Cisco Blog > Education
July 13, 2011 at 7:37 am PST
Remember when the principal used to come into your classroom? Though he or she was only there to observe your teacher, if you were like me, you immediately started running through the day and whether you had littered on campus or let a curse word drop. Total reflex action, then you promptly swallowed your gum and dropped the note you were writing (translation for anyone under 25—text message you were sending) and sat up straight in your chair.
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Tags: edchat, edtech, Education Week, Rick Hess, teacher evaluation, TelePresence
The bright hot autumn sun burned down into Compton, California – right onto the shoulders of a busy nine year-old boy. The boy was respectful, working on hurrying up his chores for his mother so he could play ball with friends. The boy eyed the last pile of leaves and thought “last one, then I’m done”. He heaved the rake over the pile and pulled back – and stiffened in shock as the rake revealed two automatic hand guns, still warm, hidden in the leaves.
To this day Fred Martin does not like leaves. Buried under high piles of leaves are where the Compton gangs he grew up with hid their guns – at the safe house of “the Church family” – Fred’s family. The police never searched there; his father was a minister. Soon enough at ten years age Fred, a music prodigy, found himself playing organ in church on Sunday mornings – he later figured the music carried him away from the leaves.
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Tags: Cisco, collaboration, education, K12, K12_school_districts, TelePresence
Let’s face it; today’s kids are more connected than ever before. In fact, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, children between the ages of 8-18 spend more than 7 ½ hours a day with those electronic devices, not including the hour and a half they spend texting, or the small amount (30 min) they actually talk on the cell phone.
And these kids are truly digital natives. To them, online access is ubiquitous and expected. Internet access is everywhere and like oxygen -- they rely on it, crave it. Whether they tweet, text, update statuses, post pictures, chat and video chat, kids are using their devices to connect, to explore, to share, and yes, to learn. In fact, a new study has shown that users of social networking sites (SNS) such as Twitter and Facebook, are better off socially, are more trusting of other people and are more civically engaged. Even in classrooms today, teachers have found that using technology has increased their student’s motivation, provided new outlets for student’s creativity, and helped the teachers become better organized. (Read more)
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Tags: cyber security, cyber security month, cybersecurity, education, safety, social media, Stop. Think. Connect
June 24, 2011 at 9:44 am PST
Have you ever explored one of the first rockets to launch into space? You haven’t? Then what are you waiting for? Go to the New York Hall of Science!
Oh, you don’t live in New York. No problem, the museum will come to you through one of its Telepresence virtual tours.
With Cisco TelePresence, the Hall of Science takes remote visitors all around its museum floor. People in places like Sacramento, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Joseph, Michigan; Ontario, Canada; and Mexico City, Mexico have gone to the Hall of Science to dissect cows’ eyes, learn about the phases of matter, and study the science of sports—and they haven’t set foot on an airplane.
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Tags: Cisco, edtech, education, Google, New York Hall of Science, TelePresence, virtual fieldtrips, virtual visits
June 17, 2011 at 12:49 pm PST
As a former marketer, I’m a lover of phrases. But I particularly love phrases that mean something and that help you to tell a story. One of my favorites is “Next Generation Learning.” At Cisco, it often takes the place of that formerly-beloved phrase, “21st Century Learning,” which became oh-so-passe after about seven or eight years into the new century.
The reason I like “Next Generation Learning” is because it describes the evolution of teaching and learning and implies a staying ahead of the curve mentality. It also describes the next generation of students, namely Millennials, who are gracing our schools, colleges, and universities today with a vibrant outlook on life and an enthusiastic embracing of technology.
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June 17, 2011 at 5:52 am PST
When you hear the word “classroom”, do you think about four walls? Desks and chairs? Maybe you are old school and still imagine a green chalk board – well, those days are over, now it’s more likely to be an interactive whiteboard, right?
If your idea of a classroom is the traditional, you need to check out Charles County Public Schools in Southern Maryland. In 2010, the district introduced telepresence, installing three completely equipped rooms to service the community’s students and teachers. All of a sudden, the classrooms lost their walls, and prior geographic and instructional limitations ceased to restrict learning.
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Tags: Charles County Public Schools, classroom technology, College of Education Towson, Duke, edtech, Kaplan, Nicholas School of the Environment, TelePresence
On July 19th, the Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina will be hosting a 3-day symposium called “Summer Connections 2011”. The training program will detail how Mooresville took a technology initiative four years ago and transformed itself into one of the largest success stories in USA K12 public education today. The symposium will bring together superintendents, administrators, technicians, teachers – and millennial students -- all interested in learning the Mooresville recipe, and how to bring that back to their home districts.
What is the story? It’s simple, really. Two points – 1. Test score changes over the four-year period have been profound -- proving the technology initiative was wildly successful, and 2. It’s a district-wide success story – all 8 schools have seen a significant rise in test scores. Not just a high school here or intermediate school there. Since 2007, Mooresville district-wide dropout rates are down 20%; at the Mooresville High School graduation rates are up from 64% to 86%; District North Carolina composite scores are up from 73% to 86% in 2010, with the District arcing toward 90% in 2011. It’s now the 4th highest achieving school district in North Carolina, even though it ranks 99th out of the 115 state districts in school funding.
