University Essay Experts » technology

US Education System & Quality

john — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 11:01:59 +0000

The state of general education within the US has long been a subject much in dispute. Critics have argued that the nation’s primary and secondary public education systems have lost sight of educating children in the core disciplines of science, mathematics and reading. Yet, it is difficult to argue against the US’ equally long leadership role in the creative arts, scientific research, and technology development. The necessity of finding a compromise between emphasizing core disciplines while maintaining the US’ public education system’s recognized capacity to produce creative graduates who are able to reason effectively and solve problems in a creative fashion should be the focus of education reform. A recent article in the New York Times demonstrated just how effective emphasis on the core disciplines can be on students’ performance in Shanghai, China where it was found that secondary students in Shanghai led the world in terms of strong performance in core disciplines. While these types of results point out how effective China’s education system is at producing competent students it is also clear that the system in China deemphasizes creativity and problem solving as well. The lesson is that the US’ public education system is not all that bad with respect to producing competent scholars but that there is a need to improve core skills performance in the US’ public education system graduates.

Studying & Learning Styles

john — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:30:47 +0000

The importance of good study habits is well known. A recent article in the NYT just noted that many preconceptions about study habits are changing with the continued development of technology and how people are interacting with their environment. At a basic level, the article points out that one should change their study locations from time to time in order to break up the monotony of studying. Previously, many experts also liked to point out that people have different “learning styles” and that these learning styles predict and influence the way a particular individual learns. Newer research is now revealing this concept to be completely off the mark. That is, learning styles such as “visual learners” or being “left brained” or “right brained” are now being shown to be fairly inaccurate. Of course everyone does prefer learning in certain ways but this is just a preferential thing rather than something hard-wired into a person’s neurological system. Everyone has the capacity to learn visually or to learn textually or similar. In fact, this same research now shows us that people should actually practice learning through all methods as a means to stimulate their learning process overall and to reinforce their learning. This shift in how researchers are now viewing the learning process is probably due to the prevalence of technology such as iPods, iPads and iPhones as well as the Internet and the web in which everyone is now exposed to more visually oriented material. Essentially, these technologies are changing not only learning styles but also studying styles as well.

Apple’s iPad for Online Education

john — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:38:02 +0000

The Apple iPad is seen as being an extremely effective platform to integrate with online education technology platforms and Apple eve offers student pricing. The iPad itself is a lightweight, easily transportable and mobile computing platform with integrated 3G and Wi-Fi. This feature alone meshes well with the flexibility and 24 hour access to online educational platforms that online universities and colleges tout as a major advantage over more traditional educational options. Additionally, the iPad also doubles as an effective e-reader which means that electronic college textbooks and electronic university documents from online research databases can all be downloaded and viewed in a convenient and easy-on-the-eye format. Furthermore, the extensive apps (applications) that are available for both the iPad and the iPhone ensure that the iPad has the ability to extend its functionality far beyond a simple e-reader or learning platform. There are numerous educational apps available that ensures students or online learners are able to research, learn and increase their comprehension of the learning material in their courses such as dictionary apps, language apps, grammar apps, as well as mathematical apps with formulas and much, much more. The Apple iPad allows online learners to access all of their learning material anywhere, anytime and in a comfortable easy to read format. All the while being able to listen to music, stay connected on their social networking sites such as Facebook and Flipboard and a host of other rapidly developing solutions and applications.

iPad Apps for Students

john — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:14:58 +0000

The amount of and variety of technology available today is incredible. Certainly the iPod, iPhone, and now the iPad have changed the way college students and university students communicate and work in order to be successful in school. Of course everyone is aware of Apple’s applications or “apps” as they have come to be referred to but not everyone is aware that there are a few apps that are great tools for college and university students. We have identified the 10 best apps for college and university students available from the iTunes store below:

1) Numbers—this app costs $9.99 and it is a spreadsheet program useful because its data is compatible with Numbers for the Mac, Microsoft’s Excel and even converts into PDF format for Adobe’s products

2) Pages—this app costs $9.99 and it is a word processing program that contains templates, tools, and a host of touch commands. Pages is simple to utilize for students and is compatible with Pages for the Mac, Microsoft Word as well as PDF reliant programs

3) Things for iPad—this app is expensive at $19.99 and it is a great time management program that allows improved scheduling with a nice user interface and is designed for the iPad’s larger screen

4) Articles for iPad—this app is $0.99 which makes it a nice and easy addition to a college student’s set of software tools. This app has a nice interface and provides direct access to Wikipedia which may not be accepted by college professors as a credible source but which is largely viewed by all others as a constantly accessible easy and reliable quick reference database

5) Dictionary.com—this is a free and includes access to the site’s database of more than 1,000,000 unique words and also includes access to the site’s thesaurus functionality as well

6) IM+–this app is $9.99 and is an effective way to gather all your IM channels into a single app. This app integrates Twitter, Skype Chat, Google Talk, Facebook, Yahoo, MSN/Live, AIM/iChat, ICQ as well as several others

7) Scrabble for iPad—this app is $9.99 and provides a nice, useful game to break up the monotony of your classes or unforeseen downtime and, even better, it also integrates with Facebook to enable game sharing as well as wireless interactivity with other iPad or iPod users

Instapaper Pro—this app is $4.99 is essentially collects articles and web pages that you like while you have wifi access for later viewing and reading when wifi may not be available

9) Netflix—this app is free but requires that you already have an online Netflix account. This app allows you to view all your Netflix movies from the iPad or iPhone/iPod and we all know that Netflix now has a host of movies available for immediate viewing with a simple membership plan

10) The Elements: A Visual Exploration—this app is $13.99 and if you are a science major or interested in science then it is a must have. This app provides background information and graphics on each element listed in the periodic table of the elements

These top ten iPad apps for students in school can make your life a lot easier and if you need help with school like writing a term paper then place us on your favorites in your web browser. Sorry, we don’t have an app for that but for custom writing services you won’t find a service any better or responsive than ours and we can free up your time for the other important aspects of your college or university life.

College & Twitter

john — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:16:47 +0000

Some professors are finally beginning to see the light. While most colleges and universities and certainly most professors and faculty view technology as a threat, a brave few are promoting it as a means to improve the educational process and make the college or university experience more relevant for students today. An adjunct professor has just begun to incorporate Twitter into his class format by encouraging students in class to tweet notes back and forth which essentially creates another level of dialogue in the classroom. This method also encourages those who would not normally participate to begin to interact with their peers. However, there were of course some objections from the dinosaurs within the educational establishment who consider this strategy to be another opportunity for distraction. Of course, this possibility exists but just because the methodology needs to be improved does not mean that this is not an effective method to adapt, innovate and make more relevant the 21st century classroom.

University Classes & Technology

john — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:10:09 +0000