
ICTs can solve many challenges associated with poor infrastructure and a lack of good school facilities In remote areas of developing countries. Through the inclusive approach of IICD’s programme in education, we enhance organisational and individual capacities to use ICT tools and skills in an innovative and integrated manner. This involves working with all relevant stakeholders, including teachers, education officers and parents from the start.
IICD’s projects build the capacity of teachers so they can benefit from integrating ICTs in their daily work, both inside and outside the classroom. Thanks to IICD’s School Management Information Systems, teachers can prepare, record and store administrative data in a simpler, faster and more accurate way. After having acquired basic digital skills, the teachers’ adoption of digital tools causes a ripple effect that quickly spreads through other areas. Teachers take the lead in exploring the power and potential of integrating ICTs into their method and practice of teaching.
Kenya: I'm Open to Development Talks With Opposition - Uhuru
President Uhuru Kenyatta has reiterated that politicians from the opposition are free to talk to him on development issues.
He said this while asking CORD party leaders not to panic when they see him meeting Members of Parliament from their ranks.
"Don't forget that I was elected to serve all Kenyans and we have to talk to the leaders on their development priorities," he said.
The President said that it is the people who will decide which directions their leaders will take and his priority was to serve the people.
"When the people come to Jubilee, the leaders will follow," he said.
The President was speaking in Kiamugumo Girls Secondary School in Kirinyaga County at a thanksgiving ceremony for Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru.
"Don't fear when we meet leaders from CORD. Where is the problem when I talk to them to know their development priorities," he said.
2014-09-05
Standard Chartered Bank's dedicated SME development platform
Travelling to the foothills of the magnificent Mount Kenya, its Africa's time meets Major Mwiti on his farm, Sunland Roses, a business which has been enabled to grow by Standard Chartered Bank's dedicated SME development platform. We also speak with some of the people in their employ who have benefited enormously from this remarkable initiative. “As a business, we understand the need to invest in technological advancements as well as take care of our people – each of whom are valuable in our long term success", says the Major. "We are proud to share Kenya's natural beauty and skills with people all over the world."
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