Dot Learnt

Time-lapse videos are a remarkably breathtaking, yet simple, use of technology. With a camera and a basic video-editing program, time-lapse representations can be created for, well, just about anything.

So how can time-lapse be used in the developing world?

Students in emerging markets are witnessing rapid growth on a near-daily basis. As cities, regions and countries launch into the global scene, infrastructure and lifestyles changes can transform the traditional landscape in a matter of months. Some worry that this rapid change is leading to a loss of culture and value structures in emerging populations. But time-lapse videos are a tool that can help to preserve local tradition and memory – while promoting digital literacy. (more…)

Early this month, the social media hegemon laid down the law and stated it was acquiring Push Pop Press, a digital bookmaker that is famed for their dynamic digital content for Apple’s ipad. Dare I say it? These are not just books. These are elegant, visually teasing, intellectually stimulating packages of knowledge.

So what’s the deal? Is Facebook trading in their status updates for a bunch of e-books? Not necessarily. What the multibillion-dollar company is doing though, is recognizing the growing market for e-books and asking for a piece of the pie, or at least claiming rights to it. A Push Pop representative explains how the “ideas and technology behind [their company] will be integrated with Facebook, to give people an even richer way to share their stories.”

Let’s talk e-books for a minute. As of recent, the Association of American Publisher’s released data showing e-books as the bestselling category in American publishing. Just a few months ago, Amazon came out and stated that after four years of selling e-books, they are “now selling more of them than printed books.” E-books allow users to engage in the learning process as readers dive deeply into the content with the use of multimedia and interactive text-supporting features. For example, in Al Gore’s first e-book, published and created by Push Pop Press, Our Choice allows readers to explore audio, video and interactive graphics as they read. Users become more than readers, they become a part of the story itself.

Through the fusion of access, content and connectedness individuals, organizations and governments alike are hopping on board the digital and mobile technology train. Just recently, the government of South Korea has mandated that all school-age curricula will become digitized by the year 2015. In one the New York Time’s recent opinion piece, Virginia Heffernan discusses how 65% of today’s grade-school youth will end up doing work in a field that has not even been invented yet. Such developments should only push us to embrace technology use in the classroom, as technology will help us better prepare for society’s evolution. How’s that for knocking down the bookcase?

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It’s no secret that online learning is hot. Every day new players throw their hat into the ring and have a go at establishing eLearning offerings. Over the past year we’ve noticed a trend of traditional publications like The Economist and the New York Times creating online schools that offer courses that exploit their massive content archives and in-house brainpower.

For example, the Economist Education has recently decided to introduce, Innovating for growth in emerging markets, a course that caters to business leaders around the world who seek to “execute innovation and grow initiatives in frontier economies.” It is a self-paced curriculum meant to teach students how to foster innovative processes abroad.

This is so interesting because it blurs the once rigid lines of school with everyday life. Magazines and newspapers are some of the most common sources of entertainment and information in today’s world. Now, these same publications can also be powerful tools for personal learning and professional development. A brand like the Economist boasts a certain level of seriousness and gravitas that will lend credibility to the courses. In a way, by offering courses, they sell a bit of their brand that you can put on your resume. (more…)

How do we educate students about technology when technology is ever changing and always advancing?

In 1965, Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore stated, “the number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months.” His statement set the pace for the growth of semi-conductor technology (computers getting faster and faster and smaller and smaller) for the next half century, and the exponential growth of new technologies shows no sign of dropping off. So what does it mean to educate students in a world where their future careers probably do not even exist yet? In the article Achieving Techno-Literacy, which appeared in the New York Times Magazine’s September Education issue, author Kevin Kelly offers some up some of the ‘technological smartness’ that he has been passing on to his children:

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