2012 Ed Tech Trends: Insights From Insiders →

Here’s one:

2. MOOCs AND BLENDED LEARNING FLOURISH

Perhaps the most-covered trend in 2012 is the MOOC movement — Massively Open Online Courses in higher education — so pervasive it is now also getting noticed at K-12-focused events. Investors and media are paying close attention to Coursera, edX, Udacity, and other major players. But the attention paid to the newest MOOCs seemed to overshadow awareness of the progress being made in another online instructional area: K-12 web-only and blended learning.

When it comes to blended learning, one of the biggest challenges this year echoed at ed-tech conferences was agreeing on a clear definition. The Innosight Institute in 2012 simplified its original 40 blended learning profiles to a more manageable number — four models. Perhaps symptomatic of the need for clarity, at one event a representative of a well-known education company claimed it had “invented” blended learning because its reading intervention software existed on computers years ago.

Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2011: The Digital Library →

I particularly liked this section (there’s plenty more if you click through):

The Library Innovates

There’s long been hand-wringing about the impact a switch to digital books might have on the public library. Indeed, if you view the library as just a repository of printed books, then it does seem like a bit of a dying institution. “Can the American library survive?” The Huffington Post asks in its new series “Libraries in Crisis.” [Cue doom music.]

But, you know, when I look back on some of the coolest stories I’ve written this year, I see more than libraries just surviving. I see them as undertaking some of the most innovative and important educational projects and programs:

• The Boundless Library: In May, the New York Public Library released its Biblion app that features items from the library’s collection from the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair — documents, images, essays, film and audio that let you explore the library’s stacks “opening up hidden parts of the collections and the myriad story lines they hold and preserve.” The library also hosted “Find the Future,” a game played both online and in the library.
• The Public Library, Completely Reimagined: A look at the Fab Lab under construction at the Fayetteville Free Library. The Fab Lab already contains a Makerbot (a 3D printer) and a most fabulous librarian, Lauren Smedley, who’s helping the library get its hands on more hands-on equipment to help transform the library (which is actually housed in an old furniture factory) into a “makerspace.”

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emergentfutures:

iPad, I Saw, I Waited: The State of E-Textbooks

“About 90 percent of the time, the cheapest option is still to buy a used book and then resell that book,” says Jonathan Robinson, founder of FreeTextbooks.com, an online retailer of discount books. “That is really an obstacle for widespread adoption [of e-textbooks], because smarter consumers realize that and are not going to leap into the digital movement until the pricing evens out.”

Full Story: Gadget Lab

I’ve mentioned the sheer lunacy of ereaders to folks before, but it’s true—until a compelling affordable option comes along, or is built into a device students already have or want, it’s not going to take off in the way we expect.

After all, many readers don’t want to have to pay for a device that gives them the privilege of paying for books.

futuramb:

What is rising faster than health care costs? College costs…
Long trends of rising costs are certain to have side effects… What is uncertain is the nature of these side effects and when they materialize. (via Life Inc. - Good Graph Friday: What’s rising faster than health care? College costs)

It’s amazing what happens when Congress and state legislators repeatedly slash education funding over a period of decades.

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futuramb:

(via How Much Data Will Humans Create & Store This Year? [INFOGRAPHIC])

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ilovecharts:

Daily unique visitors of popular sites. Not quite there yet, but compared to the others, Tumblr is almost parabolic. Some tumblrites might not see that as good news though.

-toptumbles

Go team!

5 Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now →

5. Having a Social Media Policy

As more and more businesses dive head-first into the raging waters of social media, having an official company policy surrounding individual tools and services is becoming increasingly more commonplace. Whether it’s a simple one-page set of guidelines or full-blown documentation regarding what is and is not acceptable employee behavior surrounding social media, that information is something many companies are going to want to provide to existing staff as well as new employees and contractors coming on board.

Official social media policies may vary as widely as company cultures do, but no matter what the nature of your business, it might be good practice to consider if you’re wading into social media waters in any strategic manner. Many of the guidelines might sound like common sense, from “exercise good judgment” to “be responsible,” but those sentiments can still be powerful reminders to staff, along with any more concrete rules about what is acceptable especially when representing the company via social media.

Is Facebook Getting Bigger Than Google? [STATS] →

While social networks such as Facebook don’t pose an immediate threat to search engines for their core functionality — organizing the web and helping people find content — they do pose a large threat to search engines’ largest revenue source, advertising.