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Lisa Stevens

Classroom 2.0 Convention in the UK? - 141 views

I'll lurk on FM - pop past the webcam and wave ;o) Lisa xx Joanne Bennett wrote: > Yes ...lets all try and meet up.... say hello to fellow diigo and twitter users. > > > Danny Nicholson wrote: >...

learning teaching web2.0

David McGavock

CITE Journal - Editorial - 21 views

  • A classroom that has successfully integrated technology into the curriculum would be one where you would not really notice it because it would be so second nature. The teacher would not have to think up ways to use whatever tools were available, but would seamlessly use them to enhance the learning of whatever content was being covered. Technology [would be] used to assist in acquiring content knowledge, and the acquisition of technology skills [would be] secondary. Contrast this depiction with what the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S; ISTE, 2002) say about technology integration: Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting….Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools.
  • his urging to shift the focus from the learning tools to what is being learned and how that learning happens still needs to be heeded—almost 20 years later.
  • Integration is defined not by the amount or type of technology used, but by how and why it is used.
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  • many of these technology-specific studies did not explore more fundamental issues in technology and education
  • what needs to be further developed, examined, and shared
  • particular curriculum standards-based instructional strategies that are appropriately matched to students’ learning needs and preferences
  • understanding the processes and interim results of how and why specific tools can and should be appropriated
  • help students with distinct needs and preferences to achieve identified learning goals.
  • the STaR Chart
  • According to the national StaR Chart, then, technology use in what is typically described as “constructivist” learning is preferable to technology used to “reinforce basic academic skills.”
  • Constructivists view people as constructive agents and view the phenomenon of interest (meaning or knowledge) as built instead of passively “received”
  • curriculum-based integration of educational technologies – defined in Education and Technology: An Encyclopedia (Kovalchick & Dawson, 2004) as “the effective integration of technology throughout the curriculum to help students meet the standards and outcomes of each lesson, unit, or activity”
  • As discerning educators and researchers, we should question why teachers’ roles “must” change to integrate technology effectively into K-12 curricula.
  • the technologies themselves do not require this shift
  • Though teachers in the nationally representative sample they studied acknowledged that computers helped them to change instructional practice over time, they cited experience, organized professional learning, and school culture as the primary factors provoking instructional changes.
  • In districts in which teachers’ academic freedom is preserved—at least in part—aren’t the pedagogical approaches to be used the result of decisions that each teacher makes, preferably rooted in a well-informed knowledge base of both students’ learning needs and preferences and corresponding methodological alternatives?
  • Can it really be assumed that a particular approach “works best” in all teaching, learning, school, district, and community contexts?
  • perhaps a new approach is warranted at this point in time—one that genuinely respects pedagogical plurality and honors teachers’ academic freedom.
  •  
    A classroom that has successfully integrated technology into the curriculum would be one where you would not really notice it because it would be so second nature. The teacher would not have to think up ways to use whatever tools were available, but would seamlessly use them to enhance the learning of whatever content was being covered. Technology [would be] used to assist in acquiring content knowledge, and the acquisition of technology skills [would be] secondary. Contrast this depiction with what the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S; ISTE, 2002) say about technology integration: Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting….Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions-as accessible as all other classroom tools.
J Black

ed4wb » Blog Archive » The New Bottom-up Authority - 0 views

  • It appears that most teachers today underestimate the amount of learning that is happening among youth outside of schools.  Since this informal learning sometimes dubbed “hanging out”, “messing around” or “geeking out”  happens outside of the classroom and doesn’t look like traditional learning, it’s easy for educators to miss. The quality and quantity of learning, the process by which it occurs, and the way authority is established in these informal environments, should be something that teachers become familiar with. Will Richardson, who writes extensively on these matters, believes that, “One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely.” (see article)
  • It appears that most teachers today underestimate the amount of learning that is happening among youth outside of schools.  Since this informal learning sometimes dubbed “hanging out”, “messing around” or “geeking out”  happens outside of the classroom and doesn’t look like traditional learning, it’s easy for educators to miss. The quality and quantity of learning, the process by which it occurs, and the way authority is established in these informal environments, should be something that teachers become familiar with. Will Richardson, who writes extensively on these matters, believes that, “One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely.” (see article)
  • It appears that most teachers today underestimate the amount of learning that is happening among youth outside of schools.  Since this informal learning sometimes dubbed “hanging out”, “messing around” or “geeking out”  happens outside of the classroom and doesn’t look like traditional learning, it’s easy for educators to miss. The quality and quantity of learning, the process by which it occurs, and the way authority is established in these informal environments, should be something that teachers become familiar with. Will Richardson, who writes extensively on these matters, believes that, “One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely.” (see article)
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  • Schools, in general, are not taking advantage of the power of peer-based learning or the benefits of a more decentralized type of expertise which lies outside of its ivory walls.
  • The same study later describes a writer’s heightened sense of authenticity that comes from peer feedback as opposed to school evaluations: “It’s something I can do in my spare time, be creative and write and not have to be graded,” because, “you know how in school you’re creative, but you’re doing it for a grade so it doesn’t really count?”
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    The top-down, authoritarian model found in most classrooms today looks very different from the model many students experience when they learn online. The classroom's hierarchical approach, with the sage on the stage, requires, (and, ultimately demands) passivity and deference on the part of the learner. Informal, interest-driven networked learning, with its access to large stores of information and variety of opinion, on the other hand, takes a much different view of authority. It's usually peer based, largely democratic, meritocratic, often creates dissonance due to variety and demands evaluation. Knowing what we do about active learning, one would seem clearly superior to the other.
anonymous

Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement - 0 views

shared by anonymous on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Technologies available in classrooms today range from simple tool-based applications (such as word processors) to online repositories of scientific data and primary historical documents, to handheld computers, closed-circuit television channels, and two-way distance learning classrooms. Even the cell phones that many students now carry with them can be used to learn (Prensky, 2005).
  • Bruce and Levin (1997), for example, look at ways in which the tools, techniques, and applications of technology can support integrated, inquiry-based learning to "engage children in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world." They developed the idea of technology as media with four different focuses: media for inquiry (such as data modeling, spreadsheets, access to online databases, access to online observatories and microscopes, and hypertext), media for communication (such as word processing, e-mail, synchronous conferencing, graphics software, simulations, and tutorials), media for construction (such as robotics, computer-aided design, and control systems), and media for expression (such as interactive video, animation software, and music composition). In a review of existing evidence of technology's impact on learning, Marshall (2002) found strong evidence that educational technology "complements what a great teacher does naturally," extending their reach and broadening their students' experience beyond the classroom. "With ever-expanding content and technology choices, from video to multimedia to the Internet," Marshall suggests "there's an unprecedented need to understand the recipe for success, which involves the learner, the teacher, the content, and the environment in which technology is used."
  • In examining large-scale state and national studies, as well as some innovative smaller studies on newer educational technologies, Schacter (1999) found that students with access to any of a number of technologies (such as computer assisted instruction, integrated learning systems, simulations and software that teaches higher order thinking, collaborative networked technologies, or design and programming technologies) show positive gains in achievement on researcher constructed tests, standardized tests, and national tests.
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  • Boster, Meyer, Roberto, & Inge (2002) examined the integration of standards-based video clips into lessons developed by classroom teachers and found increases student achievement. The study of more than 1,400 elementary and middle school students in three Virginia school districts showed an average increase in learning for students exposed to the video clip application compared to students who received traditional instruction alone.
  • Wenglinsky (1998) noted that for fourth- and eighth-graders technology has "positive benefits" on achievement as measured in NAEP's mathematics test. Interestingly, Wenglinsky found that using computers to teach low order thinking skills, such as drill and practice, had a negative impact on academic achievement, while using computers to solve simulations saw their students' math scores increase significantly. Hiebert (1999) raised a similar point. When students over-practice procedures before they understand them, they have more difficulty making sense of them later; however, they can learn new concepts and skills while they are solving problems. In a study that examined relationship between computer use and students' science achievement based on data from a standardized assessment, Papanastasiou, Zemblyas, & Vrasidas (2003) found it is not the computer use itself that has a positive or negative effect on achievement of students, but the way in which computers are used.
  • Another factor influencing the impact of technology on student achievement is that changes in classroom technologies correlate to changes in other educational factors as well. Originally the determination of student achievement was based on traditional methods of social scientific investigation: it asked whether there was a specific, causal relationship between one thing—technology—and another—student achievement. Because schools are complex social environments, however, it is impossible to change just one thing at a time (Glennan & Melmed, 1996; Hawkins, Panush, & Spielvogel, 1996; Newman, 1990). If a new technology is introduced into a classroom, other things also change. For example, teachers' perceptions of their students' capabilities can shift dramatically when technology is integrated into the classroom (Honey, Chang, Light, Moeller, in press). Also, teachers frequently find themselves acting more as coaches and less as lecturers (Henriquez & Riconscente, 1998). Another example is that use of technology tends to foster collaboration among students, which in turn may have a positive effect on student achievement (Tinzmann, 1998). Because the technology becomes part of a complex network of changes, its impact cannot be reduced to a simple cause-and-effect model that would provide a definitive answer to how it has improved student achievement.
  • When new technologies are adopted, learning how to use the technology may take precedence over learning through the technology. "The technology learning curve tends to eclipse content learning temporarily; both kids and teachers seem to orient to technology until they become comfortable," note Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999). Effective content integration takes time, and new technologies may have glitches. As a result, "teachers' first technology projects generate excitement but often little content learning. Often it takes a few years until teachers can use technology effectively in core subject areas" (Goldman, Cole, & Syer, 1999). Educators may find impediments to evaluating the impact of technology. Such impediments include lack of measures to assess higher-order thinking skills, difficulty in separating technology from the entire instructional process, and the outdating of technologies used by the school. To address these impediments, educators may need to develop new strategies for student assessment, ensure that all aspects of the instructional process—including technology, instructional design, content, teaching strategies, and classroom environment—are conducive to student learning, and conduct ongoing evaluation studies to determine the effectiveness of learning with technology (Kosakowski, 1998).
Marc Lijour

