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Part 6 of my Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2012 series

Hace un par de semanas tuve la ocasión de visitar El Salvador dentro del programa Dos Museos, Dos Naciones, Una Identidad, un proyecto financiado por el Departamento de Estado de los Estados Unidos que pretende fomentar la comunicación multicultural entre la comunidad de Columbia Heights en Washington, D.C. y las comunidades de Ciudad Victoria, Sensuntepeque, Chirilagua e Intipucá en El Salvador.

Number 9 in my Top 10 Ed-Tech Trends of 2011 Series
When I made my 10 tech predictions for 2011 for RWW last year, I included the following:
6. Openly-licensed content – open education resources, open source, open data – will thrive, as more people question outmoded intellectual property laws. Nonetheless, there’ll still be patent and copyright infringement lawsuits aplenty.

2011 Retrospectives
I’m a little over halfway through my 2011 Ed-Tech Trends series. But if you’re looking for other year-in-review posts, check out Apple’s 2011 Rewind which lists the best (bestselling and most beloved by Apple) iOS apps.

Part 5 of my year-end series.
As far as ed-tech trends go, 2011 was not the year of the e-textbook.

Kindle Fail
I shipped my new Kindle Fire back to Amazon over the weekend, exchanging it for a regular plain ol’ Kindle.

Legalities
The lawyers at Georgia Tech ruined pedagogy (to paraphrase a tweet by my friend Jason B. Jones). With no debate or forewarning, the university crippled the university’s wikis, claiming that they violated FERPA.

The initial reviews for the new Kindle Fire have been fairly lukewarm, many tech pundits pronouncing that the new Amazon tablet will be no iPad killer.

Politics and Policies
Idaho will become the first state to mandate that all high school students take at least 2 credits online in order to graduate. The move has been very controversial, with the Idaho Education Association blasting the Board of Education’s decision.

Legalities
A fascinating research paper from danah boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey examines COPPA and parents’ seeming willingness to help their under-13-year olds bypass the age restrictions. Let me cite the conclusion at length: