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Microsoft’s research-oriented FUSE Labs launched a new, student-oriented social network last weekend

So.cl has been designed for students studying social media to extend their educational experience and rethink how they learn and communicate. They can build posts with many elements—photos, video, text, and more—and share them with colleagues. They also can find students with similar interests and build communities around specific educational goals. So.cl might even give students the ability to create their own social tool, customized for their own community.”

In the schools, too, there is no reward for helping others (indeed, it is heavily penalized). Suppose educational achievement was measured at least partially according to how much (and how well) you helped others. The value of the achievement would increase if the person is a stranger (and conversely, decrease to zero if it's just a small clique helping each other) and would be in proportion to the timeliness and utility of the assistance (both of which can be measured).

Suppose instead students were rewarded for cooperation. Not collaboration; this is just the school-level emulation of the creation of cliques and corporations. Cooperation, which is a common and ad hoc creation of interactions and exchanges for mutual value.  Cooperative behaviours include exchanges of goods and services, agreement on open standards and protocols, sharing of resources in common (and open) pools, and similar behaviours. Imagine receiving academic credit for contributing well-received resources into open source repositories, whether as software, art, photography, or educational resources. Imagine receiving credit for long-lasting additions to Wikipedia or similar online resources (we would have to fix Wikipedia, as it is now run by a gang of thugs known as 'Wikipedia editors'). We can have wide-ranging and nuanced evaluations of such contributions, not simple grades, but something based on how the content contributed is used and reused across the net (this would have the interesting result that your assessment could continue to go up over time).

There is, again, no reason why public service cannot be incorporated into individual assessment. Adding value to fire and police services by means of monitoring and reporting (not the piece-work model of something like CrimeStoppers, but actual prevention), supporting environment by counting birds, sampling water, servicing sports events by acting as a timer or umpire - all these can add to a person's assessment. I'm not thinking of the simple sort of tasks grade school students can perform. Indeed, a person hoping to attain a higher level qualification would need to contribute to the public good in a substantial and tangible way. Offering open online courses (that are well-subscribed and positively reviewed by the community) should be a requirement for any graduate-level recognition. The PhD used to be about offering a unique research contribution to the field; now it's about paying tuition and being exploited as a TA. These three things - helping others, being cooperative, contributing to the public good - are obviously not easy to assess. To be sure, it's far easier to ask students simple questions and grade the number of correct responses. But assessing students in this way, far from measuring putative 'content knowledge', is really an exercise in counting without any real interest in what is being counted. It acts as an invitation to cheat, as it places self-interest ahead of the values it is actually trying to measure.

MITx will be coupled with an MIT-wide research initiative into online learning that will study ways in which students, whether on campus or part of a virtual community, learn most effectively. To the degree that MITx demonstrates highly effective online learning tools from which campus-based students might benefit, such as self-paced online exercises, those tools will become part of the experience of MIT students. These tools will enable campus faculty to automate some of the more repetitive and less creative tasks, such as grading, thereby liberating more time to devote to innovative ways of teaching the material and to additional contact time with resident students.

srooms. The Gainesville Sun reports that the University of Florida is offering an online course called "21st Century Skills in StarCraft," which requires student to play the real-time, multi-player online strategy game "StarCraft" for up to two hours per week.

University of Florida is offering an online course called "21st Century Skills in StarCraft," which requires student to play the real-time, multi-player online strategy game "StarCraft" for up to two hours per week.

App Review: Animoto

Animoto’s functionality is in the ability to take photos and video that the user specifies, add a music soundtrack ,which can be from their open source music library or music uploaded by the user, to create a movie complete with transitions.

it is a great way to have students in an online class introduce themselves. students are able to choose the images they would like to share as well as select their music. This provides a window to the students when they get to choose how to express themselves

The iPods are used to reinforce/extend instruction, provide extra practice, and conduct research. 

the pilot team has met with a trainer from the University of Virginia several times and will be meeting with him throughout the school year to further their knowledge and expertise with the Touches. 

Plans for the future include the pilot classroom teachers receiving iPads to better model processes for the students, and iPod Touches for all of grade 4 and 5 students in the coming years. 

I use Evernote, Everywhere: Android (phone and Tablet) Windows Web Clipper (Chrome)

1. Evernote for staying focused

2. Evernote for getting organized

A recent study of Google+ showed that it is more popular with parents than students,  which could be a favorable indicator of how popular it is for those educators of the same generation.

One example of how teachers are using Google+ Pages to run their classrooms, is that of Mr. McDowell who teaches World History at West Hills High School. Mr. McDowell has made great use of Google’s tools to give students access to documents, schedules, presentations, videos and password protected areas like attendance and grade records.

access to Google+ tools and pages from any computer promotes interactivity on the site and is a big hit with educators

Over 1/2 of children under 12 who use iPads use them for educational purposes. 10% of children under 1 use mobile technology, 39% of kids age 2-4, and by age 5-8, 54% of kids are using mobile technology. The majority of parents now agree that technology can be used for educational purposes, and they’re no longer as opposed to its use as they once were! While 46% of apps that are used by kids 12 and under, a whopping 42% of apps used are for learning math skills!

encourage a Twitter backchannel discussion, in which quiet, shy, and unable-to-get-a-word-in-edgewise students are able to speak up in class without actually speaking up in class, sharing their comments, insights, and even relevant links through Twitter as the discussion goes on

Educators have found that Twitter backchannel discussions provide for more interaction not just in the classroom, but beyond, as students often enjoy further carrying on the conversation even after class time is over.

This quick exercise allows students to further digest and understand the material at hand, while at the same time creating a great resource for future review.

From an instructor’s perspective, Twitter offers the ability to prompt students throughout the learning process by asking them to reflect on learning strategies and time management, which ultimately raises metacognitive awareness.

While the use of Twitter only shows a slight increase in grades (about .5 percent), it substantially improves engagement and motivation

Twitter enhances the social presence outside of the classroom, which leads to overall course satisfaction.