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"Code of Ethics Canons. Protect society, the commonwealth, and the infrastructure Promote and preserve public trust and confidence in information and systems. Promote the understanding and acceptance of prudent information security measures Preserve and strengthen the integrity of the public infrastructure. Discourage unsafe practice. Act honorably, honestly, justly, responsibly, and legally Tell the truth; make all stakeholders aware of your actions on a timely basis. Observe all contracts and agreements, express or implied. Treat all constituents fairly. In resolving conflicts, consider public safety and duties to principals, individuals, and the profession in that order. Give prudent advice; avoid raising unnecessary alarm or giving unwarranted comfort. Take care to be truthful, objective, cautious, and within your competence. When resolving differing laws in different jurisdictions, give preference to the laws of the jurisdiction in which you render your service. Provide diligent and competent service to principals Preserve the value of their systems, applications, and information. Respect their trust and the privileges that they grant you. Avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance thereof. Render only those services for which you are fully competent and qualified. Advance and protect the profession Sponsor for professional advancement those best qualified. All other things equal, prefer those who are certified and who adhere to these canons. Avoid professional association with those whose practices or reputation might diminish the profession. Take care not to injure the reputation of other professionals through malice or indifference. Maintain your competence; keep your skills and knowledge current. Give generously of your time and knowledge in training others. Organizational Ethics Plan of Action Peter S. Tippett has written extensively on computer ethics. He provided the fol

We hear this everywhere - students should be doing "real-world" math and they should be applying what they learn in math to "real-world situations."

Join me Thursday, December 1st, for another live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar as Tasha Bergson-Michelson brings Debbie Abilock and Jole Seroff together for a panel and audience conversation on "search literacy" in education: what is search literacy, what sources should students be using, how do we help them evaluate what they find, what are the biggest misconceptions about search, and what is the school's role in teaching search literacy and skills?

"We also engineer critical thinking into our preschool material to help engage students and teach them organized analysis. Discussion and critical thinking questioning strategy lead to deeper analysis of content. This makes the learning process more about absorbing and reflecting on all facets of the material in a natural and curious state. Here are a few examples of questions that invoke informal reasoning: "Why did you select that one?" "How are these different?" "What happened when you?" "What would happen if you?" "What can you do to make… happen?" "How do you think s/he feels about what happened?" These types of questions develop critical thinking skills and stimulate verbal development as the children try to communicate their reasoning."

A few months ago, I tried to explain to my Granpda why my style of working worked for me, and what it was that I was doing differently than his generation-for better or for worse. I've decided to revisit and revise the essay, here. Let me know what you think-and what style of working has worked for you: how do you work best? Do you think the structure of 9 to 5 is antiquated? Where did the 9-to-5 system come from? How is it helpful, and how is it a hindrance? More importantly, how can we make it better?

... not just any type of mistake in reasoning counts as a logical fallacy. To be a fallacy, a type of reasoning must be potentially deceptive, it must be likely to fool at least some of the people some of the time. Moreover, in order for a fallacy to be worth identifying and naming, it must be a common type of logical error. "Some years after I began to amass these files, I wondered just what I ought eventually to do with them, how best to organize the information within them, and in what form to make them available to others interested in fallacy studies. The present hypertext web version, The Fallacy Files, was first published on March 11th, 2001, and is the result of this score of years of research and fieldwork on the fallacies. "

We've finally figured out how to monetize social interaction, and Rushkoff, an award-winning author and media theorist who writes and speaks regularly on these topics, has reservations.

"Be like Socrates: assume people are unaware of their own ignorance (including yourself) and politely, warmly, probe to sort out the difference."

"Critical reading means thinking carefully about an author's claims, rather than accepting these claims at face value. It requires several skills: · identifying the claims or arguments of a text; · evaluating the logic of these arguments; · determining whether the author has presented sufficient and valid evidence in support of these arguments; and · considering alternative evidence and arguments that might challenge the author's claims. Why bother? Because if you don't read critically, you may miss the main arguments of the text, or - worse - your opinions may be influenced by bogus arguments."

When you are reading for understanding, here are some questions to ask. They will help you weigh the arguments and check for validity.

How does this apply to Internet searches? We are looking for authority. What are the practices we should adopt to navigate the network world?

The contemporary movement towards peeragogy has roots in the work of these Western education scholars, who have contributed to what is known as the field of "critical pedagogy." This is an approach to teaching that encourages students to think critically and creatively about what they read as opposed to passively accepting it.

"I'd like to briefly take a look at using critical thinking specifically for reading blogs and tweets (although this method could apply to just about anything). While there isn't an official formula for doing this, I'd like to suggest using "The Five W's" that we learn in elementary school as guidelines for inquiry; they include Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and (sometimes) How?. Instead of using the Five W's for developing content (they're the basics for writing a successful news piece), use the Five W's to analyze any post/piece of writing. Here's how to get started:

Analysis of critical thinking. Very good resource for evaluation as well.

Science News Share Blog Cite Print Email Bookmark Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis? ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2009) - As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles. See also: Mind & Brain Intelligence Educational Psychology Computers & Math Video Games Computer Graphics Science & Society Popular Culture Educational Policy Reference Computing power everywhere Webcast Computer-generated imagery Aptitude Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology, says Greenfield, who analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology, including research on multi-tasking and the use of computers, the Internet and video games. Her research was published this month in the journal Science. Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not, Greenfield said. How much should schools use new media, versus older techniques such as reading and classroom discussion? "No one medium is good for everything," Greenfield said. "If we want to develop a variety of skills, we need a balanced media diet. Each medium has costs and benefits in terms of what skills each develops." S

"How to Analyze Information A Step-by-Step Guide to Life's Most Vital Skill We are living now through the early decades of the Information Revolution, and it's a miracle of human energy and ingenuity. Never before has so much information been available, so easily and inexpensively, about so many subjects. And the most important thing we've learned is that information is like water. It's vital to our lives; we cannot survive without it. But if too much pours over us - we drown. To keep from drowning in information we must learn to use it properly, which means figuring out what the information is telling us. After all, it isn't the information itself we use to make decisions; it's the knowledge within the information that we use. This is why we must learn how to analyze information - how to determine just what information we need to make the decisions we face, how to get that information, and then - this is the most crucial step of all -- how to reach inside this information to grasp the knowledge it contains."

