Monday, September 28, 2009

Are We Ready for "Robot Grading?"

The owner of one of England's three major exam boards is to introduce artificial intelligence-based automated marking of English exam essays in the UK from next month.

Academics and leaders in the teaching profession said that using machines to mark papers would create a "disaster waiting to happen".

Read more here.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Web Classes Could Help in H1N1 Outbreaks

More than 2,000 Washington State University students have reported flu-like symptoms this month, and although campus officials say most cases last from three to five days, web-based course delivery could play an important role if flu cases worsen and quarantined students can't attend class for several weeks, officials say.

Read more here.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

5 Million Students Going Back to School are "Going Google"

It's always tough to bid farewell to summer and hit the books again, but for a few million students this back-to-school season, things are looking up. As of this fall, over five million students at thousands of schools in more than 145 countries have "gone Google" and are actively using Google Apps Education Edition on campus. Since this time last year the number of students using Google Apps on campus has increased by 400%.

Read more here.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

What is the Future of Teaching?

According to the New York Times Bits blog, a recent study funded by the US Department of Education found that on the whole, online learning environments actually led to higher tested performance than face-to-face learning environments. “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” concluded the report’s authors in their key findings.

The report looked at just under one hundred studies that compared the performance of students in online learning environments (or courses with an online study component) to those who were given strictly face-to-face instruction for the same courses.

Read more here.