Android Tablet Use in U.S. Schools: A Response

Posted on April 5, 2013 by karen mahon

Hey guys, last week I wrote an update about Android tablet use in US schools. Our friend and colleague, Jarrett Volzer, from TabPilot, wrote a very thoughtful and…ahem…LONG…comment on that page. I think Jarrett raises some great points and wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to read it, so am posting it here for all. Thanks, Jarrett!

tabpilot logoKaren, as the developer of the TabPilot Tablet Manager system that you reviewed here. I read this entry with great interest and have been giving it some thought over the past few days. Of course, we’re pleased to see more and more capable Android hardware that can compete with the iPad, as the early attempts were just not even in the same ballpark. But what I’ve been thinking about the most is your analysis on the educational apps themselves. Continue reading →

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Android Tablet Use in U.S. Schools: An Update

Posted on March 30, 2013 by karen mahon

android professorAbout six months ago I wrote about Android tablets, here, wondering if they would be the next big thing in education. And given what’s been happening in the market since then, I thought it would be a good time to write an update of what I’ve been seeing and reading.

First, an overview of the tablet sales. According to IDC (2013), tablet sales worldwide outpaced predictions with 52.5 million units sold in Q4 of 2012. That’s a lot of tablets, with the Q4 tablet market growing 75.3% year-on-year and up 74.3% from the previous quarter’s totals of 30.1 million units sold.  IDC attributed this to lower average selling prices (ASPs), a wide range of new product offerings, and increased holiday spending all acting as catalysts to push the already climbing tablet market to record levels. Continue reading →

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Worksheets: BAD. Technology: GOOD. An Analysis.

Posted on March 24, 2013 by karen mahon

borrowing-worksheet1I was skimming through my twitter feed the other day and saw a tweet that stopped me dead in my tracks. I can’t quote it verbatim now, but it said something like this:

Worksheets allow teachers to pretend that they’re teaching and learners to pretend that they’re learning.

I was blown away. To me it read a bit like this: “Worksheets, BAD. Grunt, grunt.” Given, there are only 140 characters in a tweet, but this just seemed so…well, so black and white.  Then I realized that I’ve been seeing so many black and white statements in education and ed tech for a while now. Testing: BAD. Technology: GOOD. Common Core State Standards: BAD. Project-Based Learning: GOOD. It’s kind of wild, really. I mean, none of these things is all good or all bad. But you would sure think so based on a lot of the blog posts, tweets and conference talks out there. Where’s the nuance? Continue reading →

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Game Apps that I Love to Hate

Posted on March 19, 2013 by karen mahon

Do you guys have games that you play on your smartphones or tablets that drive you crazy? You know, the ones that, for the life of you, you can’t figure out WHY IN GOD’S NAME you are wasting your life playing??

I do.

So it got me to thinking, why do I keep playing? Then I thought, WAIT! I know the answer to this one! I’m a behavioral scientist!!

First, the culprits:

candy crush sagaCandy Crush Saga. I blame my sister for getting me hooked on this one (though she will deny it). It’s one of those basic games where you have to clear items (in this case, candy) from a board by grouping similar items together. The game gets progressively harder and unless you want to pay crazy money for lives, you have to get your friends who are playing the game to give you lives. So basically, you are limited in how many rounds you can play at a given time. Then you have to wait for some friends to give you lives (or for your lives to refill based on time passed) before you can resume your quest to….yeah, well, your meaningless quest, basically, unless you count wasting more time!! Continue reading →

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A Physics Education App that Teaches!

Posted on March 8, 2013 by karen mahon

physics app screenshotOne of the complaints I frequently hear from teachers is that there just aren’t very many good high school level science instruction apps out there. And from what I’ve seen, they’re right. There are plenty of science tool apps…like interactive periodic tables, reference apps, even simulations where an already-capable user can manipulate switches and levers to observe changes onscreen in waves and molecules and the like. But I have seen almost no excellent science instructional apps for higher level science.

Until now. Continue reading →

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Teachers Rank EdTech Trends!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by karen mahon

This is a very cool infographic that was originally published on the Edudemic website.  Wanted to share it here for anyone who missed it there!  I think it’s really cool to see teacher interests shifting away from hardware solutions and toward software-based solutions! Neat! Continue reading →

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From the Trenches of An Entrepreneurial Accelerator Program

Posted on March 1, 2013 by karen mahon

2013 accelerator logo fall 2012_webJust this past week I finished up the 12-week program in the Merrimack Valley Sandbox Accelerator program. I had never been in a program like this before and I only knew one other person who had been. It was an interesting experience…some good, some bad…so I wanted to share some of my tips for entrepreneurs and edupreneurs who might be considering an Accelerator program.  And I want to capture my thoughts while they’re still fresh! Continue reading →

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Kids and Mobile EdTech

Posted on February 22, 2013 by karen mahon

Edudemic posted an infographic yesterday that I loved.  So I thought I’d share it here with you guys.  I think it does a nice job of showing what’s going on with educational apps!  Mobile learning and apps are here to stay!  Happy Weekend! Continue reading →

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The Problems with Free Educational Apps

Posted on February 17, 2013 by karen mahon

no free lunchI was talking to a school superintendent last week about how her district selects iPad apps for use in the classrooms. She said that the first thing they do is separate the free from the paid apps…and then they go on to select from among the free. Similarly, in talking to parents in the past few months, they also tend to select primarily from among the free educational apps that are available. Lots of focus on free…in many cases because there’s little or no confidence that educational apps are truly effective, therefore, why spend the money on paid apps? Continue reading →

Posted in App Reviews & Recs, Balefire Labs, Instructional Design, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Geeky Science Valentines! Woot!

Posted on February 15, 2013 by karen mahon

Well, I’m a day late on this, but this was too good not to share….who doesn’t love geeky science Valentines??  Happy One-Day-Late Valentine’s Day and Happy Friday! Continue reading →

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