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Tags: education, education reform, education technology, K12_school_districts, transforming education
June 10, 2011 at 8:02 am PST
As 80 million Baby Boomers shift into retirement, 80 million Millennials (born 1980-95) take center stage as our next-generation workforce. This massive shift is changing the way work gets done as this new cohort brings a different mindset with expectations for a different work environment than the one know and loved by Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, and Gen Xers.
While the recession is shaping the Millennial attitude, a recent study commissioned by the Career Advisory Board1 indicated that “both Millennials and their managers agree on the strengths (e.g. digital comfort) and weaknesses (e.g. impatience with established processes) of the younger generation…Millennials will manage their careers by pursuing advanced education, changing professions and work situations, and overcoming unique challenges associated with the 21st century workplace.”
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May 24, 2011 at 11:44 am PST
What if Isaac Newton had owned a video camera? Suspend your disbelief a little more … what if he used that camera to record himself teaching calculus lessons and then posted those lessons on YouTube?
Well, if Newton had done these things, then Salman Khan “wouldn’t have to,” as Khan said in a March TED Talk. Since Newton pre-dated the digital era, Khan took it upon himself to fill the gap with his brainchild, Khan Academy, the world’s first video-based virtual school.
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Tags: distance learning, edtech, education, Isaac Newton, IVC, Khan Academy, Salman Khan, TelePresence, video conferencing, youtube
May 19, 2011 at 6:55 am PST
With budgets tighter than ever, school administrators are finding new ways to collaborate with other schools and districts hundreds of miles away. Instead of spending money on flights and hotels to travel across the state and share best practices with others in their field, teachers, principals and superintendents in several California schools are now using telepresence to get that same face-to-face interaction without leaving town.
Fontana Unified School District (FUSD) in Southern California, for example, is a huge district – 41,000 students at 40 schools across 25 miles. FUSD is the latest school district to incorporate telepresence in order to offer their students the best programs possible — and not only prepare them for college, but also prepare them for the real world. In such a large district, telepresence is a vehicle that allows the district to offer the same opportunities to every student at every school, and save time and money because administrators don’t have to travel across town for meetings.
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Tags: California, cost-savings, education reform, Fontana Unified School District, Fresno Unified School District, IVC, Long Beach Unified School District, TelePresence, videoconferencing
May 18, 2011 at 9:03 am PST
You heard it here first: a new space race has begun. Alright, maybe it’s more accurate to say it very well could begin, thanks to Australia’s new Pathways to Space program.
Hosted by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, the initiative aims to enhance Australia’s engineering and science education. Pathways to Space gives secondary school students the chance to develop space robotics and search for life on Mars. And, with telepresence, even students living deep in the outback can participate.
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Tags: Australia, Cisco TelePresence, Distance Education, edtech, IVC, Mars, pathways to Space, Powerhouse Museum, Space Camp, Sydney, videoconferencing
April 20, 2011 at 8:24 pm PST
By: Jeanne Beliveau Dunn, Vice President and General Manager, Learning@Cisco
Economic, technological and social trends are constantly transforming the business landscape around us. Gartner Research predicts that by 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be non-routine, up from 25 percent in 2010. According to a recent Cisco survey, three of every five employees believe it is unnecessary to be in the office to be productive, and two of three employees worldwide say they prefer a job with less pay and more flexibility.
Enjoy my discussion on The Talent Development Race, continue reading to learn more about the challenges the global workforce faces, and please join the conversation. Share your thoughts on how public and private organizations can collaborate to develop the skills tomorrow’s workforce will need to be successful.
“httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAykaZJnT68“
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Tags: 21st century learning environment, 21st century skills, education, training
March 27, 2011 at 4:04 pm PST
Today’s educators are facing seemingly insurmountable challenges:
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Demands for greater accountabiliy based on high stakes assessments
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Increasing focus on differentiated instruction and student mastery of content knowledge
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Greater awarness of the importance of 21st century skills (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity)
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Requirements to address all of the above in an environment of declining resources
In spite of these daunting challenges, innovative educators are successfully utilizing collaborative solutions in creative ways to improve outcomes for students and provide them with the skills to compete effectively in the 21st century. As a result, it is becoming increasingly clear that professional development that prepares educators to effectively integrate technology into pedagogy and curricula is an essential element of holistic education improvement initiatives.
Tags: collaboration, edtech, technology, TelePresence
March 22, 2011 at 7:33 am PST
Last week, the co-manager of the Cisco Networking Academy Facebook page (@HilalChouman) pointed out an amazing customer post to me.
Ricardo Beltran’s girlfriend had baked him a custom Cisco birthday cake that obviously showed his dedication to Cisco. He was so proud of it, that he shared it on the Networking Academy Facebook page for all 188k fans to see.
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Tags: corporate social media, education, engagement, facebook, netacad, social media
March 10, 2011 at 10:20 pm PST
Welcome to the Cisco Education Blog. We’ll be using this blog to share our vision and solutions for Connected Learning. We’ll also showcase the success that education leaders are having creating 21st Century learning environments for students in schools, colleges and universities all around the world. More importantly, we’ll use the blog to listen, so please be generous with your comments and feedback.
Cisco has a great story to tell in Education. This story emanates from our Chairman and CEO, John Chambers, who firmly believes that there are two great equalizers in society -- the Internet and Education. He also has outlined a long term vision for Cisco to be the best in the world and the best for the world.
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Tags: education