"Professor Michael Eisenberg Talks Critical Thinking Today Betsynote: I first ran into Professor Michael Eisenberg last fall when he was introduced to me by multiple folks - the MacArthur Foundation, local Seattle educators, and the NCCE conference organizers. When I chatted with him in his office (yes, I got lost, even though it was Mary Gates Hall as a landmark) I realized he had a long history of working with Internet literacy and critical thinking, and his pro-library/reference stance provided another insight into the discussion. He has his hand in many projects - university academia, educational research, his own company that creates educational resources, and a startup. Here's what he has to say on various issues around search and critical thinking…. Tell us a little about yourself and what you do now. I am currently Professor at the Information School of the University of Washington. I am the founding dean of the School, having stepped aside in 2006. I keep pretty busy these days-teaching (grads and undergrads); being principal investigator on 2 funded research projects - Project Information Literacy (funded by ProQuest and MacArthur), a large-scale study of the information habits of college students and Virtual Information Behavior Environments (funded by the MacArthur Foundation), studying information problem-solving in virtual worlds; giving numerous workshops and keynote presentations on information literacy, technology, and the information field; advising a number of doctoral students; and hanging out with my family, especially my 2 grandkids - ages 5 and 7."

"The Trouble with Rubrics" By Alfie Kohn Once upon a time I vaguely thought of assessment in dichotomous terms: The old approach, which consisted mostly of letter grades, was crude and uninformative, while the new approach, which included things like portfolios and rubrics, was detailed and authentic. Only much later did I look more carefully at the individual floats rolling by in the alternative assessment parade -- and stop cheering."

Another key thought - the goal; help students become more adept and excited about what they are doing.

Alfie Kohn presses us to think more critically about how and why we assess students. What does it do for learning.

When I started using social media in the classroom, I looked for and began to learn from more experienced educators. First, I read and then tried to comment usefully on their blog posts and tweets. When I began to understand who knew what in the world of social media in education, I narrowed my focus to the most knowledgeable and adventurous among them. I paid attention to the people the savviest social media educators paid attention to. I added and subtracted voices from my attention network, listened and followed, then commented and opened conversations. When I found something I thought would interest the friends and strangers I was learning from, I passed along my own learning through my blogs and Twitterstream. I asked questions, asked for help, and eventually started providing answers and assistance to those who seemed to know less than I. The teachers I had been learning from had a name for what I was doing -- "growing a personal learning network." So I started looking for and learning from people who talked about HOW to grow a "PLN" as the enthusiasts called them. Learning innovator Will Richardson led me to Shelly Terrell, who genuinely lives out her "collaborate for change" maxim.

Personal Learning Networks can be important in helping you find authorities in a field. A collection of professionals, a network of enthusiasts on a subject, can provide checks on opinion and fact.

Digital Introspection and the Importance of Self-Knowledge MAR 18 2011, 11:00 AM ET By Shelley Hayduk As the world changes, for better or worse, we continue to assimilate new experiences and ideas that define who we are. With the advent of new social networking tools, we can join the web of digitized relationships to connect with people and share these views. But in addition to connecting outward we also need to turn inward to reflect on our ideas and the relationships that we hold implicitly in our own minds. The connections we make in our head are unique to every individual. It's a fascinating journey to try and understand what they are. So how do we examine ourselves -- our thoughts and experiences? One method is introspection, and it's going digital. SELF-ANALYSIS THROUGH LANGUAGE Language and writing are key vehicles for introspection. Many people keep diaries of their thoughts and experiences to get to know themselves. Some people even write autobiographies. In fact, a key premise of psychotherapy (in the Freudian sense) is to become explicitly conscious of your feelings and subconscious beliefs by talking through them, i.e capturing your understanding in language. In expressing underlying forces of your life through words you can identify relevant psychological angst and formulate a better way to live. In each case, we capture our feelings and implicit views with words, articulating their meaning through language. Now technology gives us the ability to take this a step further, but before we get to that, a word about mental models. YOUR MENTAL MODEL We are the aggregation of how all our thoughts, feelings and experiences connect. This gestalt forms a perspective of the world as we see it. It's kind of like a miniature version of the world in our heads -- a "mental model" if you will. We use our mental models to store, analyze and decide everything. When we make a decision we check our mental models and use them to try to predict what will happen in the

But what we admire and what we deliberately cultivate aren't the same. When researchers dig deeper, they find that many adults think of curiosity as a trait possessed by some but not others. Or they think that as long as the environment isn't too repressive, children's natural sense of inquiry will surface (Engel, 2011). In fact, when Hilary and I asked teachers to list which qualities were most important without giving them a list to choose from, almost none mentioned curiosity. Many teachers endorse curiosity when they're asked about it, but it isn't uppermost on their minds-or shaping their teaching plans.

control turning around failing schools? Hardly. Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein continue to run the New York City schools. Boston and Chicago mayors will still have their appointees overseeing schools. Business and civic leaders' faith that mayoral control is the key to "real" reform may be tarnished somewhat by D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore but it continues to entrance venture fund entrepreneurs and policy wonks inside the Beltway. Other mayors will learn from Fenty's loss that voters can turn on you if you fail to heed your community and give your