Did you know that ‘w’ serves as a vowel twice in the English language? Or that Chicago means “the wild onion?” This information is on Dictionary.com’s homepage, but it is seldom investigated in traditional collegiate courses. So what’s the point? The point is that you’re thinking.
Someone else who has done a lot of thinking lately is the CEO of Dictionary.com, Shravan Goli who told the press, “…we're seeing a major disruption in education as the computer competes with the classroom as the center of learning." But basically, why are educational institutions competing with technology? Goli’s ideas are featured in a Forbes article entitled, “Private technology will fix education where tapped out governments cannot.”
This sentiment could explain a phenomenon in Brazil, where the lower class is using their mobile devices as a language-learning tool. Even though Brazil is among the nations with the highest mobile service taxes, Brazilians found that it was still a more affordable means for education than classroom courses.
Dictionary.com has revitalized their brand into a salubrious learning environment for students this Fall. The company has launched a Google (News - Alert) Chrome Extension, created SAT prep apps for iPhone, and is offering a 50 percent discount for their Writing Dynamo services.
The SAT prep application is the collaboration of efforts between both Dictionary.com and Kaplan. The theory behind the app is that after 10 minutes a day, of using virtual flashcards or playing games that resemble test questions, the student is closer to a better SAT score. Dictionary.com’s Google Chrome extension has the potential to serve as a powerful vocabulary-building tool. Users simply highlight a word to yield immediate answers.
Additionally, Dictionay.com functions on basically every mobile device from iPhone (News - Alert) to Windows.
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Edited by Brooke Neuman