iPad and Education – Is it worth the Investment?

Picture: flickr user bengrey

The thing I love most about being a blogger is the direct engagement with my readers. Getting feedback and thoughts on posts directly is always enlightening and brings up different angles of a story or delivers the basis for an analysis like this one here.

This post is based on a comment in the Edupreneurs Club on Facebook (if you are an edupreneur and did not join our secret circle, what are you waiting for?). Based on my piece about the ShowMe App for iPad Glenn Weidner pointed out that Salman Khan is using a less costly setup to create his famous lessons and that the price tag for an iPad might be too high for most teachers who are looking to contemplate technology in the classroom.

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Spreading Education through Email Footers

One of the reasons I love about blogging are the thoughtful comments people leave. This is one of them I got on one of my recent Big Think articles and I think someone out there should build a startup around it.

You know, if we would just put a tidbit of education in the signature of each or our emails/spams, that would have to raise the level of common knowledge in the world. – Moon Stroller

I really dig this idea.

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How Online Language-Teaching Start-ups Lack Educational Expertise, and Why Language Learners and Teachers Should Worry

Several Internet start-ups are claiming that they can teach people to speak one or more foreign languages, without those people ever entering a classroom. By paying the start-up’s requested fee, students can supposedly access a high-tech body of material that will teach them everything about their new languages they need to know. As a bonus, students can chat on line with other members of the site who are native speakers of the languages they are learning. People can therefore practice a new language from their living room, the airport, a café, or anywhere else they can find an Internet connection. The classroom and language lab, these start-ups argue, are becoming obsolete.

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reflect:ed 2 December 2010 – Analytics and Metrics in Education

To let the year wind down I would like to say a couple of words in order to thank you, my readers and subscribers, for your support and encouragement throughout 2010.

This year has been a big step in my personal career as I was able to realize some personal goals and new projects like the reflect:ed newsletter, I did more consulting on educational projects as well as going on with my altruistic Deutsch Happen project on Youtube and taking the blog and the EDUKWEST interviews to a new level.

I’m grateful to have met many new inspiring people and was fortunate enough to collaborate with some you.

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WiZiQ or How one Company could change Education in India

This post is the result of several talks I had with a couple of different people in our industry during the last year. The final impulse to write this down here is on the one hand a discussion in the E-Teaching community on WiZiQ. I will mention the second impulse at the end of this post.

All this brought an idea back to my mind I already had back in late 2008. And a couple of weeks ago I discussed basically the same with Jason West, the founder of Languages Out There.

Hence today I would like to set up a simple scenario that could fundamentally change the way people in developing countries could get access to high quality education.

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Let me Entertain You

Ok, today I want to talk a bit about celebrities, politics and education. And yes, they seem to have common ground these days. Us, the consumers and our, can I say need, for entertainment.

I admit, I am slightly addicted to gossip so I learned quite a while ago that there are “rumors”, which basically means evidence in the “gossip world”, Lance Armstrong might be running for Governor of Texas. You know after Conan became Governator nothing seems to be impossible. Some days ago, Brad Pitt joined the “once celebrity – now politician” club by being nominated through a grassroots movement which wants to see him to become mayor of New Orleans and of course he’s denying any interest at the moment.

Even if we take a closer look on world leaders these days, they all have set a strong focus on entertainment. No one is as good as Obama, using the Web and pictures to make his points. Then we have Putin, half naked in Siberia showing the world what a man he is. Sarkozy, public divorce after turning president, then marrying Carla Bruni and flirting all day long. Hugo Chavez even has his own TV show “Hola Presidente”. And the list goes on and on.

Basically, it seems to come down to one thing. People want to be entertained these days. I guess like in the Roman Empire. We want to see change, power or gossip. It’s a social trend.

But I don’t want to say that those politicians don’t know what they are doing. I just think the major factor for their success today is: entertainment. If you are not in the spot light, people don’t see you.

Now back to us teachers. Koichi wrote an interesting article on eduPirate: Why teaching needs to be a form of entertainment.

What do you think?