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What If School Was More Like Twitter?

bulk of the information exchange available on Twitter for instance comes in the form of links, or URL’s, which are internet addresses to pages of information.

Twitter offers us is the ability to respond to ideas and have a general discussion about those responses.

For nonfiction, research activities, if given the choice, hands down I'll choose an online search for information, as opposed to searching through books. Is that an exclusive choice? Do I always recommend that to students? No, and no. But as a preference, an online search for information just makes sense, for a number of reasons. However, when it comes to fiction, students are "voting with their feet". Our students have had a number of projects this year in which fiction has been offered in digital format, and overwhelmingly, the library copies fly off the shelves within a week or so of everyone having access to the e-version.

"In Canada we've always respected privacy rights, which means that the employer does not have, and should not have, access to personal information," he said.

GoClass is a free iPad application for creating short lessons and delivering them to your students. The lessons can include annotated images, free hand sketches, text, and video. GoClass gives teachers tools for creating class rosters that they can use to keep track of which students are using the lessons when. Teachers also have the option to ask questions and poll their students. After the students' response have been gathered teachers can project those responses without showing individual student's names. The image below, from GoClass, illustrates how a teacher might use the app with students.

Texting seems to have become the new “marshmallow test” for older students, and with similar results. In a 2011 study, researchers led by Mr. Rosen, who is a psychology professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, randomly assigned 185 young college students with A and B grade averages to watch a video lecture, on which they knew they would be tested. During critical sections of the lecture, the researchers texted each student either four or eight times with questions that had nothing to do with the lecture and asked them to respond “promptly,” or did not text them at all.

a battle between those with utopian and dystopian viewpoints, over who can have a more extreme perspective on technology. So where's the middle ground?

With this complexity in mind, I would like to introduce a question that I have been struggling with for the past few years: what role does social media play in generating or spreading societal fear?

We fear the things – and people – that we do not understand far more than the things we do,

Its conclusion is direct and positive: "There has been a significant and very positive impact on learning and teaching which, in time, should be reflected in achievement and attainment, thanks to both pedagogical changes and new ways of learning engendered by ‘anytime anywhere’ access to information and learning tools.

Marble Math is a fun app for practicing basic math skills. The app is best when used as a companion rather than a primary app, as it doesn't explain math concepts and merely sharpens them. Content-wise, the app is geared towards older juniors. The developers specifically mention that the app is designed for kids aged 9 to 12+, and judging from the problem sets, I agree with them. If you have younger juniors, I would suggest getting Marble Math Junior instead, which has the same gameplay but easier problem sets.

There is no area of human endeavour that is less collaborative than education. Teaching and lecturing are largely lone wolf activities in classrooms.

Creative people tend to struggle somewhat at school where academic subjects and exams brand them as failures.

Surely it’s our schools and universities, not young people, who need to be dragged into the 21st century.

predictions were delivered in IBM’s annual “5 in 5” report which describes five different technologies that, according to IBM, have the potential to change our lives

Ever wanted a home that is powered by kinetic energy?

Next up is the extinction of passwords

The challenge for all of us - students, parents and educators alike - is to understand that these modes of online writing with which so many people engage today are writing. Rather than dismissing these digital exchanges as silly or superficial, we should put them to work for us

this new era is accompanied with, and characterized by, a new information landscape. This new Internet landscape will challenge, disrupt, and overpower the print-oriented one that came before it. It will not completely obliterate that which preceded it, but it will render it to a subsidary, rather than primary, level of influence.

its core it offers two interlocking experiences which deliver value so great it is hard to measure.

First is, as it were, research

Second, Twitter as cocktail party. 24/7.