Go Ahead, Mess With Texas Instruments - Phil Nichols - The Atlantic - 5 views

  • Though many devices enter our classrooms for different reasons -- they are not neutral. Some are used to reinforce the authority of formal teaching; some engage students in the process of imaginative discovery. By balancing conventional and subversive academic possibilities, these latter objects show us the real potential of learning technologies. Not as sterile knowledge-delivery devices policed by authorized educators, but as boundary objects between endorsed educational utility and creative self-expression gone rogue.
  • Though many devices enter our classrooms for different reasons -- they are not neutral. Some are used to reinforce the authority of formal teaching; some engage students in the process of imaginative discovery. By balancing conventional and subversive academic possibilities, these latter objects show us the real potential of learning technologies. Not as sterile knowledge-delivery devices policed by authorized educators, but as boundary objects between endorsed educational utility and creative self-expression gone rogue.
  • Though many devices enter our classrooms for different reasons -- they are not neutral. Some are used to reinforce the authority of formal teaching; some engage students in the process of imaginative discovery. By balancing conventional and subversive academic possibilities, these latter objects show us the real potential of learning technologies. Not as sterile knowledge-delivery devices policed by authorized educators, but as boundary objects between endorsed educational utility and creative self-expression gone rogue.
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  • Though
  • Though many devices enter our classrooms for different reasons -- they are not neutral. Some are used to reinforce the authority of formal teaching; some engage students in the process of imaginative discovery. By balancing conventional and subversive academic possibilities, these latter objects show us the real potential of learning technologies. Not as sterile knowledge-delivery devices policed by authorized educators, but as boundary objects between endorsed educational utility and creative self-expression gone rogue.
  • Though many devices enter our classrooms for different reasons -- they are not neutral. Some are used to reinforce the authority of formal teaching; some engage students in the process of imaginative discovery. By balancing conventional and subversive academic possibilities, these latter objects show us the real potential of learning technologies. Not as sterile knowledge-delivery devices policed by authorized educators, but as boundary objects between endorsed educational utility and creative self-expression gone rogue.
  • Much like skateboarders have an imaginative orientation that allows them to see textures and movement in the curvatures of everyday objects -- a park bench, a railing, an empty swimming pool -- programmers learn to see their immediate environment as a creative space, a source for inspiration and improvisation.
  • This is distinct from other popular educational technologies -- many of which are marketed as subversive tools to "disrupt" traditional notions of learning, but often end up preserving those aspects of schooling that are most in need of disruption. In recent decades, districts have spent millions of dollars equipping classrooms with TVs, computers, and Smartboards -- only to find that such devices are mostly used to aid formal teaching instead of facilitating student discovery.
  • writing code for an iPad is restricted to those who purchase an Apple developer account, create programs that align with Apple standards, and submit their finished products for Apple's approval prior to distribution.
  •  
    "Though many devices enter our classrooms for different reasons -- they are not neutral. Some are used to reinforce the authority of formal teaching; some engage students in the process of imaginative discovery. By balancing conventional and subversive academic possibilities, these latter objects show us the real potential of learning technologies. Not as sterile knowledge-delivery devices policed by authorized educators, but as boundary objects between endorsed educational utility and creative self-expression gone rogue."
shahbazahmeed

tuytuytyu - 1 views

http://dli.nkut.edu.tw/community/viewtopic.php?CID=17&Topic_ID=8489 http://dli.nkut.edu.tw/community/viewtopic.php?CID=17&Topic_ID=8491 http://dli.nkut.edu.tw/community/viewtopic.php?CID=17&Topic_I...

