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Thoughtful article on "social capital" Educator Tools and Links for Creating Community (and opportunities for students to develop social capital):

An an era driven by globalized relationships, innovative social technologies, and fueled by accelerating change, how should we reinvent schools?

"Digital Writing, Digital Teaching is a blog ... [that] explores the variety of issues related to teaching writing with new media for K-16 teachers and teacher educators" (About, ¶1, 2016.05.02).

There has been a lot of recent debate on the benefits of social networking tools and software in education. While there are good points on either side of the debate, there remains the essential difference in theoretical positioning. Most conventional educational environments are "Objectivist" in nature and highly structured in terms of students progress and choice. Social networking essentially requires a less controlled, user-generated environment, which challenges conventional views of the effective "management" of teaching and learning. Therefore, can social networking both as an instructional concept and user skill be integrated into the conventional approaches to teaching and learning? Do the skills developed within a social networking environment have value in the more conventional environments of learning?

A clip from Channel 11 in Colorado Springs regarding the use of video podcasting (vodcasting) at Woodland Park High School. This is the brainchild of Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams who teach at WPHS and also run a educational consulting busniess. You can find out more at: http://educationalvodcasting.com« A clip from Channel 11 in Colorado Springs regarding the use of video podcasting (vodcasting) at Woodland Park High School. This is the brainchild of Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams who teach at WPHS and also run a educational consulting busniess. You can find out more at: http://educationalvodcasting.com«

Can an indoor game of 'Snakes & Ladder' or 'aim the target' be used in teaching students in a class? Surprisingly, yes. Education, despite being a serious business, need to be imparted through fun classroom activities, especially for primary class students. A teacher uses several innovative teaching methods to educate the kids who just want to have fun in their classes.

These two powerful questions framed a recent webinar presented by Professor David Perkins of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. Answering these questions and helping teachers find meaningful and contextually relevant answers to these questions has been a focus of Perkins' work, especially in recent times. His book "Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World" introduced us to the notion of lifeworthy learning or that which is "likely to matter in the lives our learners are likely to live". This is a powerful notion and one that has the potential to change not only what we teach but also how we go about teaching what we do.

"In this book there introductions to more than six dozen web tools for K-12 teachers. Additionally, you will find sections devoted to using Skype with students, ESL/ELL, blogging in elementary schools, social media for educators, teaching online, and using technology in alternative education settings. Here's the list of contributors to The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators: George Couros, Patrick Larkin, Kelly Tenkely, Adam Bellow, Silvia Tolisano, Steven Anderson, Cory Plough, Beth Still, Larry Ferlazzo, Lee Kolbert, and Richard Byrne. "

The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) was set up for the purpose of providing higher educational facilities to persons above 18 years of age with relevant basic qualifications, in Sri Lanka. It is the only recognized university in Sri Lanka where students are able to pursue further education by distance education techniques in keeping with the philosophy of open and distance learning. The main focus of this lecture would be to identify and evaluate the impact of online learning on the students. This lecture would essentially discuss the findings from a research done using random sampling method with a questionnaire technique. According to the findings, most students prefer forums as the best online teaching/ collaboration tool. They like this method because they can contact their coordinator at any time and at any place, and can also network as well as discuss their queries. Students pursuing their studies at post graduate level prefer this method more than other students. However, the students have identified this method as a complement and not as a substitute for traditional face to face learning. As far as barriers for Online Education are concerned : Lack of resources (computers as well as experts in the field), infrastructure, no proper training on Moodle, and low awareness level of e-Learning are considered as main problems. This Lecture would be more of a discussion on impact of Online Learning and lessons learned from it in a developing country. I will present our findings and then we can have an open house to discuss this further.

Dennis is a former English teacher and administrator in urban and suburban schools for many years. Dennis has always gravitated toward K12 leadership, learning and technology topics. He has graduate degrees from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English and Harvard University's School of Education. In addition to blogging about K12 learning, leading and web 2.0 tools/pedagogies at innovation3.edublogs.org, he is president of the Massachusetts affiliate of ASCD, a member of the Leadership Council for ASCD; a member of the Massachusetts Working Group for Educator Quality; Co-Facilitator of the Massachusetts High School Redesign Task Force; and a member of Massachusetts STEM Summit V Planning Committee. The web 2.0 conversation is not about technology tools; it is about student learning. Dennis subscribes to the definition of Professional Learning Communities that Rick and Becky DuFour and many other leaders of education have espoused. In simple terms, * learning (for us and for students) is our purpose, * we can improve student learning if we learn together collaboratively, and * monitoring student learning is the only way to know: 1. what students are learning, 2. how we are teaching and 3. how we get better at it. A former English teacher and administrator in urban and suburban schools for many years, he has always gravitated toward K12 leadership, learning and technology topics. He has graduate degrees from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English and Harvard University's School of Education. He is married with three children and four grandchildren. Among other things, he loves running, cycling, kayaking, contemporary poetry, photography and the outdoors. In the summer of 2007 his professional life changed when he attended the Building Learning Communities Conference 2007 and in three days experienced, for the first time, the power of Web 2.0 tools and their potential for transforming schools and learning. That experience

What are the characteristics we would expect to see in a successful 21st century educator? Well, we know they are student-centric, holistic, and they're teaching about how to learn as much as teaching about the subject area. We know, too, that they must b

"special education, special needs, disabilities, sped, teaching, websites, resources, behavioral disabilities"

Project Based Learning or what is referred to as PBL is a great instructional method . It is considered as the teaching method of the 21st century. As educators , we do need to know what it is all about and how we can impliemnt it in our teaching to better meet the 21st century educational goals such as crticial thinking, collaboration , communication and creativity. check out PBL The 21st Century Teaching Method to learn more.

Identifying what our children need to learn is one of the most important processes within education. For the teacher this is the question they engage with as they design their teaching and learning units. By no means is this an easy task and the teacher must balance multiple factors to ensure that the programmes they design provide their students with the learning they require. Even the most effective sequence of lessons is of little value if what it sets out to teach has little importance in the lives our learners are likely to lead. 

"students, learning, future, food, education, schools, teaching"

Technology may not be an essential part of education, but it is definitely essential for scaling up learning, and also because education is directly related to a global reduction in poverty, child labor, EdTech is essential if we need to reach out to the remotest part of the world to impart education. Because of technology, the role of teachers has shifted to being facilitators and guides. The traditional role of the teacher is evolving, and lecture-based teaching is considered an obsolete approach now. With technology as a part of education, teaching is becoming more personalized. Traditional classrooms will have to change to meet the requirements of high school and college education and prepare students with 21st-century skills.

Society confronts educational change in an odd, entirely counter intuitive manner. On one hand we acknowledge that education can and should do a better job of preparing our children for the future while on the other we cling to the models of education that we knew. This led educational writer Will Richardson to state that 'the biggest barrier to rethinking schooling in response to the changing worldscape is our own experience in schools'. Our understandings of what school should be like and our imaginings of what school could be like are so clouded by this experience that even the best evidence for change is overlooked or mistrusted.

Press release about Skype in the classroom