EdTech 10: Everything You Missed During #Blizzard2016

Doesn’t matter what you call it – Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, Snowzilla – the ridiculous amount of snow added to an already interesting week. Here are four thoughts on learning in an uncertain world inspired by this week’s rollercoaster of happenings.  
As our friends out east dig themselves out of Blizzard 2016, with GenDIY approaching the weather with an entrepreneurial mindset, and with those keeping warm by practicing the NSCW dance for National School Choice Week, here are the top EdTech news stories you might have missed while you were busy surviving #Blizzard2016.

Cool Schools & Tools

For the n00bs. “Minecraft Education Edition” will soon find its way to a classroom near you. This week Microsoft bought MinecraftEdu, an educational game version of Minecraft. Moss Pike is already using Minecraft in his classroom, but in his case, he’s using it to teach Latin.

“Stacked” | @Microsoft buys @MinecraftEdu https://t.co/e8trGYSft2 #EdTech10 #minecraft

— tyler (@post_west) January 26, 2016

VR field tripping. Expeditions is a new program from Google that will make it easier for schools to access and their VR field trips via a beta app for Android. With VR growing as big as $150 billion in 2020 with 25 million VR users by 2018, VR is coming to a classroom near you.

Google expands access to VR field trips, sign up to beta test https://t.co/YOLIFJ2qNu @WIRED
— Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) January 21, 2016

Digital Developments

Developing a competent competency program. Considering the shift to competency at your college or university but don’t know where to begin? Pearson launched their Competency-Based Education (CBE) Playbook for HigherEd leaders to think, organize and manage the phases and important decisions involved in developing a CBE program.

In #HigherEd and looking to make shift to #competencybased? Take a page out of @Pearson‘s #CBE Playbook https://t.co/g7oXbgpS2r #edtech10

— tyler (@post_west) January 26, 2016

hAPPy day, hAPPy day. Newsela launched their iOS app! Students can now access curated news articles on their Apple devices from the Associated Press, Scientific American, and the Washington Post. Last year was officially the year of mobile, so this year expect many platforms to launch apps and mobile responsive frameworks.

.@newsela launched iOS #Edapp to help students become master readers of news https://t.co/XVidith6nI #edTech
— Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) January 22, 2016

Dollars & Deals

Bridging the gap. Noodle Markets raised $3 million from a series seed financing round led by Rethink Education and Palm Ventures. This funding comes only a month after the launch of the resource that’s an attempt at bridging the EdTech purchasing information gap.

.@NoodleMarkets raised $3m in round led by @Rethink_Ed, see feature https://t.co/zLmPGZovTl #EduVC

— Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) January 11, 2016

Stem Gems

Making it big. Inventables is donating 50 3D carving machines to 50 different schools across the US, one in each state. Everything “Maker” is on the rise. See how the “Maker Movement” has developed into “Maker Ed.”

.@Inventables gave a 3D carver to a school in every state https://t.co/PYIQA3Ur5e #maker pic.twitter.com/1Zai3O1wuF
— Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) January 20, 2016

Higher, Deeper, Further, Faster Learning

Admitting. Parallel to the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success’ call to reimagine the college admissions process is Turning the Tide, a new report that reports concrete recommendations for admissions offices to consider that include:

1. Promoting more meaningful contributions to others, community service and engagement with the public good.
2. Assessing students’ ethical engagement and contributions to others in ways that reflect varying types of family and community contributions across race, culture and class.
3. Redefining achievement in ways that both level the playing field for economically diverse students and reduce excessive achievement pressure.

Can Colleges Make Caring Common? via @forbes https://t.co/3M9LVQXkE9 #highered

— Carri Schneider (@CarriSchneider) January 25, 2016

Deals for days. From now until January 31, CareerFoundary is have 25% off sale on all their UI Design, UX Design and Web Development courses. Here is the story of one GenDIY student who went from being unemployed to a full-scale web developer with CareerFoundary.

Until Jan. 31, @career_foundry is offering 25% off #WebDeveloper, #UXDesigner or #UIDesigner courses!! Yo #GenDIY cop this deal! #EdTech10
— tyler (@post_west) January 26, 2016

Community college collabs. Jobs for the Future (JFF) is leading the creation of Student Success Centers in an effort to organize community colleges around common action for student completion. Talk about free community college has been on the rise. In response, JFF’s Lara Couturier advises students to choose wisely.

JFF Launches Student Success Center Network https://t.co/QT3SvuqoFK @JFFtweets #EdPolicy pic.twitter.com/ZROHG8qCkP

— Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) January 22, 2016

The Big “D”

Von Deeper. Udacity (one of 25 HigherEd Innovators) is now hosting a Google facilitated deeper learning course. The course will be part of Udacity’s machine learning engineer Nanodegree program. The case continues to build — machine learning is the new infrastructure for everything.

Google launches a #DeepLearning course on @Udacity https://t.co/8EUbsjXzge @VentureBeat #AI
— Tom Vander Ark (@tvanderark) January 22, 2016

For more EdTech 10’s check out:

• EdTech10: Celebrating Changemakers
• EdTech 10: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
• EdTech 10: Don’t Call it a Comeback

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