technology learning tools

started by shahbazahmeed on 12 Apr 21 no follow-up yet
Dennis OConnor

News: The Evidence on Online Education - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • WASHINGTON -- Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new meta-analysis released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education.The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction. Further, those who took "blended" courses -- those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction -- appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment.
  • the positive results appeared consistent (and statistically significant) for all types of higher education, undergraduate and graduate, across a range of disciplines, the study said.
  • On the topic of online learning, there is a steady stream of studies, but many of them focus on limited issues or lack control groups. The Education Department report said that it had identified more than 1,000 empirical studies of online learning that were published from 1996 through July 2008. For its conclusions, however, the Education Department considered only a small number (51) of independent studies that met strict criteria. They had to contrast an online teaching experience to a face-to-face situation, measure student learning outcomes, use a "rigorous research design," and provide adequate information to calculate the differences.
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  • Using technology to give students "control of their interactions" has a positive effect on student learning, however. "Studies indicate that manipulations that trigger learner activity or learner reflection and self-monitoring of understanding are effective when students pursue online learning as individuals," the report says.
  • n noting caveats about the findings, the study returns to the issue of time."Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium," the report says. "In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction."
  • " What the study demonstrates, she said, is that colleges need to think broadly about using online education, and not be "artificially limited" to face-to-face instruction.
  • Successful education has always been about engaging students whether it is in an online environment, face to face or in a blended setting. And fundamental to that is having faculty who are fully supported and engaged in that process as well."
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    Timely information for our group! The learning time issue in particular is an important finding that points to a cost effective way to increase student learning time without tackling the issue of a longer school day head on. We know that more time on meaningful tasks is crucial, but the physical cost of attending a bricks and mortar classrooms is prohibitive.
justquestionans

Ashford-University ECE 332 Homework and Assignment Help - 1 views

Get help for Ashford-University ECE 332 Homework and Assignment Help. We provide assignment, homework, discussions and case studies help for all subjects Ashford-University for Session 2017-2018. ...

Early Childhood Education Assignment Help Early Childhood Education Homework Help Early Childhood Education Study Help Early Childhood Education Tutors Help Early Childhood Education Course Help

started by justquestionans on 27 Jun 18 no follow-up yet
Carlos Quintero

Innovate: Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software - 0 views

  • Web 2.0 has inspired intense and growing interest, particularly as wikis, weblogs (blogs), really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, social networking sites, tag-based folksonomies, and peer-to-peer media-sharing applications have gained traction in all sectors of the education industry (Allen 2004; Alexander 2006)
  • Web 2.0 allows customization, personalization, and rich opportunities for networking and collaboration, all of which offer considerable potential for addressing the needs of today's diverse student body (Bryant 2006).
  • In contrast to earlier e-learning approaches that simply replicated traditional models, the Web 2.0 movement with its associated array of social software tools offers opportunities to move away from the last century's highly centralized, industrial model of learning and toward individual learner empowerment through designs that focus on collaborative, networked interaction (Rogers et al. 2007; Sims 2006; Sheely 2006)
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  • learning management systems (Exhibit 1).
  • The reality, however, is that today's students demand greater control of their own learning and the inclusion of technologies in ways that meet their needs and preferences (Prensky 2005)
  • Tools like blogs, wikis, media-sharing applications, and social networking sites can support and encourage informal conversation, dialogue, collaborative content generation, and knowledge sharing, giving learners access to a wide range of ideas and representations. Used appropriately, they promise to make truly learner-centered education a reality by promoting learner agency, autonomy, and engagement in social networks that straddle multiple real and virtual communities by reaching across physical, geographic, institutional, and organizational boundaries.
  • "I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create” (2000, 216). Social software tools make it easy to contribute ideas and content, placing the power of media creation and distribution into the hands of "the people formerly known as the audience" (Rosen 2006).
  • the most promising settings for a pedagogy that capitalizes on the capabilities of these tools are fully online or blended so that students can engage with peers, instructors, and the community in creating and sharing ideas. In this model, some learners engage in creative authorship, producing and manipulating digital images and video clips, tagging them with chosen keywords, and making this content available to peers worldwide through Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube
  • Student-centered tasks designed by constructivist teachers reach toward this ideal, but they too often lack the dimension of real-world interactivity and community engagement that social software can contribute.
  • Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning (Exhibit 2).
  • Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning
  • Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by: Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas; Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; andLearning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.
  • Instructors implementing Pedagogy 2.0 principles will need to work collaboratively with learners to review, edit, and apply quality assurance mechanisms to student work while also drawing on input from the wider community outside the classroom or institution (making use of the "wisdom of crowds” [Surowiecki 2004]).
  • A small portion of student performance content—if it is new knowledge—will be useful to keep. Most of the student performance content will be generated, then used, and will become stored in places that will never again see the light of day. Yet . . . it is still important to understand that the role of this student content in learning is critical.
  • This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts
  • This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts. In so doing, learners generate their own personal rules and knowledge structures, using them to make sense of their experiences and refining them through interaction and dialogue with others.
  • Other divides are evident. For example, the social networking site Facebook is now the most heavily trafficked Web site in the United States with over 8 million university students connected across academic communities and institutions worldwide. The majority of Facebook participants are students, and teachers may not feel welcome in these communities. Moreover, recent research has shown that many students perceive teaching staff who use Facebook as lacking credibility as they may present different self-images online than they do in face-to-face situations (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Further, students may perceive instructors' attempts to coopt such social technologies for educational purposes as intrusions into their space. Innovative teachers who wish to adopt social software tools must do so with these attitudes in mind.
  • "students want to be able to take content from other people. They want to mix it, in new creative ways—to produce it, to publish it, and to distribute it"
  • Furthermore, although the advent of Web 2.0 and the open-content movement significantly increase the volume of information available to students, many higher education students lack the competencies necessary to navigate and use the overabundance of information available, including the skills required to locate quality sources and assess them for objectivity, reliability, and currency
  • In combination with appropriate learning strategies, Pedagogy 2.0 can assist students in developing such critical thinking and metacognitive skills (Sener 2007; McLoughlin, Lee, and Chan 2006).
  • We envision that social technologies coupled with a paradigm of learning focused on knowledge creation and community participation offer the potential for radical and transformational shifts in teaching and learning practices, allowing learners to access peers, experts, and the wider community in ways that enable reflective, self-directed learning.
  • . By capitalizing on personalization, participation, and content creation, existing and future Pedagogy 2.0 practices can result in educational experiences that are productive, engaging, and community based and that extend the learning landscape far beyond the boundaries of classrooms and educational institutions.
  •  
    About pedagogic 2.0
  •  
    Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software Catherine McLoughlin and Mark J. W. Lee
Melissa Seifman

