Teaching with Technology

To see what controls are available from the major cellphone companies, click to "What Mobile carriers need to do for kids" (see also ConnectSafely's "Cell-Phone Safety Tips"). [See also the New York Times on how 3G or smartphones are taking off and how 71% of women make the decision about their family's wireless choices, including phones and service plans.]

ust because they crave attention? Why do teens post such personal information online for all the world to see?

Mimi Ito, one of the principal investigators of the Digital Youth project. Of particular interest to parents concerned about teen social networkers' safety are findings by C.J. Pascoe mentioned by Dr. Ito, for example that: "Contrary to common fears, flirting and dating are almost always initiated offline in the traditional settings where teens get together and extended online. Her work clearly shows there's a strong social norm among teens that the online space isn't a place to find new romantic partners, but a place to deepen and explore existing offline relationships." Exceptions: marginalized teens "whose romantic partners are restricted for cultural or religious reasons" and gay and lesbian teens (the latter are "not reaching out online for random social encounters but using the expanded possibilities online selectively to overcome limitations they're facing" in their offline social networks); and the very small percentage of teens most at risk of sexual exploitation

The Metiri Group's report disputes the widely debated Cone of Experience theory, which says each of us learns 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we hear and see, 70 percent of what we say or write, and 90 percent of what we say as we do a thing. (The rampant misrepresentation of researcher Edgar Dale's valid model of classifying learning styles is discussed in this entry in the blog of educational consultant Will Thalheimer.) After an extensive search, the report's authors were unable to find any empirical evidence supporting this breakdown. Contrary to popular opinion, research shows that lessons in which students interact with material, rather than passively absorb it, are not always better.

CMS/LMS provider Blackboard reported Monday that its plagiarism detection service, SafeAssign, has now been used to scan more than 1 million student papers. Blackboard debuted SafeAssign about nine months ago. SafeAssign is designed to eliminate plagiarism in student assignments. The service detects plagiarized works in student papers and delivers reports on such incidents through the Blackboard Learning System.

Activities: Students research and construct a time line that stars from the middle of the 19th century and projects into to the near future. Appropriate pictures will be drawn or placed on the time line to help emphasize historical facts that include scientific discoveries, industrial applications, and current events that may be related.

Students will research and construct a pamphlet that includes: symptoms of disease, genetic causes of disease, genetic testing, population/risk, possible treatment, genetics screening techniques, cost, social and ethical implication.

Students will use one or all games to review basic information and Punnett Square problems. These games use soccer, basketball and the game show idea deal or no deal.