On December 6th SIIA’s own Karen Billings went on Ed Talk Radio to discuss her recent induction into the Association of Educational Publishing Hall of Fame.

The educational publishing industry’s highest individual honor, the AEP Hall of Fame recognizes those who have dedicated their careers to the advancement of educational resources and the industry that develops and supports them.

Karen talks about her philosophy on educational technology and sound educational principles. To her, it is only the teacher who can intervene and guide students, even as educational technology continues to evolve and grow as an industry. She also discusses how new technologies like tablets and mobile technology is changing the educational technology game.

Karen says:

“Technology has come a long way since I started using it… There are a lot more choices out there…kids can do things online, they can do a lot they couldn’t do five or ten years ago. There is certainly an opportunity for students to do more types of learning on the computer. But I firmly believe it is only the teacher who can really help guide instruction, intervene, and find the materials that the kids should be using…For as much as computers can learn about you, they can’t see you face-to-face.”

Karen, called the “queen of educational technology” here, spent her first four years of elementary school in a one room schoolhouse in Iowa.

Other guests include Margery Mayer and Dick Casabonne.

For more information about the AEP Hall of Fame, visit the AEP website.

Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.

The Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) announces that Dr. Karen Billings, VP for the Education Division at SIIA, was inducted into the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) Hall of Fame. The induction was held during a ceremony at the McGraw Hill Conference Center in New York on Nov. 29.

The educational publishing industry’s highest individual honor, the AEP Hall of Fame recognizes those who have dedicated their careers to the advancement of educational resources and the industry that develops and supports them.

Billings has nearly tripled the number of educational company members at SIIA in past 10 years. She founded the Innovation Incubator program and the One-to-One Business Profiles program, and has doubled attendance at signature education technology events. She has grown the CODiEs program from seven educational technology awards to 21 in 2012.

Billings drives strategic direction, programs, and initiatives for the 180 education-focused members focused on providing technology products and services to the K-12 and postsecondary markets. In the past ten years at SIIA, she has supported education members with programs that provide thought leadership, industry advocacy, business development, and critical market information to better serve the evolving needs of the educational technology industry and its marketplace.

Billings has 45 years of experience with education technology, including 12 years in K-12 and postsecondary classrooms. She taught mathematics and computer classes in public and private schools in rural, suburban, and urban areas in Iowa, Alabama, Oregon, and New York. Her graduate teaching experiences, including both face-to face and online courses, were at Columbia University Teachers College, UC Berkeley, and Pepperdine University.

She then went on to hold positions in management, product development, marketing, and sales within the publishing and technology industries. Prior to joining SIIA, Billings held executive-level positions at bigchalk Inc and MediaSeek Technologies. Earlier in her career, she held positions at Microsoft Corporation, Claris Corporation (now FileMaker), Logo Computer Systems, Inc., and Houghton-Mifflin Company (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

Billings has authored four books and numerous articles for education journals, has been active in many education technology associations, and is a frequent speaker at education conferences. In 1986, she was given a lifetime membership to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

She received her Doctorate in Communications, Computing and Technology at Columbia University Teachers College, where she specialized in the uses and evaluation of technology in education. Billings received her Master’s Degree from the University of Oregon, and her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Northern Iowa.

For more information about the AEP Hall of Fame, visit the AEP website.

This month, SIIA’s own Karen Billings shared her unique perspective on education technology and schools with the Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk. Her article, “Perspective from the Ed Tech Field,” extrapolates on her experiences after 12 years of teaching in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary classrooms and 20 years of working in education and technology companies. In particular, she shared some of the conclusions SIIA has made after 5 years of implementing the Vision K-20 survey.

First, education technology is a booming industry. From the article:

Despite having to contend with deep budget cuts, schools have been able to maintain current levels of technology growth, a surprising find given the difficult economy and drastic budget cuts within education.

Other key points:

• Although participants say current technology use lags behind their ideal level, schools are continuing to implement technology despite budget cuts.
• Results showed an increase in technology integration that focuses on differentiated instruction, assessment tools, and information systems, suggesting these areas are priorities for schools.
• The survey also showed, for the fourth year in a row, a marked difference between K-12 and post-secondary institutions in the adoption of technology. The average scores for the 2012 survey were 2.39 for the K-12 segment and 2.71 for post-secondary (on a scale of 1-4), meaning post-secondary institutions are integrating new technologies faster than K-12 institutions.
• Technology priorities for K-12 and postsecondary are strikingly similar when it comes to using security tools to protect student data and privacy; providing high-speed broadband access for robust communication, administrative, and instructional needs; and building institution websites for the education community with access to applications, resources, and collaboration tools.
• The effects of distance education of virtual/online learning is about the same as traditional instruction, and the best results are coming from ‘blended’ learning (a mix of online and traditional face-to-face instruction).

You can get the article here.

Tracy Carlin is a Communications and Public Policy Intern at SIIA. She is also a first year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology program where she focuses on intersections in education, video games and gender.

Educational technology is essential to help children develop a digital literacy, but there are still questions about the effectiveness of educational technology – particularly when it comes to games and simulations, which have become known for for their entertainment qualities than their persuasive or educational abilities.

Although the games for learning field is still young, scholars can count on several “facts” about games that make them perfect for teaching and learning. This series of blog posts will investigate these game facts.

Previously, we discussed active learning environment of games, flow, the Proteus effect, and passionate affinity groups.

5) Video games allow players to fail with impunity and without consequence. Particularly in the sciences, students should have the same freedom.

I’ve written about this concept previously for the SIIA. It’s a concept James Paul Gee calls the “psychosocial moratorium principle;” the idea that in a virtual world learners can take more risks in a consequence-free environment, which allows them a greater freedom to experiment and try new things. In the current classroom environment students can only experiment to a point; the larger class sizes get and the more budget cuts affect lesson plans the less active experimentation can be achieved and the more textbook-based memorization occurs. Even in a well-funded, small classroom, there are limits; no chemistry class would allow a students to play with potentially hazardous chemicals just to see what they can do, or send more than a classroom or a grade on more than a few field trips.

This is where virtual learning easily benefits the student. In a real-world chemistry lab every experiment must be done under strict guidelines; a virtual chemistry class lets students experiment with a myriad of combinations and techniques. Virtual explosions, after all, do not cost anything for the classroom or for the student. Educational video games can also transport students into situations a school cannot easily replicate; they can explore medieval ruins through a simulation as they study a historical subject, even get closer to a famous work of art than they might be allowed to in a museum or preservation site.

With the freedom to follow their own interests and passions without fear of consequences, students have a much greater chance of finding an aspect that engages them and interests them about a subject.