Large-scale testing of educational outcomes benefits already from technological applications that address logistics such as development, administration, and scoring of tests, as well as reporting of results. Innovative applications of technology also provide rich, authentic tasks that challenge the sorts of integrated knowledge, critical thinking, and problem solving seldom well addressed in paper-based tests. Such tasks can be used on both large-scale and classroom-based assessments. Balanced assessment systems can be developed that integrate curriculum-embedded, benchmark, and summative assessments across classroom, district, state, national, and international levels. We discuss here the potential of technology to launch a new era of integrated, learning-centered assessment systems.
A senior analyst at Forrester Research is compiling usage stats for a bunch of SNSs.
Despite the demonstrated success of many new media enterprises, the euphoria over the rise of participatory media has been tempered by concerns over the quality and credibility of online media, the possible fragmentation of audiences, a decline in editorial standards and the persistent challenge of effectively reporting the news.
From the site: "Via web application software, data citation standards, and statistical methods, the Dataverse Network project increases scholarly recognition and distributed control for authors, journals, archives, teachers, and others who produce or organize data; facilitates data access and analysis for researchers and students; and ensures long-term preservation..."
Richard L. Gilbert, a psychology professor at Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles, is about to begin a series of surveys of participants in Second Life, the virtual world where people interact as cartoonlike characters in a 3-D animated landscape. Usually the researcher would pay test subjects a small fee for their time, but for this study he’ll be paying participants in Linden dollars, the virtual currency used in Second Life.
The National Institutes of Health and a nonprofit group, Common Sense Media, have another reason for President-elect Barack Obama to keep urging parents to “turn off the TV.”In what researchers call the first report of its kind, a review of 173 studies about the effects of media consumption on children asserts that a strong correlation exists between greater exposure & adverse health outcomes.
Results from the most extensive U.S. study on teens and their use of digital media show that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value.
New MacArthur report on teens and new media. There's a two page
summary of the findings of the three year research project into kids'
informal learning with digital media, a white paper, and the complete
text of the forthcoming book, Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking
Out: Living and Learning with New Media.
Despite an endless succession of startups claiming to “beat” Google and Yahoo, there’s not, strictly speaking, any need to do so. For the average consumer search has been solved, with most searches ending satisfactorily. DeepDyve wants to tap another group of users: Students, researchers and other “information workers” who need to quickly find expert-level data.