Karen Greenwood Henke is a professional writer and speaker on emerging technologies and their role in education. She is also the founder of Grant Wrangler, a free grants and awards listing service.
A recent Neilsen survey of technology topping holiday lists for children reveals interesting differences by age. While the iPad tops the list for younger students (31% of students aged 6-12 want the Apple tablet), just 18% of youth 13 put it on their list. While 25% of younger students want the Nintendo DS, gaming devices (portable and tethered) fell below 15% for older teens.
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Successful long tail companies make engagement easy. They woo users with an easy interface that remembers who they are, what they like, and connects them with others. Why has this been so hard to do with learning in schools?
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To learn in the long tail, we need systems that help learners find the content, tools, and communities that match their interests, passions, and needs. At the foundation of businesses that have successfully delivered consumer products in the long tail is a powerful platform. A new service from netTrekker has the potential to be that platform for the education industry.
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Today’s children (ages 3-12) are more experienced using the Internet than previous digital natives. But how are they different from other web users? Jakob Nielsen’s latest usability finds that most of the same web design guidelines apply with some important differences.
First, digital natives have more difficulty distinguishing advertising and promotions from web site content. Where adult Internet users tend to ignore banners and advertising, children are inclined to click and explore everything on the page.
Second, while adults hardly think twice about sharing personal information, children are more aware of privacy and security issues. Digital natives think twice before disclosure.
It seems that we’ve taught our children about stranger danger (in this case, the stranger is a computer), but we need to work on media literacy.
iPhones and iTouches have quickly taken the lead over laptops as the preferred student device for school. Further evidence of this trend is the development of apps with educational information. Discovery Education just launched an app for learning U.S. Geography by Discovery Education:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/u-s-geography-by-discovery/id374922243?mt=8
Bravo! More development for these tools means more engagement of students in real learning.