Technology in Environmental Education

In a world where we are frequently exposed to controversial high-tech headlines about self replicating miniature robots, attempts to download human brains into computers, and cars with night vision and heads up displays, (note) I am often asked what does technology have to offer environmental educators and their students? When it comes to technology, we are of two minds. We hate TV, but we have a favorite show. We hate deforestation, but we love beautiful wood-grain furniture. We hate electronic eavesdropping. But we love it when it's used to capture a fiendish criminal. Technology. We love to hate it. We hate to love it. (note.) In the next few pages, I will explore the philosophy and examples of how we try to embrace (if not love) Technology in our programs at IslandWood.

In a recent survey of environmental centers, Bethany Lesure found the most common reasons for integrating technology into educational programs are "audience demand", "State Ed. Requirement", a way to "Reach Out", and that "Kids Relate" to technology (Lesure, 2002). While these are very pragmatic reasons, I would argue that we need to be more deliberate in our choices � after all, isn't much of Environmental Education about considering the consequences of one's actions? (note.)

Integrating technology into our educational programs provides students with additional tools to enhance their learning. So you might wonder, "What are the benefits of taking this approach to help students explore and understand the world around them?"

Technology supports our efforts to appeal to different learning styles. With a variety of learning tools, students can understand their experiences through verbal, written, spatial, quantitative, and/or graphical means. As a result, many more students become engaged in the learning process.

Technology supports our multidisciplinary approach to learning. Integrating different disciplines helps students combine their mathematical, logical, scientific, linguistic, artistic, and social knowledge to make their lives and interactions with the world clearer.

Sidestepping Apple

                                        Sidestepping Apple: Companies rethink app strategies

(Wired) -- Facebook's iPad app could be a lot closer to launch than we thought. A full-sized, fully-functional version of the iPad app is hidden inside the current iPhone app. That means that, if you are running the iPhone app you already have the iPad executable on your phone.
Discovered by M.G Siegler, Apple writer for AOL's Tech Crunch, the iPad app is a lot more modern-looking than the tired old iPhone version, and looks a lot like Twitter's official iPad app. On the left is a source list to navigate between your Wall, info, photos and friends sections.
Up top, below the status bar, you'll find more icons to take you to different sections (places and chat, amongst others), and if you flip to horizontal orientation you get a combination of both these navigation "aids," and the top-bar nav icons remain.In short, Facebook has managed to fully port the signature confusion of its website to a tablet app, a not insignificant achievement.
Siegler, who found the app after reading about it on Twitter, calls the app "spectacular." The discovery was made by a an engineering student named Marvin Bernal, who also gives instructions on how to get it running on your own iPad.
If you are smart enough to know what that means, and yet you still use Facebook, then go ahead and hack away. The rest of us can either wait for the official launch, or wait for Google to release Google Plus for the iPad.
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