It appears that Wolfram Alpha is bringing the fury to the student base of the world with no less than a pay-per-month service that amps their already powerful question and answer service up to an equitable level for professionals. While Wikipedia may be, sadly enough, one of the main knowledge wells in the world right now for students hoping to get their answers to questions quick, Wolfram Alpha brings the curated non-crowd-sourced knowledge vault to your browser window and your Siri on the daily. As Wolfram Alpha already powers a free service and works with the iPhone 4S to provide you with Siri's go-to resource for data, they bring a $4.95 a month (or $2.99 for students) service to the market today with abilities above and beyond what they've offered in the past.
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‘Education’ Stories
Wolfram Alpha Pro revealed, seeks to end wiki-ness
Nintendo DSi trials speech recognition for classrooms
The Nintendo DSi isn't what you'd expect teachers to want in classrooms, but that may change as the handheld gaming device explores new uses in education. Along with Japanese telecom company NTT, Nintendo is testing speech-to-text and speech recognition technology on the DSi for students with hearing impairment or other disabilities.
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Lenovo ThinkPad X130e goes on sale for students everywhere
There's a brand new ThinkPad in town, and this Lenovo model X130e is no joke when it comes to dishing out the middle-range for students across the earth. For that's who Lenovo is aiming at here with the X130e, students in grades K-12 - though we're not sure what a Kindergartener is going to do with a laptop, by any means. Inside you'll get the latest AMD or Intel processors with integrated graphics, there's an 11.6-inch HD LED 1366 x 768 pixel display up front, and the whole thing is protected by a set of hardcore features that'll keep the unit out of physical harm's way.
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Epson launches iProjection iOS app for wireless projection
Epson has unleashed an iOS app that will allow you to wirelessly project content from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. The app is called iProjection and works with any Espon wireless projector, making it easy for the traveling professionals and educators to present without the bulk of a laptop and cables.
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350,000 iBooks textbooks downloaded in three days
Apple's iBooks 2 digital textbook launch last week may not have convinced everyone that the classroom is the best place for the iPad, but over 350,000 downloads of textbooks in the first three days of availability suggests there's big demand for learning on the iOS slate. The figures were tracked by Global Equities Research's proprietary monitoring system, AllThingsD reports, while downloads of the free iBooks Author tool have also apparently been successful.
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The Problem With Tech and Teaching
Let me tell you a funny story about technology in the classroom. I was teaching English at a charter school in Boston a few years ago, and my classes were working on “Macbeth.” I’m always looking for new angles of attack, especially with Shakespeare, so I decided to focus on different interpretations and stagings of the play. I cut scenes from a variety of movie versions of Macbeth and showed them to my classes, so we could compare the difference. I used a Royal Shakespeare company version. I used the movie “Scotland, PA,” a wonderful modern adaptation in which Macbeth’s is a fast food restaurant. But my favorite of all was the Roman Polanski version, produced with funding from Hugh Hefner.
Apple’s education revolution roundup
Apple’s education-driven press event took place earlier today in NYC and unveiled the company’s plans to revolutionize textbooks and the entire learning experience. The news announced almost made us want to go back to school. In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of the magic that was unleashed.
iTunes U Hands-On
iTunes U isn’t new – Apple first revealed its educational download store back in 2007 – but the new iTunes U app and companion service revealed today is. A suite of not just individual lessons but entire classes and curriculum, iTunes U opens the door to content from high profile schools like Duke, Yale, The Open University and UCLA, with all the multimedia you could desire. Read on for more hands-on feedback.
iTunes U app released for iPad, teachers rejoice
Teacher will soon be able to “do everything on their iPad” as Apple announced this week at their education-based event this week, as iTunes U brings forth a fully interactive set of tools that any teacher, professor, or otherwise leader can use. The user interface is very similar to what iBooks has to offer, this being part of the grander plan to bring all of these education applications into one big experience for the classroom. Inside the iTunes U app, you the teacher are able to set up your classroom experience into categories, each category containing interactive elements such as checklists and the ability to send messages to students and give assignments through the web.
Apple iBooks Textbooks set at stunning $14.99 or less
The folks at Apple have this week shown off their new Textbooks category in their iPad and iPhone-based iBookstore, showing how interactive teaching can be done in a brand new way and for a much less expensive price: $14.99 or less. That’s the price the books in this new section of the store will cost, and that’s what groups like McGrawHill and Pearson have agreed to work with. We’ve seen how we can grab these books with iBooks 2, how iBooks Author can allow anyone to create such a fabulous interactive text, and now Apple is taking a vast swipe at the future of education with cost.
iBooks 2 revealed with Textbooks
Building on the very central subject of the education event in NYC this week in the iPad, Apple spoke of the second generation of iBooks, that being iBooks 2. This application will tie Apple’s already portable, durable, interactive, searchable, and current iPad to the “great content” of the textbook, the textbook having none of the features the iPad can offer to the next generation of students. What iBooks 2 offers the student is much more than just pages – multitouch gestures, 3D models, and interactive experiences galore will bring kids directly into the content they’re working with.
iPad at the head of Apple’s Education event in NYC
Apple held an event this week promising no less than an education-heavy set of announcements, Phil Schiller starting the event off right with a series of affirmations that Apple has always been dedicated to helping students learn. Putting the same passion and energy into every product Apple makes is the same that they’ve done for their education business, and now a new page is being turned. “Students are being introduced to the iPad.”
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