Group items tagged

Interesting article on how Facebook permeates daily life and online interactions

"...for the most part, schools have incorporated these 21st century instructional techniques and tools as add-ons to the teacher-centric 19th century classroom structure, in which the majority of the curriculum is pulled from a textbook, and, despite best intentions, most students learn the same thing in the same way at the same time. Enter personalized learning, a student-centered teaching and learning model that acknowledges and accommodates the range of abilities, prior experiences, needs, and interests of each student--with the goal of moving every student to a higher standard of achievement. It's not a particularly new theory (versions of it have been around since the 19th century), but it has gained currency among many of today's education thought leaders, particularly because technology seems to be ready to do its part to provide a more personalized learning environment for every student."

From the article: "Why not let kids use the tech tools they're already familiar with to enhance their learning? But as schools try to figure out the best way of transitioning to this new world, some thorny issues must first be sorted out. How do teachers and school systems prepare for all the different platforms, when some kids are bringing in tablets, others are bringing their parents' old laptops, and the remainder are on mobile phones? And what effect does this change have on the dynamics of a classroom?"

Blog post on ZDNET on the One Laptop Per Child program in Peru, and how it is not achieving the results desired/expected. From the article: "Why such results? The IDB concluded that OLPC does not provide enough guidance for teachers to show students how to effectively use the computers in class - and so the next item on the agenda should be improving teacher training"

ESRC report on Generation Y's use of technology - they assert that the "net generation" moniker is a misnomer and doesn't represent the different levels of ability and technology use seen in this generation.

Pew study on the use of ereaders, ebooks, and ereading

interesting advent in the digital textbook market - Discovery's Techbooks. iBooks competitor? From the article: Discovery's Techbook series is cloud-based, meaning students can access the materials from wherever they have an internet connection; the company says that's because not all school districts have the funds to give every student his or her own device. The Techbooks are also platform-agnostic to work with whatever hardware a district or student might have-iPads, tablets, mobile devices, laptops, or desktops.

From the article: South Forsyth High School in Georgia made the leap to BYOT in 2009 and saw the number of discipline referrals for technology abuse drop dramatically, principal Jason Branch said. In its first year of BYOT, the school had four discipline referrals for technology abuse, after amassing 400 over the previous two years. Instead of working to subvert tech barriers, students were protecting their privilege with what Branch called a "mutual respect and instructional understanding between teachers and students." Sion made its leap trusting students - and trusting teachers. "We have to change the way we teach," said Sion world history teacher Beth Ingram. "Our concept of what knowledge is is changing.

mobile devices enable learning anywhere and anytime, moving education beyond the industrial era model, where classrooms are the primary place of learning, the school day is the primary educational time, and the teacher is the primary source of information.

From the article: "The problem, I began to realize, was my own understanding of how the iPads should be utilized in the classroom. I had seen them as a supplement to my pre-existing curriculum, trying to fit them into the structure of what I'd always done. This was the wrong approach: To truly change how my classroom worked, I needed a technology-based redefinition of my practice."  Interesting to think about going forward.

From the blog post: It is not so much about the tool and what it can do, but more about the purpose for using the tool. Obviously, if students want to share pictures of a project they are working on, a digital camera and a blog make a lot more sense than a flipbook. Still, don't count out older technologies just because you are trying to be a "21st Century Educator." Sometimes a dry erase marker and a wipe-off slate will do the job just fine.

From the article: With 33 years of experience as a school librarian under her belt, Snyder said getting adults to understand the changing role and "look" of the library is an ongoing battle. "A lot of people still think of the library as a warehouse where you go to get a book or a magazine," she said. "To deal with it we just strive to be a model for helping people understand that a media center is a lot more than just a place for physical books."

To watch web videos without the comments and crap, just drag the button below to your browser's bookmarks bar. On any of the supported video pages, click the bookmark button to watch in peace. You can then make short URLs too, to send the quietube version to your friends. Easy as.

While this article doesn't answer if the iPad is the correct tool to aid learning in education, it represents two sides of the debate. 

Listing of grants for education. GetEdFunding is a curated collection of more than 600 active grants and awards that will grow by the day, all selected through the prism of relevance to today's educational institutions. Although thousands of generous corporate contributors, foundations and other organizations recognize the need to support education, not all of them are included in this resource. In an effort to save educators time and frustration, a minimum requirement of inclusion in the collection is the willingness to accept Letters of Inquiry and unsolicited applications.

Blog article from a teacher perspective on using 1:1. "The trap too many of us fall in to with technology is that we're just doing the same things we've always done, except now there's a computer involved. "

"Three days a week, as the school day draws to a close, the children in Ms. Aaron's class sit down to compose a message about what they have been doing all day. They then send it out to their parents and relatives through Twitter, the stamping grounds of celebrities and politicians, where few kindergartners have been known to venture."

Kids from the UK surveyed about search habits - researchers found: 54 percent of those surveyed admitted that Google is now their first point of call when they need to answer a question or find information for research purposes. 91 percent of the children asked use Google; Almost half - 47 percent - use the service at least 5 times per day; 18 percent said they use the search engine ten times or more each day.

From the article: " the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation said it is creating a $100,000 competition for software that can 'reliably automate' grading essays on state tests." Very interesting idea; is it feasible?

useful information on WHY go to the cloud... i found the cost-savings numbers to be surprising, and i think this kind of info is what needs to be shared with others when asking to shift from a program like Word to Google Docs.  has real, definable, quantifiable meaning