How Cloud ERP Can Aid Educational Practices

“Aimee Claire talks about how the same ERP (Enterprise Resource Management) programs that work for businesses can also work in educational practices.”

by Aimee Claire 

It’s almost a given that kids are smarter than adults when it comes to adopting and using new technology. Whether it’s in the realm of gaming, writing and producing music, videos and films, or just knowing much more in general about the wired society through social media, kids always seem to have a head start. Once new technology and ideas are taught, they can ramp up their knowledge base with a few pad taps or mouse clicks.

So introducing them to ERP—Enterprise Resource Planning—could give them some major advantages in their educational development that could give those who are interested in developing careers in the IT industry a head start.

Introducing ERP for education

The complexities of running a school, college, or university lend themselves perfectly to using ERP. It is a software solution that integrates data sources from a range of departments where it is deployed to give managers a real time overview of what is happening, has happened, and needs to happen. Data inputted by one department—for example, administration looking at student attendance—can be seen instantly by those checking student achievement without the need for data to be updated by inputting for the individual department.

Instead of having to wait for reports to be produced, perhaps using classic paper and ink technology, there can be instant examination of data and trends by senior management, giving far more control over the enterprise and identifying weaknesses that can be addressed much more quickly. Not only is this good for the institution, it’s good for the students—especially those who can be identified as needing additional academic or pastoral support.

Head in the Cloud

It’s a classic expression for people whose minds seem to be elsewhere rather than focusing on what they should be. Yet it could easily become an expression of appreciation as the development of Cloud Technology, the provision of on-demand services through the Internet, is becoming a go-to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

As with any technology, the more students understand what it can do, and do for them as well as the academic institution, the better equipped they are to move forward after their education to develop careers in IT. Even if they do not go into that industry, the benefits of Cloud ERP are rolled out across all industry sectors and they would be well positioned to take advantage of this with the knowledge base about ERP gained from their studies.

Kentucky Cloud

The state of Kentucky has rolled out its financial management system to Cloud ERP and considers it to be a real success in terms of making its services more reliable, as well as helping to reduce costs. The state’s associate commissioner for the Office of Knowledge, Information and Data Services, David Couch, said:

“Cost reductions are a benefit of cloud-computing, but for Kentucky schools, our primary driver was increasing the reliability of services beyond what our aging on-premise infrastructure could provide.”

As Cloud Computing develops further, there are many advantages that academic institutions could offer to their own infrastructure and to teach their students.

30 Apps Perfect For BYOD Classrooms

Katie Lepi from Edudemic gives us a list of 30 terrific BYOD apps in the following article. She’s also kind enough to provide a Symbaloo to explore in her article that will take you straight to the apps themselves, so go have some fun!”

via Edudemic

BYOD classrooms can address a number of issues. It can solve the problem of not having enough (or any) devices for your classroom. It can enable students to do web-based work when they might not have otherwise been able to. It can allow them to do work on the same device at home and at school. But it doesn’t come without issue.

One of the issues that we’ve heard about from many teachers is that since students come in with different devices that run on different platforms, finding apps and tools that work across a wide array of devices is a necessary evil. The handy symbaloo below takes a look at a bunch of different apps that work across a variety of devices – perfect for the BYOD classroom. A listing of the apps is below, or you can click on the link above to use the interactive Symbaloo to reach each site.

Great Apps For BYOD Classrooms

• Skitch
• Evernote
• Today’s Meet
• Infuse Learning
• Zondle
• Socrative
• Gaggle
• Vimeo
• Brain Pop
• Live Binders
• Edmodo
• Whiteboard
• Class Dojo
• Quizlet
• Khan Academy
• Bit.ly
• Twitter
• Popplet
• Sliderocket
• Wikispaces
• Poll Everywhere
• VoiceThready
• Studyblue
• QR Stuff
• Code Academy
• Scratch (MIT)
• Tynker
• EasyBib
• Discovery
• Padlet
• Atomic Learning
• The App Builder

Click the Symbaloo below to visit the interactive version and get the clickable links to each app!

