Edtech field studies yield mixed results, analysis shows

“An analysis of three recent studies of technology use in education found mixed results, with some of the studies’ research revealing negative effects of technology on student learning. The findings from these studies offer three takeaways for schools, according to the research review.” More here. I am somewhat skeptical about study designs and their findings, but it is interesting to review the results anyway.

 

A psychologist’s guide to understanding the teenage brain

“If being a teenager is hard, teaching them is harder”. This guide might help you understanding more about teenagers and how they operate and help them navigating through life more successfully. Basically, teenagers take more risks, struggle to get enough sleep, have less self-control, peer=pressure vulnerable, and have trouble reading emotions. More here.

New Report Shares Personalized Learning Guidance

“A new report, “Technology-Enabled Personalized Learning Summit: Findings & Recommendations to Accelerate Implementation,” is a 32-page cookbook for using technology to personalize education. The recipes are based on what was shared at a 2014 summit hosted by North Carolina State University’s Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. Among the essential ingredients: the right usage of data, content and curriculum, research and development, human capacity and technology architecture.”

Students starting research projects

Depending on student prior skills, scope of the project, and learning outcomes there might be different methods to get them started. Ok, we are not talking here about sophisticated tools, but something that might engage students, motivate them to continue with their study, and use tools to facilitate their research efforts. Checkout this site to see a collection of 15 tools for students at the very start of their research endeavors.

Search engines for academic and scientific research

We just successfully finished the research week. More work is ahead! There are many tools and technologies which can facilitate the research process. Where do you start? Probably with literature review and environmental scan… Access the latest publication of Emerging Ed Tech presenting search engines to get you started (Google Scholar , CiteSeerx  , GetCITED, Microsoft Academic Research, Bioline, International Directory of Open Access Journals , PLOS ONE, BioOne , Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, New Journal of Physics, ScienceDirect).

Creating Google Scholar alerts

We use Google for email, calendar, videochats, etc. Have you tried to use Google for research purposes? You might want to share the tips on how to add Google Scholar alerts with your students as well.

Google Scholar provided access to many scholarly works in a variety formats and from many publishers, societies, clearing houses. It has publications in several languages. Here is a pretty impressive listing in English. Give it a try!