Education Outrage: Why do we still have schools? - 1 views

  • Competition: Why should school be a competitive event?
  • We learn what we choose to know in real life.
  • Stress: When 6 year olds are stressed about going to school you know that something is wrong.
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  • Right answers: School teaches that there are right answers.
  • But, in real life, there are very few right answers.
  • Bullying and peer pressure
  • In school there are always other kids telling you how to dress, how to act, how to be cool.
  • Stifling of curiosity: Isn’t it obvious that learning is really about curiosity?
  • Adults earn about things they want to learn about. Before the age of 6, prior to school, one kid becomes a dinosaur specialist while another knows all about dog breeds. Outside of school people drive their own learning. Schools eliminate this natural behavior.
    • Tero Toivanen
       
      Exactly!
  • Subjects chosen for you:
  • Classrooms:
  • Classrooms make no sense as a venue for learning unless of course you want to save money and have 30 (or worse hundreds of) students be handled by one teacher.
  • Schools cannot work as places of learning if they employ classrooms.
  • Grades: Any professor can tell you that students are pretty much concerned with whether what you are telling them will be on the test and what they might do for extra credit.
    • Melissa Seifman
       
      I disagree - Employers do have rating systems, performance evaluations, but most of those are on the whole person, not just technical or academic skills
  • Parents do not give grades to children and employers do not give grades to employees. They judge their work and progress for sure, but not by assigning numbers to a report card.
  • Certification: We all know why people attend college. They do primarily to say they are college graduates so they can get a job or go on to a professional school.
    • Caroline Roche
       
      So, why is this the student's fault? Why blame, or disadvatage them for this? We should be fighting the system that causes students to work like this, not blaming them for doing it! it is the constant testing and league table system that is wrong.
  • Confined children: Children like to run around.
  • Of course in school, sitting still is the norm. So we have come up with this wonderful idea of ADD, i.e. drug those who won’t sit still into submission. Is the system sick or what?
  • Academics viewed as winners: Who are the smartest kids in school?
  • Those who are good at these subjects go on to be professors. So those are certainly the smartest people we have in our society.
  • But, I can tell you from personal experience that our society doesn’t respect professors all that much, so something is wrong here.
  • Practical skills not valued: When I was young there were academic high schools and trade high schools. Trade high schools were for dumb kids. Academic high schools were for smart kids.
  • The need to please teachers: People who succeed at school are invariably people who are good out at figuring what the teacher wants and giving it to them.
  • In real life there is no teacher to please and these “grade grubbers” often find themselves lost.
  • Self worth questioned: School is full of winners and losers.
  • In school, most everyone sees themselves as a loser. Why do we allow this to happen?
  • Politicians in charge: Politicians demand reform but they wouldn’t know reform if it hit them over the head.
  • Major learning by doing mechanism ignored: And last but not least, scholars from Plato to Dewey have pointed that people learn by doing. That is how we learn. Doing. Got it? Apparently not. Very little doing in schools. Unless you count filling in circles with number 2 pencils as doing.
  • Government use of education for repression: As long as there have been governments there have been governments who wanted people to think that the governments (and the country) is very good.
  • School is about teaching “truth.”
  • Discovery not valued: The most important things we learn we teach ourselves.
    • Tero Toivanen
       
      Autotelic learning!
  • This kind of learning is not valued in school because it might lead to, heaven forbid, failure, and failure is a really bad word in school. Except failure is how we learn, which is pretty much why school doesn’t work.
    • Tero Toivanen
       