The Biggest Lie Students Tell Me (and How to Turn It Around)

José Vilson is a middle school math teacher and coach, and he believes in possibility. As children, many of us (including myself) were brought up with a portion of the academic intelligentsia of our school days making us more aware of our weaknesses than our strengths. In many cases we were raised with mindsets of limitation rather than possibility. That’s why Vilson believes that his students speak a falsehood when they proclaim ‘I can’t.’ His mission is to turn that thinking around in them, and he tells us how it can be done in the following article he wrote for Edutopia.”

via Edutopia

3 Keys To Making BYOD Work For Your Classroom

Many teacher who want to truly bring successful Bring-Your-Own-Device practices into their classrooms struggle with how to go about it in the right way. There are so many things to consider, but luckily we have Ilan Paretsky to give us some advice in the following Edudemic article. ”

via Edudemic

BYOD continues to change the learning ecosystem, which includes administrators, teachers, faculty, students and school IT. Today, schools supplement books and whiteboards with smartphones, web portals and other technologies that make education an interactive experience. The consumerization of IT (CoIT) is driving widespread adoption of mobile devices throughout K-12 programs, supplementing school-owned desktops and laptops.

While there are many benefits of BYOD and CoIT in education, getting everyone involved in the learning process (including parents) to collaborate in and outside the classroom is the most compelling. Another advantage is that BYOD allows schools to stretch IT resources, and do more with less. And even with tighter budgets, they can overcome technical and socio-economic barriers that may impact a quality education.

More than a technology initiative, however, BYOD can be an equalizer; it can democratize education and enable universal learning environments, accessible to everyone. The combination of affordable devices and growing adoption of BYOD in K-12 is enabling schools to succeed in achieving their 1-to-1 computing goals.

Among those served by BYOD – school administrators, teachers, students, parents and IT personnel – a successful program requires centralization, browser-based accessibility, and mobility.

Centralization

Schools must centralize their technology infrastructure to extend the life of their Windows desktops, applications and legacy systems. By centralizing these resources, IT can provide secure access to learning curriculum across a broad range of school-issued computers and devices in addition to those owned by teachers, students and parents.

Moreover, centralization enables understaffed IT teams to manage day-to-day operations more efficiently and cost-effectively. Aside from cost savings, however, the real value of centralization is the flexibility for teachers and students to be more productive in and outside the classroom.

Browser-Based Accessibility

Today’s HTML5-compliant Web browsers provide universal, device-agnostic access to school resources. One result is that schools no longer have to manage endpoint devices and install software and updates. Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari all support HTML5 and are widely available on smartphones, phablets, tablets and computers. Browser-based accessibility removes the technical barriers of installing and managing device specific apps, reduces costs and most importantly gives teachers and students flexible options to connect, collaborate and learn.

Mobility

The pervasiveness of cloud computing and mobility will continue to provide new opportunities, streamline processes and create unique learning environments. However, the utility of mobile devices will only be as good as the resources schools can make easily accessible. Remote access technology  enables schools to deliver next-generation education and curriculum to anyone, from anywhere using an array of devices – all via a web browser.

As students, teachers and administrators increasingly use their own computing devices, schools must rethink how they can take advantage of centralized IT resources, browser-based accessibility and mobility to garner efficiency and identify new opportunities that ensure a positive learning experience.

5 Ways to Make Class Discussions More Exciting

“How do you make classroom discussion more exciting? Dr. Richard Curwin has the answer. Dr. Curwin is the director of the graduate program for behaviour disorder at David Yellin College. A few of the exercises that he profiles in this Edutopia article are similar to ones I’ve used in theatre studies to connect and engage with others. Try them with students—they’re fun and effective in equal measures!”

via Edutopia

Can Virtual Reality Be Used to Tackle Racism?

“Implicit racism—a bias the holder is unaware of—can be reduced after spending a short time in virtual reality. In the following BBC article, Melissa Hogenboom asks if this could possibly have a longer lasting effect. Read on to find out more …”

via BBC News

It’s an uncomfortable truth but scientists say most people have an ingrained racial bias. Now a team has shown that a short stint in a virtual world could reduce it, but could this have a longer lasting effect?

Racism is an issue that still pervades many societies.

In England and Wales, there have been 106 fatal racist attacks since the killing of teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 according to the Institute of Race Relations. It also reports thousands of racist incidents recorded by the police each year.

The issue is complicated by the fact that many biases are ingrained over long periods of time.

Scientists have now found that this ingrained racial bias was reduced when participants were immersed in a virtual body of a different race.

