GM Education sites

6th April 2006

posted in edtech |

General Motors has created three different educational websites to appeal to students of different ages. My favorite is probably the energy section of the Earthtroop site for K-4 students.

Auto manufacturers are now creating digital curriculum for students…. does anyone else think this is pretty remarkable?! What GM has created is essentially a web 1.0 site that is mostly static, not read/write enabled– but it is still a great resource. I think websites like this which will engage students the most and draw them to return repeatedly are ones that put students in control of the information.

Many content websites provide a lot of glitzy buttons and multimedia enhanced options for engaging with content, but they don’t really put the user in control. The Lego Club website (which my 8 year old taught me about tonight, btw) is a good example of this. Users can really customize their experience, their own page, to match their interests– and then share their pages with others. The desire and growing expectation of students to CONTROL the information they consume as well as produce was a major theme of Peter Grunwald’s excellent presentation at FETC 2006 several weeks ago.

School leaders and state education agencies, are you paying attention?

To take this to the next level, companies like GM need to be offering interactive videoconferencing opportunities for students and teachers using desktop videoconferencing clients, like Yahoo IM and GoogleTalk. Of course most school district IT departments block these software applications, but if adminstrators would get behind the constructive use of disruptive technologies like these, maybe that could change.

On this day..

Connecting creativity, programming, and mobile learning - 2008
links for 2008-04-06 - 2008
Cyber compliment day - 2007
Feed river options - 2007
Building a boat together - 2006
WinXP on Macs - 2006
Lynn Brewer on Enron and Ethics - 2006
Don Cash on Business Ethics - 2006
Web-based digital storytelling - 2006
Royal Furgeson on Ethics and the law - 2006

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under edtech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On April 7th, 2006, Anthony said:

I guess this is a commendable idea, especially in times when the dearth of technical professionals is being felt. If a child evinces interest in the technical details of the cars or other vehicles, there are great chances that he will be able to continue his studies of this branch in the future.