      Exactly!
  • Boredom ignored: Boredom is a bad thing. We drug bored kids with Ritalin so they will stop being bored.
  • What they mean is that school should be like they remember rather than how it is now
    • Caroline Roche
       
      Not accepting students with straight A's only shows your own prejudices. Students can be good at a range of subjects, without being passionately interested in all of them. Lots of people are self motivated, without being teacher pleasers, they just wish to do their best in everything for their own satisfaction.
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    Why do we have schools? Instead of answering this question by listing all the good things that schools provide, which anyone can do, I will turn the question around: What is bad about having schools?
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    Why do we have schools? Instead of answering this question by listing all the good things that schools provide, which anyone can do, I will turn the question around: What is bad about having schools?
Paul Beaufait

Skype Announces Collaboration with Prominent Organizations to Further Empower Teachers ... - 21 views

  • Skype in the classroom strives to enrich students' learning experiences to discover new cultures, languages and ideas without leaving the classroom. 
  • Skype in the classroom strives to enrich students' learning experiences to discover new cultures, languages and ideas without leaving the classroom.  Skype in the classroom now features each individual organization's dynamic content, projects and available guest speakers
  • To join Skype in the classroom and view these exclusive resources, teachers should: Sign up at education.skype.com using their Skype account details Create a profile which includes their interests, location and the age groups they teach Once complete, teachers will have full range to explore the Skype in the classroom organization microsites, utilize vast content from these organizations and engage in conversations with select guest experts. For more information or to register for Skype in the classroom, please visit http://education.skype.com.
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    Press release about Skype in the classroom
Rob Rankin

Creating Classroom Culture - 0 views

  • ) Always come to class prepared: The students must bring their notebook, pen, pencil, eraser, dictionary, etc. Whatever they need to help them learn English. This includes a positive attitude. Merely coming to class prepared is not enough. My students must also be prepared. This means sitting quietly in their seats and in their groups before I enter the classroom. 2) Always keep the classroom clean: If I see any paper on the floor, I tell the students to pick it up. A dirty classroom should never be tolerated. I will not start the lesson until the classroom is clean. I want my students to not only respect their teachers and each other, but to respect the sanctity of the classroom and the school as well.3) Be polite and show respect: This doesn't only mean saying "Please" and "Thank you." It also means never throwing things across the classroom. Far too often I've seen students throw everything from pencils to books to their classmates. This also should never be tolerated. When someone needs a pencil or an eraser, a student must physically get up, walk over to the student in need, and hand it to him in a respectful manner. Students must also use the proper honorific when referring to their teacher. We must teach right speech AND right action.4) Pay attention and cooperate: This means teaching the students to listen to the teacher and listen to one another. Listening is the first step towards cooperating with each other in order to get the job done and do the job well. 5) Work hard and as a team: Team work is important in my classroom. I'm not looking for individual superstars. I want students who are team players. Everyone learns more that way. In working as a team, my students learn to plan their lessons carefully and to think before they act.6) Sacrifice your time and share your understanding: Now we're getting to the heart of the matter. If a student understands something then he/she has an obligation to help another who does not yet understand. The students must help and support each other. I love to see a student physically get up, walk over to another, and kindly explain what he has just learned to someone who is struggling. If one team does not succeed in reaching the class/lesson objectives, then the other teams are responsible for helping them until they do. This shows respect, cooperation, and responsibility, and if we can teach our students that, then we are beginning to succeed as educators.7) Be responsible for one another: Now we're deep into the heart of the matter. This is the crux of my classroom culture. Teaching my students to be responsible. Response-able. Or able to respond. Isn't this what compassionate people do in a compassionate society? Isn't this our main responsibility at educators--- to take on the responsibility of teaching others how to be responsible? What a thrill it truly is to see students taking responsibility for themselves AND others. If we can teach our students to naturally respond to others in need, then we are truly succeeding as educators.8) There are no free rides: I don't want slackers in my class. If I see a student not pulling his weight, I let him know. The team is relying on him. The team either succeeds or fails--- as a team. The class either succeeds or fails--- as a class. In my classes, you will not get away with doing nothing--- and that includes my co-teachers and myself! There are no free rides.
    • Rob Rankin
       
      I like this idea of students actively supporting each other.
Philippe Scheimann

A Vision of Students Today (& What Teachers Must Do) | Britannica Blog - 0 views

  • It has taken years of acclimatizing our youth to stale artificial environments, piles of propaganda convincing them that what goes on inside these environments is of immense importance, and a steady hand of discipline should they ever start to question it.
    • Russell D. Jones
       
      There is a huge investment in resources, time, and tradition from the teacher, the instutions, the society, and--importantly--the students. Students have invested much more time (proportional to their short lives) in learning how to be skillful at the education game. Many don't like teachers changing the rules of the game just when they've become proficient at it.
  • Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning, no hands were raised. I have tried this with faculty and get similar results. Last year’s U.S. Professor of the Year, Chris Sorensen, began his acceptance speech by announcing, “I hate school.” The crowd, made up largely of other outstanding faculty, overwhelmingly agreed. And yet he went on to speak with passionate conviction about his love of learning and the desire to spread that love. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.
    • Russell D. Jones
       