To test their implicit racism, a team led by Mel Slater at the University of Barcelona gave participants what’s called an implicit association test several days before the experiment. They were given the same test again after their experience in virtual reality.

It was only the participants who had been placed in a dark virtual body that showed this decrease.

Another unrelated study had similar results. A team found that when a dark rubber hand was stroked at the same time as the participant’s own (out of sight) hand was touched, implicit racism subsequently decreased. This work was led by Manos Tsakiris at Royal Holloway University of London.

Both teams say it’s promising that two separate experimental settings show this effect.

Participants’ body movements were tracked using a motion-capture suit

It might be surprising to some white people that they show preference for white faces over black faces in the implicit test. This could be for a number of reasons, says Prof Slater.

It doesn’t mean someone is explicitly racist, he says, rather it reflects how their brain has been wired based on the society in which they grew up.

If the media frequently reports negatively on a given “out-group”, for example, then somehow the brain picks up these associations which are reproduced in the implicit bias test.

He refers to virtual reality as an “empathy generating machine” to give people experiences they can’t have in any other way.

The question remains whether or not these findings could ever be applied in the real world.

Prof Slater believes they could: “If the effect is shown to be long-lasting this might provide tools for serious immersive games that attempt to foster pro-social behaviour and empathy,” he argues.

Prof Tsakiris agrees. He believes that achieving similar results could even be possible without an experimental set-up.

“It’s about the idea of sharing sensory experiences with people that might be different from you. This sharing – especially when there is some kind of synchronicity between people’s bodies – it can bring people closer together.

“Doing things with others seems to function as a social glue. The obvious thing would be to have no segregation in society, not to have any schools dominated by one ethnic group,” Prof Tsakiris adds.

“It’s about the idea of sharing sensory experiences with people that might be different from you . . . it can bring people closer together.”

It is still unclear how long-lasting these effects would be. Prof Slater says this will be hard to pin down, but rolling the technology out into the real world in the first instance is a possibility.

“It may be used to help people who have these implicit biases, to recognise they have them but also to reduce them.”

But Antony Greenwald, at the University of Washington in Seattle, says it’s still too early to be optimistic because the negative associations measured by the implicit racism test “are pretty durable”.

“The best interpretation is that this makes some sort of temporary change in how a person represents the categories [of race].

“We live in a world in which we are surrounded by things that cause us to develop associations that produce stereotypes. It’s like the air we breathe; we can’t help talking it in,” Prof Greenwald adds.

However, Ziada Ayorech, from King’s College London says the research shows that a negative racial bias could be detuned over time and could even become positive.

“When we think of something as implicit racial bias you think that it’s already ingrained and there’s nothing you can do, but in reality these studies show that by simply having people relate to someone with a different ethnicity – you can already change that.

“New associations will be built. It’s a stepping stone, for sure.”

But outside an experimental setting, tackling ingrained racism remains difficult, especially because it’s hidden, says Neil Chakraborti, a criminologist at the University of Leicester who works with victims of racist attacks.

“Precisely because it is almost impossible to label it as an offence, latent racism is rarely reported. You see people normalise these kinds of experiences; it’s become a routine part of being different,” he says.

This issue of prejudice is something Dal Babu feels he has experienced in the police force – an organisation he says should be representative of the society it aims to protect.

He was one of the UK’s top ethnic minority officers at the Metropolitan Police, and was critical of the lack of black and Asian recruits and how few were in senior positions.

“The irony and most commonly quoted phrase by Sir Robert Peel (founder of the Met Police) is that the public are the police and the police are the public,” he says.

But despite his efforts, the majority of senior police officers “remain stubbornly white”, Mr Babu adds.

It’s clear that there is no one simple way to tackle an issue as complex as racism. Until researchers find that reducing an innate bias can be reproduced and sustained, an awareness of it seems a crucial first step.

And while its use outside the lab may be some way off, scientists say that virtual reality provides a stepping stone towards increased empathy with others in the real world.

