Since December 2004, Google has been working to create a “comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog” by scanning thousands of books, converting the scans to searchable text, and uploading the content into its digital database. Many of these books are out of print, collecting dust and mold on the far shelves of libraries. It’s likely that without Google’s rehabilitating project, these books would eventually [...]
Many American students are overwhelmed at the thought of education beyond the high-school level, particularly when confronted with the idea of having a STEM-based job. STEM is the acronym defined as “science, technology, engineering and math,” and majors leading to careers in these fields, despite encouragement by educators and administrators, are not seeing the growth necessary to sustain the future workforce. In an article from The [...]
You may have heard of Body Worlds, an exhibition about health and the human body that has been at major cities for the past several years. It is not like other exhibitions you may have seen, however, in that it features real human bodies displayed to educate the viewer about his or her own body. These bodies are preserved using a technique called plastination, invented [...]
by Alexandra Garner With technology advancing so quickly, college programs are finding it hard to keep up to date—most college and university board members are more than 50 years old, not “digital natives,” yet they recognize that technology is a necessary part of educating today’s students. According to a survey held by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), more [...]
How are ever-prominent search tools affecting our brains? Clive Thompson set out to answer this and related technology questions in his recent book Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better. In an excerpt published by Slate, Thompson asks if modern dependence on search engines is causing our memories to retain information less efficiently: “The short answer is: No. Machines [...]
With tablets becoming more and more popular, new apps for children’s education have developed, and teachers have even started using them in the classroom. According to Forbes, Apple sold three million of its new iPad during its opening weekend, with analysts expecting over sixty million of the tablets to be sold worldwide; ereaders are selling even faster than tablets. With so many different options, [...]
The access of Internet in all schools across the country has been a pressing issue, with government programs intending for 99 percent of America’s students to connect with broadband Internet within the next five years. The average American school has the same bandwidth as the average American home, and current figures show that between 29 and 39 percent of America’s students have access to high-speed Internet at [...]
Audiobook sales, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) reports, are at an all-time high. Their increasing use, however, is met by resistance from those who say that deep reading requires having the text in front of you. Readers of audiobooks claim that they enhance the pleasure of reading and invite more people to read. Regardless of the debate, over the past year the share of [...]
“Biometrics,” or the use of pattern recognition and algorithms to identify people based on physical characteristics often in a range of security programs, is all the rage in technology this year as people grow increasingly concerned about threats of hacking and identity theft. The newest trend is iris recognition, much more sophisticated than its fingerprint predecessor, as irises are even more complex and [...]
Teachers, administrators and students are using social media in all new ways. How can public schools use social media? Schools have often relied on traditional ways of disseminating information such as town hall meetings or newsletters. But more and more opportunities are arising for public schools to get their message out using social media. There are many different ways educators and administrators are [...]