      So we (teachers and students) are willing to endure a little (or a lot) of uncomfortableness in order to pursue that love of learning.
  • They tell us, first of all, that despite appearances, our classrooms have been fundamentally changed.
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  • While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods. Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation. In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.
  • And that’s what has been wrong all along. Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our “subjects,” “disciplines,” and “courses.” McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child confronting “the education establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called “the real world” which is foreign and set apart from our schools. When somebody asks a question that seems irrelevant to this real world, we say that it is “merely academic.”
  • We can use them in ways that empower and engage students in real world problems and activities, leveraging the enormous potentials of the digital media environment that now surrounds us. In the process, we allow students to develop much-needed skills in navigating and harnessing this new media environment, including the wisdom to know when to turn it off. When students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important to them, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will enthusiastically turn off their cellphones and laptops to grapple with the most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.
  • At the root of your question is a much more interesting observation that many of the styles of self-directed learning now enabled through technology are in conflict with the traditional teacher-student relationship. I don’t think the answer is to annihilate that relationship, but to rethink it.
  • Personally, I increasingly position myself as the manager of a learning environment in which I also take part in the learning. This can only happen by addressing real and relevant problems and questions for which I do not know the answers. That’s the fun of it. We become collaborators, with me exploring the world right along with my students.
  • our walls, the particular architectonics of the disciplines we work within, provide students with the conversational, narrative, cognitive, epistemological, methodological, ontological, the –ogical means for converting mere information into knowledge.
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    useful article , I need to finish it and look at this 'famous clip' that had 1 million viewers
kabir mo

Classroom Management Tips | Classroom Management Methods - 0 views

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    Classroom management can be impactful things, Is it influence the learning? How teaching & learning relate to classroom management?
David Wetzel

12 Mobile Learning Science Applications for the iPod Touch - 0 views

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    "As a mobile learning device, the iPod Touch encourages learning anytime, anywhere! These mobile devices do not tie students to their desks or the classroom; they bring the world into the classroom through the lens of personalized learning. The value of an iPod Touch as a mobile learning device is its ability to transform student learning behavior. According to research by K-Nect Project (2009), students using this digital device achieved higher test scores. This was attributed to more interactivity between students, teachers, and content."
GoEd Online

One Flip of the Classroom [INFOGRAPHIC] - 0 views

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    Improve Student Learning and Teacher Satisfaction in One Flip of the Classroom provides a visual representation of the results from Classroom Window's flipped classroom survey. It highlights some interesting statistics about the kind of teachers who have implemented this educational model.
Tero Toivanen

