Web Learning Tools Research - version J351
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The Amplify Tablet web site
Notorious Tabloid News Magnate, billionaire elder conservative Rupert Murdoch of Australia, who has had to deal with scandals in Britain in the last two years over his now-defunct News Corporation wire-tapping cell phone of "The Royals" and of celebrities, has had an "educational division" operating in recent years as well. That division publicly announced in the USA earlier this week ending Friday March 8, 2013, their new "Amplify Tablet" intended for the educational market. The Amplify Tablet, an Android OS-powered tablet computer, is supposedly better than any other tablet now on the market apparently because it allows students and teachers to remain in near constant contact online with each other. A PC Magazine (pcmag.com) article of March 6, 2013, said in part the following: "The tablet allows teachers to keep up with students' work [in real-time], block any or all apps that may provide distractions, and build lesson plans with a mix of pre-loaded content and other Web resources to be published for students. Also, the Quick Poll feature tracks understanding in real time, with the option of sending materials to those pupils who need additional help." On face-value this is nothing new or remarkable or special. Any software person or researcher interested in distance learning has thought of and may have built at least small lab research projects or local school system working examples, pilot projects, which do the same. So there may be more to "what is really new and innovative" on the Amplify tablet and/or this could be "hype" (hyperbole) from Murdoch and an attempt to corner the Education Market starting in the US at least in the US press. Some negative news reports say Murdoch's tablet is a "trojan horse" that in more subtle ways or in marketing and distribution ways is designed to undermine and privatize education more thoroughly and irrevocably, as those are some of Murdoch's social-political goals. E.g. the suspicion is the tablet is another way to privatize education and turn more of it over to "charter schools" in the USA. If that is so, how that might happen remains to be discovered and reported. Another skeptical education expert suggests it clearly is a way to continue to enlarge the number of students a single instructor must teach, rather like the yet-to-be-seen results of MOOCs, massive online open courses, being deployed this Spring and for the next several years via Coursera.com using the recorded instruction, instructors and materials for undergraduate classes normally presented at several major US Universities. See also the NPR.org "Morning Edition" news story of March 8 for more details and skeptical commentary about the Amplify Tablet announced March 8, 2013 (13.03.08).
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PC Mag: the Amplify Tablet announcement (13.03.06)
PC Magazine, pcmag.com, ran this story online March 6, 2013, describing the basic technical facts and features of the "Amplify Tablet" which debuted from News Corp. educational division called Amplify.com. News Corp. and this newer educational division are owned and controlled by billionaire Rupert Murdoch. Somehow the hardware, Android OS and other software are supposed to make education better and more compelling to teachers and students. There are many skeptics and suspicious observers of this new product.
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IW Ed: The New Amplify Tablet Exclusively for K-12 Education (13.03.06)
MOVE OVER M.I.T's, now OLPC Foundation's, OLPC (one laptop per child) for the K-12 students in poor developing countries and those few 1000s that have had them in the USA the last 7 years! FYI the OLPC marketers still have not reached their desired price point when the project began in the 1990s of $100/unit for their child-sized, rugged, free-open-source Linux-OS powered wireless laptops that use custom and open source educational software. But the OLPC was placed by the 10s of thousands in many Latin American and South American countries, as well as some S.E. Asean countries in the 2000s. The new Amplify Tablet hopes to get students first in the USA to buy one for $299 plus subscriptions to content. The $299/unit is a not much different price point for not-poor Americans students and those in other developed countries than the first price for the beta and version 1 release of the OLPC which debuted in 2005. MOST INTERESTING to open source, open content, open, heteogeneous (any kind of) low-cost hardware Distance Learning software developers are the descriptions of the version 1 "user interface," like much else of the product, not that remarkable, but good ideas not yet deployed online or on tablets from other vendors or available in proprietary online learning management systems to-date (the latter which I, jgw, or interested content submitters to WLTRes need to confirm). Information Week magazine, pcmag.com, ran this story online March 6, 2013, with the title: "Amplify Tablet Hopes To Rule Schools." The story focuses more on the possible threat to education of the Amplify Tablet and the required yearly subscriptions and paid educational content and services student and teacher can receive exclusively via the new tablet. It also gives some superficial technical facts about the "Amplify Tablet." IW reminds us that the Amplify Tablet was announced to be a new product for education in June 2012 and was debuted to the press at the SXSWEdu conference on March 6, 2013. The tablet is produced by "Amplify.com," the relatively new, but very well funded, educational division of News Corp. News Corp., a chain of tabloid news papers world-wide, and this newer educational division are owned and controlled by billionaire far-right conservative Rupert Murdoch. Somehow the hardware, Android OS and other software of the Amplify Tablet are supposed to make education better and more compelling to teachers and students. There are many skeptics and suspicious observers of this newly announced product. The Information Week "Education" article does a significant service for K-12 computer hardware purchasers, educational applications developers, and educators by explaining some of the ways Amplify and indirectly News Corp. will control K-12 educational content, charge for some if not all of it delivered on their tablet, and possibly "hijack" and dominate the newly adopted "Common Core Curricula" for K-12 schools in the USA.
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NYT: Colleges Adapt Online Courses to Ease Burden
The New York Times announced April 30, 2013 (13.04.30) -- apparently as free advertising -- that tuition-charging universities are adapting their online courses to ease the study burden, if not also expense, on actual and potential college students not otherwise privileged to take classes on-campus, or likely to complete a degree in the allotted time required of an admitted student.
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