You are currently browsing the Education & Technology blog category.
Yesterday, Lance Orozco from the NPR affiliate station in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties came to the Anacapa School to interview my students and me about our plans to launch the Anacapa Amateur High Altitude Balloon 1 (AAHAB-1) on Saturday. His story aired this morning on KCLU.
Listen to KCLU’s radio news story (mp3 | 6m 31s)
The Internet has quickly evolved into one of our most important national resources. However, a recent court decision may change what you have access to through your online connection. UC Santa Barbara communication researcher and network neutrality expert KK Holland talked with Tim and I this morning about the pros and cons of the issue. Listen to the show.
UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Learning and Inquiry in Networking Communities (LINC) and the California Virtual Campus were the recipients of the 2009 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Award, a competition that recognizes innovative uses of educational technologies in higher education for their project: Stepping Into Your Future. LINC Director Beth Yeager and I produced this video to highlight the project which has improved student retention and pass rates for K-12 students preparing for California’s English and Math high school exit exams.
Providence Business News published an interview with me today in their weekly technology update. We discuss issues ranging from network neutrality to sustainable energy. [read article]
We hear about the digital divide, but there is also a more social aspect holding some users back. While I don’t have actual recorded data to back up this hypothesis I would like to posit the idea that there is a “privacy divide” which is a cultural divide more closely linked to age and the associated attitudes toward privacy. Just as in the movie “Pleasantville” life turned from black and white to color as a garden-of-eden-like self-awareness descended upon the 1960s I propose that there has been a similar opening up of ones private life with the dawn of the electronic social network. These open attitudes are embraced particularly by college undergraduates and younger students but has also affected social networking users of all ages to some extent. If we, as developers of new educational communications technologies, can understand what exactly the needs and preferences are of this new group I believe we are a step closer to better serving them by designing systems that enable learning by working within this.
Oracle has made a commitment to buy Sun Microsystems, a leader in open source software development and support OpenOffice.org is theirs as well as MySQL, the leading open source database platform. Oracle is the leader in database software and the third largest software company behind MS and IBM, Apple is a mere #32 and local Citrix is #26. http://www.softwaretop100.org/
What might this mean for higher education? Sun is a very strong supporter of higher-ed. Will they make a greater or lesser commitment to ed and open source as Oracle? It remains to be seen.
story link:
http://www.oracle.com/sun/index.html
interesting story on how Microsoft sees open source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10222336-16.html
This is my first entry in my section of the Musings of Maaia blog. After registering the domain name maaia.com (my last name) a couple years back I have decided to put it to (good?) use. I’ve invited theology scholar (and cousin) Justin Maaia to join me here.
This venture comes as I begin graduate work at UC Santa Barbara in the field of education. My focus in this academic endeavor is to explore how technology is and will enable learners to collaborate in their studies. Today the intertwined world of the Internet connects humans in such a way that now more than ever our passive online browsing has effects on how information is presented to others. For example: there mere act of watching a video on YouTube increases the “popularity” of that video such that it is more likely to be subsequently suggested to another site visitor.
Today our students are being asked not just to learn from the online web, but to also contribute. Are educators preparing the next generation to be thoughtful and responsible contributors to the electronic global village?
This blog will focus on broad issues relating to the media, technology, how it relates to the academic world. Feel free to link to, comment, concur, disagree, or flame any of the postings here.
Powered by WordPress,
an open source tool for blogging.
© 1996-2012 Levi C. Maaia
All rights reserved.
Contact me for commercial licenses.