How To Make Students Better Online Researchers

This article written by Sahiba Pahwa and published on EdTechReview offers up a practical strategy for developing Information Fluency skills in students, specifically in regards to researching online. The article includes a useful set of links for teachers to explore that are great resources for this.”

via EdTechReview

How many times has it been that you’re trying to search for a specific site or on a specific topic too hard but in the end you end up finding nothing. Have you ever questioned yourself why this happens? Well as much as the internet is the easiest and quickest way to acquire abundance of knowledge, it comes with some cons too. For one the task of finding the exact and right place is hard, and then it’s not only collecting the right data but also organizing it in an orderly manner.

For example, you’re aiming to search for the reasons for the great recession that just occurred in the economy. Now just about typing the word recession you may get millions of information sites but it does not help your purpose, not even close to it. So what would you need to do? You would have to type a term that explains about that specific recession like typing “recession in US in early 2000s” your search would become much exact and information would be more clear. Further you would want to know what happened in that recession, it’s effects and the conclusion you draw from it. So you see we have methodically categorized our research.

You see a very easy task like doing an online research also needs some amount of skills and I can help you in acknowledging what those skills are and how to go about it.

So the first and foremost step towards it is asking the right questions to get the right answers. These simple steps can make your research more efficient and effective manner. (Also learn how Using Twitter for Online Research is a great idea)

How to make students better online researchers?

Planning the map inside your head is the most important task of a man. Without a plan a person is just a clueless wanderer. And into the vast oceans of information a wanderer is just bound to be lost. Map in your mind, what is research all about, what are the key points and what you hope to achieve as the conclusion of this research and does your information smoothly flows proving towards your conclusion? This makes the job of searching easier.

Use unique, specific terms

It is simply amazing how many Web pages are returned when performing a search. You might guess that the terms tiger are relatively specialized. A Google search of those terms returned 2,440,000 results! To reduce the number of pages returned, use unique terms that are specific to the subject you are researching.

Use quotation marks for exact phrases

I often remember parts of phrases I have seen on a Web page or part of a quotation I want to track down. Using quotation marks around a phrase will return only those exact words in that order. It’s one of the best ways to limit the pages returned..

Don’t use common words

The major problem starts when you have totally bizarre and uncommon words that may give you millions of results but none related to your research. Trust me that happens a lot! So be careful with what words you choose.

Maximize AutoComplete

Ordering search terms from general to specific in the search box will display helpful results in a drop-down list and is the most efficient way to use AutoComplete. Selecting the appropriate item as it appears will save time typing. You have several choices for how the AutoComplete feature works.

Selecting the most apt site

Many of the online researchers know which site they often will find the right kind of information they require. This makes the elimination of unwanted sites easier and hence improving your speed and quality of research.

Elimination of unwanted Information through speedy evaluation

One should not only have the skill to select the right site but also eliminating the unwanted or vague information provided by the internet through speedy and critical reading and evaluation.

After all these steps I’m very sure your search would become a much easier task and you will see great changes in the quality and quantity of your research.

Useful Links For Searchers:

Here are some links that offer some resources for teachers trying to teach students the digital literacies involved with searching.

• Safe Search Engines for Your Kids
• How to Spot a Fake Website
• Great Tech Expectations: What Should Elementary Students be Able to do and When?
• Boolify Project: An Educational Boolean Web Search Tool (very visual)
• Boolean Searching on the Internet
• Rockwell Schrock’s Boolean Machine
• Web Search Strategies in Plain English

How PBS KIDS Puts Play at the Center of Digital Content Development

“Play is a powerful component of childhood development. It allows children to explore, make connections, and develop a better understanding of the world and themselves. Susan DeWitt shares her insights about using play to implement or reinforce learning. She also provides links to some wonderful classroom resources for readers to preview and use in their classrooms or homes. ”

via Fred Rogers Center

In 1999, I participated in a play-testing session with preschoolers from a Head Start center in Arlington, Virginia. I was just a few weeks into my job as a production associate at PBS KIDS, and we were testing the soon-to-launch Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood website.

When I sat down with 4-year-old Marisa, she cautiously moved the mouse across the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. She hovered briefly over X the Owl, when suddenly the character on screen raised his wing and waved. Marisa let go of the mouse, pushed back her chair, jumped up and started waving back. For the next 10 minutes, this was all Marisa wanted to do: make X wave at her, jump up from her chair, wave back, and smile happily.

