Intel Releases Rugged Education Tablet for the Developing World

Intel has launched the latest device in its line of classroom computers: a tablet, Intel studybook.
The Intel studybook is built to be both a rigorous education tool and a sturdy playmate. It comes loaded with Intel’s Learning Series software, including an interactive ereader and LabCam applications. The rugged water and dust-proof design is constructed from a single piece of plastic, with shock absorbers surrounding the screen. It’s also drop tested from 70 centimeters, the height of a child’s desk, onto concrete.
“Students today live in a virtual world and this device can give a valid scientific experience for students in emerging economies, ” says Wayne Grant, director of research and planning for Intel’s Education Market Platforms Group, as he throws the tablet across the table to demonstrate its robustness. “Representations of knowledge are changing. Tools are now based in tablet environments.”
The tablet has a 7-inch screen, 1060 x 600 pixel resolution, and can run either Windows 7 or Android Honeycomb software. Some additional features include front and rear-facing cameras, a microphone, multi-touch LCD screen, light sensor support and mobile learning environment. It runs on an Intel Atom Z650 processor.

Intel doesn’t sell any of its line of classroom PCs, rather it licenses them to original design manufactures throughout the world, in the countries that will be using the devices. It’s then up to the manufacturer to determine the price. Grant cites one Portuguese manufacturer’s estimate to sell the tablets at just under $200.
“The tablet is not prescriptive,” Grant says, “Here’s the tool, go discover the world.”
More than 7 million children in more than 2,000 classrooms in 36 countries around the world currently use Intel classmate PCs.
“An Intel studybook offers students limitless opportunities to enhance their learning experience,” says Kapil Wadhera, general manager of Intel’s Education Market Platform Group. “Expanding the Intel Learning Series portfolio of affordable, purpose-built educational devices brings us closer to our vision of enabling more students and teachers to participate in high quality education.”
To improve the classroom environment, the Intel Learning Series also added Teacher PC criteria for Ultrabook and Notebook systems. The criteria is created with the goal of keeping teachers up to speed with the new tools.
A recent study showed that One Laptop Per Child, another rugged classroom PC innovator, did not increase language and math test scores in the classrooms where laptops were used. This gap, the study found, is due to insufficient teacher training with the new technologies.

16:02 by Robert dawne · 0

Use Facebook While Studying, Get Lower Grades

Students should think twice before logging into Facebook or sending text messages during study time, suggests a study to be published in the journal Computers & Education.
The study — which controlled for demographics, high school GPA, internet skills and amount of study time — asked 1,624 students at a four-year university about their multitasking habits.
The study included questions about how often students IM, email, search and talk during study time, but only Facebook and texting ultimately correlated with a lower GPA. There was no relationship between grades and using other technologies while studying.
Scientists already know that the brain isn’t capable of successful multitasking. “Human information processing is insufficient for attending to multiple input streams and for performing simultaneous tasks,” write the study’s authors Reynol Junco and Shelia R. Cotton.
Previous studies have determined, for instance, that driving while talking on a cell phone can have more of an impact on driving performance than alcohol does. Even simply walking and talking on the phone at the same time can throw our brain off of its game.
In other words, one would think that any multitasking during study time — not just using Facebook and texting — would have a negative impact on grades.
Junco suggests the difference might have something to do with how students are using different technologies. Students may be more likely to email professors and search out of academic curiosity than to socialize through email or search, while they’re unlikely to text message their teaching assistants for homework help.
“It could be that students with lower grades just happen to do more Facebook and texting,” Junco tells Mashable. “But I think this study in the context of other research does seem to show that it is about what they’re doing while they study and not the other way around.”
On average, students in the study sent 97 text messages and spent 101 minutes on Facebook every day. Junco doesn’t think that they’ll leave either technology behind, but in his own classes at Lock Haven University he encourages students to think about how they use them.
“What I tell them is, ‘look, you’re going to sit down to study anyway,” he says. “You might as well make it the most efficient use of your time.’”

11:43 by Robert dawne · 0

How Well Are Schools Using Social Media ? [Infographic]

Is social media a distraction for students or an integrated part of college life? This infographic shows how schools have joined their students on sites like Facebook and Twitter to make college campuses even more social.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth conducted a Social Media Adoption study to see how social media is used in higher education. Not surprisingly, one hundred percent of the colleges and universities studied were using social media in some form.
The most common tool used was Facebook, which is used by 98 percent of the schools that participated in the study. The other tools used were LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs and message boards. The study, which lasted three school years between 2008 and 2011, showed some especially large growth rates for Twitter and LinkedIn in the last year.
LinkedIn recently enhanced its student profiles to include organizations, projects, awards, test scores and courses taken to make that first job out of college more attainable. Twitter users reported that professors used the microblogging site to make announcements about class schedules and tests.
Professional networking, outreach to current and potential students, and school pride were among the reasons listed for engaging in social media.  The Harvard University Facebook page, for example, includes articles from the Harvard Gazette, an ad for the “Tour Harvard Yard” mobile app, and pictures of life on campus in a folder titled, “As Seen at Harvard.” The posts drew comments from many hopeful applicants, as well as a few students.
The most social schools were John Hopkins University, University of Notre Dame, Ohio State University, Columbia University in the City of New York, and of course Harvard University, which was the school Mark Zuckerberg was attending when he created Facebook. None of these schools made Princeton Review’s list of top party schools in 2012, so the party must have moved online.
The infographic comes from Online Universities and includes some of the do’s and don’ts of social media at school. Take a look.

14:17 by Robert dawne · 1