Week 2 Blog Post

Week 2 Blog Post:

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms:

There are 23 schools in the Oceanside Unified School District, Oceanside, CA. Of those 23, there are 16 elementary sites. Last year we began Oceanside 2.0, which began our journey in implementing devices (iPads) in our teachers and students district wide. We began with only those elementary sites that showed staff wide support to be a part of the first pilot phase. The original goal was to spend half the year providing professional development to teachers in how to use the iPads, Apple TV’s, and video projectors to help enhance student learning in the classroom. In January of that same year we were going to then hand iPads to every student of those teachers trained. We partnered with the University of San Diego (USD) to provide research methodologies and embed a monitoring and evaluative process as we trained our first cohort.

As we began the 2013-14 year it was evident in November that the majority of teachers needed more professional development. We decided that we would not hand out student iPads until this year, and only to those teachers that felt comfortable having the devices in students hands during class. This year, 2014-15 we began our next cohort of elementary schools (remaining 8). The data we’ve collected from the first year in the process has been invaluable in beginning this next phase.

Richardson implies this new learning environment is about being able to construct, develop, sustain and participate in global networks that render time and place less and less relevant (loc 308 of 3663, Kindle version).  Teachers will need to understand the pedagogical shifts that must take place not only in their classroom but for them professionally as educators.

Richarson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Chapter 1.

The Fire Phone May Have Cratered, But It Hasn't Dented Amazon's Tech Delusions

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, is an innovator, and innovators often know how to fail. Although the Fire Phone  has been a huge flop I have no doubt Bezos will find another niche that will prove to be hugely successful. Even though as of yesterday, October 24, Amazon yearly income report fell short 427 million dollars!! I’m not hearing much panic for Bezos, and my feeling is we won’t. I think we will see him take this failure, learn from it and move this to another project that may be the next “Amazon” concept. Stay tuned for things ahead.

http://readwrite.com/2014/10/23/amazon-earnings-jeff-bezos-fire-tv-phone-delusional.