In 1999, we were in the very early days of the internet; Marisa had never played with a computer before our research session, and I question whether many of today’s 4-year-olds would be enthralled by an animated gif. But that moment with Marisa has remained with me throughout my years in digital content development at PBS KIDS. It’s a reminder that games for preschoolers don’t need to be overly complicated to engage children in meaningful play, and that our strongest engagement opportunities often begin in very natural play patterns.

Many years and technologies later, my team has probably participated in hundreds of usability sessions, and we can still be surprised by our youngest visitors. The difference between “engaging” and “overwhelming” to one room of 5-year-olds was entirely dependent on a background color. After countless conversation about the right “STOP” button for our video player, we discovered the question was moot: when 3-year-olds are finished watching, they just run away from the computer (or, maybe just click on something else entirely).

“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning. They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play.”
—Fred Rogers

The “wheel” on the pbskids.org homepage that links to characters? Not unlike Marisa playing with X the Owl, we’ve watched children spin that wheel just so they can identify the characters when they sweep past, approaching our main navigational element as an activity in itself. As our creative director regularly says to interface designers, “Approach everything like it’s a game.” Preschoolers are coming up with new ways to play every time they visit a PBS KIDS experience. Part of our job is keeping the controls accessible, and putting kids in the driver’s seat to play.

Fred Rogers taught us that “play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” Preschoolers bring their own life experiences and daily skill development to every activity, and that’s no different for digital media. Once while testing a finger-painting activity on a smart phone, I watched a little boy use his pointer finger to scribble the color green all over the screen. He then lifted his hand and turned it over, looking to see if he now had green paint on his finger. How did this activity compare to the one he might have done at his table earlier in the day?

And I love it when a new technology emerges and our producers can begin adding new play elements into their games. When cameras became ubiquitous in desktops and laptops, our partners at WGBH developed a Curious George game in which kids could jump up and down to make George do the same on screen. In a Peg + Cat game from the Fred Rogers Company, 9ate7Productions, and CloudKid, children can wave their hands to capture and sort different shapes. And with Wild Kratts, kids can now mimic the behavior of bats and snakes through the camera in order to see how the animals move in the wild. Not only do these games incorporate very natural play patterns for children—jumping, motion—but I’m particularly interested to see how this type of play could reinforce learning.

The Kratt Brothers are now in production on a new tablet game in which kids need to help orangutans swing from vine to vine. In this case, they can use the tilt mechanic, getting a handle on how much momentum and speed is required to make that motion by moving the tablet itself. We’re also testing what types of smartphone and tablet experiences could better promote interactions between preschoolers and their parents—not just on the screen, but away from the computer as well.

At PBS KIDS, this intersection between screen-based play and hands-on activities is central to our mission, and true to the legacy that pioneers like Fred Rogers set for us. I once watched a child hop out of the room like a caracal after play-testing a Wild Kratts game. How can we inspire children to continue to play with new skills and concepts they have encountered in educational media after the screen is turned off?

About the Author

As Vice President of PBS KIDS Digital, Sara DeWitt oversees day-to-day development of PBS’ multiplatform content for kids and families, including the Kidscreen- and Webby-award winning pbskids.org, PBS KIDS’ suite of mobile apps, streaming video, interactive whiteboard games, and more. Having joined PBS Digital in 1999, DeWitt has worked with producers on a variety of award-winning television program sites, such as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Curious George, and Arthur. Before coming to PBS KIDS, DeWitt worked as a preschool teacher and studied leadership opportunities for teenagers in rural areas.

To MOOC, or Not to MOOC (Infographic)

“This infographic was sent from Juliet Rich for Top Colleges Online. To MOOC or Not to MOOC—that is indeed the question. One wonders if online learning could possibly have helped Hamlet or any of Shakespeare’s tragic figures lead less tumultuous lives. We’ll never know, but what we do know is that today MOOCs have their share of supporters and critics alike. Looks like we’ll just have to make up our own minds, and this creative infographic should help a little.”

Top 10 eLearning Stats for 2014 – Infographic

“The evolution of eLearning, much like the beloved Christmas song goes, doesn’t show signs of stopping. In fact, according to this infographic posted by Christopher Pappas on Open Education Europa, it’s poised to be bigger than ever in 2014. The infographic was created by eLearning Industry. ”

via Open Education Europa

(Here is a link to to an article also written by Christopher Pappas that briefly explains the Top 10 eLearning Statistics for 2014 Infographic.)