Learning Without Boundaries
VDOE, with support from the Governor’s Productivity Investment Fund, is exploring the potential of wireless mobile technologies to support and enhance teaching and learning.
Results from the first Learning Without Boundaries study is being used to determine how best to integrate wireless mobile handheld devices into classrooms.
Projects
Beyond Textbooks
Beyond Textbooks is a small-scale pilot program designed to explore the technical, social and policy implications of textbook alternatives. This project identifies cost-effective models that blend the vetted, standards-based content and convenience of traditional textbooks with the engaging, dynamic, up-to-date content and resources afforded by the Web. Specifically, it examines new ways to access, organize and deliver high-quality content using various platforms and tools, including the Apple iPad, and to understand the conditions necessary for successful implementation in schools.
- Year One Beyond Textbooks Report (PDF) – outlines the results of the pilot project and shows how multipurpose portable devices can be integrated effectively into schools.
- Beyond Textbooks: The Learning Return on Investment (PDF) – addresses the costs involved with the pilot and conditions necessary for delivering high-quality instructional materials at a lower cost.
- Digital Textbooks in an Online Course (PDF) – provides the results of a project with online AP Biology students using an iPad version of a McGraw-Hill textbook created by Inkling.
- Support for Differentiation: Implementing eSpark (PDF) – provides results of this short-term pilot using apps to differentiate learning and indicates that the eSpark process (matching student needs to specific apps) has validity but more support is needed to enable teachers to effectively use these types of products.
- The HMH Fuse: Algebra/App Pilot Report (PDF) – provides insights into the design of digital texts developed from a short-term pilot of a Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt Algebra I textbook app.
- Putting on the eLearning Backpack with TI-Nspire Technology (PDF) – provides the initial results of a short-term pilot using TI-Nspire graphing calculators in teaching algebra.
Virginia Mobile Learning Apps Development Challenge
Two challenges, supported by the Governor’s Office, the Office of the Secretary of Education and VDOE, was held for developers to produce mobile learning applications (apps) that engage middle school students in mathematics and social studies.
2009 Challenge
The 2009 apps submitted were required to reflect one or more of the following priorities in mathematics:
- Fraction computation
- Proportional and quantitative reasoning
- Measurement conversions using proportions
- Solving multistep consumer application problems
- Equivalence relationships among fractions, decimals, and percents
- Finding and ordering equivalent fractions, decimals, and percents on a number line
The winning apps were announced during the 2009 State Educational Technology Directors Association’s Emerging Technologies and are available for free download from the Apple App Store:
Number Line
Freddy Fraction
Fraction Factory
2010 Challenge
The 2010 apps submitted were required to reflect one or more of the following priorities in social studies:
- Analyze and interpret United States maps
- Translate geographic data into graphs
- Sequence events in UniterStates history in chronological order
- Obtain historical data from a variety of primary sources
- Participate in planning for effective civic action
- Identify international issues that require local decision making
- Use an economic decision-making model
- Identify the characteristics of the United States economic system
The winning apps were announced during the National School Boards Association 2010 T+L Conference and are available for free download from the Apple App Store:
Westward Expansion
Pass the Past
Governomics
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