Digital Citizenship | the human network - 0 views

  • The change is already well underway, but this change is not being led by teachers, administrators, parents or politicians. Coming from the ground up, the true agents of change are the students within the educational system.
  • While some may be content to sit on the sidelines and wait until this cultural reorganization plays itself out, as educators you have no such luxury. Everything hits you first, and with full force. You are embedded within this change, as much so as this generation of students.
  • We make much of the difference between “digital immigrants”, such as ourselves, and “digital natives”, such as these children. These kids are entirely comfortable within the digital world, having never known anything else. We casually assume that this difference is merely a quantitative facility. In fact, the difference is almost entirely qualitative. The schema upon which their world-views are based, the literal ‘rules of their world’, are completely different.
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  • The Earth becomes a chalkboard, a spreadsheet, a presentation medium, where the thorny problems of global civilization and its discontents can be explored out in exquisite detail. In this sense, no problem, no matter how vast, no matter how global, will be seen as being beyond the reach of these children. They’ll learn this – not because of what teacher says, or what homework assignments they complete – through interaction with the technology itself.
  • We and our technological-materialist culture have fostered an environment of such tremendous novelty and variety that we have changed the equations of childhood.
  • As it turns out (and there are numerous examples to support this) a mobile handset is probably the most important tool someone can employ to improve their economic well-being. A farmer can call ahead to markets to find out which is paying the best price for his crop; the same goes for fishermen. Tradesmen can close deals without the hassle and lost time involved in travel; craftswomen can coordinate their creative resources with a few text messages. Each of these examples can be found in any Bangladeshi city or Africa village.
  • The sharing of information is an innate human behavior: since we learned to speak we’ve been talking to each other, warning each other of dangers, informing each other of opportunities, positing possibilities, and just generally reassuring each other with the sound of our voices. We’ve now extended that four-billion-fold, so that half of humanity is directly connected, one to another.
  • Everything we do, both within and outside the classroom, must be seen through this prism of sharing. Teenagers log onto video chat services such as Skype, and do their homework together, at a distance, sharing and comparing their results. Parents offer up their kindergartener’s presentations to other parents through Twitter – and those parents respond to the offer. All of this both amplifies and undermines the classroom. The classroom has not dealt with the phenomenal transformation in the connectivity of the broader culture, and is in danger of becoming obsolesced by it.
  • We already live in a time of disconnect, where the classroom has stopped reflecting the world outside its walls. The classroom is born of an industrial mode of thinking, where hierarchy and reproducibility were the order of the day. The world outside those walls is networked and highly heterogeneous. And where the classroom touches the world outside, sparks fly; the classroom can’t handle the currents generated by the culture of connectivity and sharing. This can not go on.
  • We must accept the reality of the 21st century, that, more than anything else, this is the networked era, and that this network has gifted us with new capabilities even as it presents us with new dangers. Both gifts and dangers are issues of potency; the network has made us incredibly powerful. The network is smarter, faster and more agile than the hierarchy; when the two collide – as they’re bound to, with increasing frequency – the network always wins.
  • A text message can unleash revolution, or land a teenager in jail on charges of peddling child pornography, or spark a riot on a Sydney beach; Wikipedia can drive Britannica, a quarter millennium-old reference text out of business; a outsider candidate can get himself elected president of the United States because his team masters the logic of the network. In truth, we already live in the age of digital citizenship, but so many of us don’t know the rules, and hence, are poor citizens.
  • before a child is given a computer – either at home or in school – it must be accompanied by instruction in the power of the network. A child may have a natural facility with the network without having any sense of the power of the network as an amplifier of capability. It’s that disconnect which digital citizenship must bridge.
  • Let us instead focus on how we will use technology in fifty years’ time. We can already see the shape of the future in one outstanding example – a website known as RateMyProfessors.com. Here, in a database of nine million reviews of one million teachers, lecturers and professors, students can learn which instructors bore, which grade easily, which excite the mind, and so forth. This simple site – which grew out of the power of sharing – has radically changed the balance of power on university campuses throughout the US and the UK.
  • Alongside the rise of RateMyProfessors.com, there has been an exponential increase in the amount of lecture material you can find online, whether on YouTube, or iTunes University, or any number of dedicated websites. Those lectures also have ratings, so it is already possible for a student to get to the best and most popular lectures on any subject, be it calculus or Mandarin or the medieval history of Europe.
  • As the university dissolves in the universal solvent of the network, the capacity to use the network for education increases geometrically; education will be available everywhere the network reaches. It already reaches half of humanity; in a few years it will cover three-quarters of the population of the planet. Certainly by 2060 network access will be thought of as a human right, much like food and clean water.
  • Educators will continue to collaborate, but without much of the physical infrastructure we currently associate with educational institutions. Classrooms will self-organize and disperse organically, driven by need, proximity, or interest, and the best instructors will find themselves constantly in demand. Life-long learning will no longer be a catch-phrase, but a reality for the billions of individuals all focusing on improving their effectiveness within an ever-more-competitive global market for talent.
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    Mark Pesce: Digital Citizenship and the future of Education.
Julie Shy

Global Classroom Project - 0 views

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    The Global Classroom was born in the minds of Deb Frazier's (@Deb_Frazier) young students in March 2011: "Our first grade class [in Ohio, USA] was thinking about the ways people around the world meet their needs. We began to do some research, diving into books about various cultures. While sharing new learning about India, Puju, whose family is from India, commented "My dad says that's not really true." From there we knew we needed more than books ... We needed to talk with people in other cultures to really discover the many ways in which they meet their needs." Global Classroom 2012-13 is an exciting opportunity for you to make a positive difference - in your classroom, community, and around the world. We hope you will join us on this journey, and help us realise the full potential of this amazing learning community. We will officially launch in late October 2012, and run through to the end of the Northem Hemisphere school year in June 2013. Over that time, we will be hosting a wide range of global projects, and providing opportunities for new and experienced teachers alike to explore new ways to learn, share, connect, and collaborate worldwide. Working together, we can make this dream a reality.
Maggie Verster

100 Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom - 23 views

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    Facebook isn't just a great way for you to find old friends or learn about what's happening this weekend, it is also an incredible learning tool. Teachers can utilize Facebook for class projects, for enhancing communication, and for engaging students in a manner that might not be entirely possible in traditional classroom settings. Read on to learn how you can be using Facebook in your classroom, no matter if you are a professor, student, working online, or showing up in person for class.
Tero Toivanen

How Devices in the Classroom Enable Mobile Learning - 32 views

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    "In education, the words "mobile learning" are starting to appear more often. Mobile learning is anytime, anywhere seamless learning. In other words, it is ubiquitous learning. A mobile learning device could be a net book, iPad, iPod Touch or even a smartphone."
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