Group items tagged

Interesting discussion of survey results regarding the impact of digital tools on writing. The question for me is: what is making the greater impact the digital tool or our progress in adapting our writing curriculum to match the current state of how language is presented to and consumed by our students?

Yochai Benkler's wealth of nations book online Next Chapter: Part I: The Networked Information Economy » read paragraph Chapter 1: Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge 1 Information, knowledge, and culture are central to human freedom and human development. How they are produced and exchanged in our society critically affects the way we see the state of the world as it is and might be; who decides these questions; and how we, as societies and polities, come to understand what can and ought to be done. For more than 150 years, modern complex democracies have depended in large measure on an industrial information economy for these basic functions. In the past decade and a half, we have begun to see a radical change in the organization of information production. Enabled by technological change, we are beginning to see a series of economic, social, and cultural adaptations that make possible a radical transformation of how we make the information environment we occupy as autonomous individuals, citizens, and members of cultural and social groups. It seems passé today to speak of "the Internet revolution." In some academic circles, it is positively naïve. But it should not be. The change brought about by the networked information environment is deep. It is structural. It goes to the very foundations of how liberal markets and liberal democracies have coevolved for almost two centuries.

It's amazing.

An alternative schema to the "digital native" vs. "digital immigrant" dichotomy. Emphasis is placed upon one's own adaptation to technology-rich culture using the axes of "access" and "participation" to form a classification quadrant.

Denise Comer, Writing Program, with Kenneth Rogerson, Public Policy, and Rebecca Vidra, Environment, examined the pedagogies of integrating ereading technologies into writing intensive courses - preliminary findings are that scholarly reading is easier (notetaking easy) but extensive writing is not convenient... posits that we may be defining "writing" too rigidly

This whole article is essential reading 

Guardian on how higher ed will have to adapt. Not sure the revolution is here quite yet.

"Cyberstudent" is a hideous term.

Columnist Virginia Heffernan reviews Cathy N. Davidson's book "Now You See It."  Heffernan discusses historical shifts in education in response to the needs of the workforce, and suggests we are in the midst of another shift currently as most of the jobs the grade-school generation will have are not yet in existence.  The larger questions are, "How do we prepare students for a society we can't really imagine," and "What skills can translate and give them the  most flexibility to adapt to the needs of this (most likely) digital landscape."  Heffernan concludes that our current model is outdated and a stronger emphasis should be placed on creativity and critical thinking. 

Focuses on University adaptation. While it isn't about language course flipping there are some good ideas of using class time and understanding effective and ineffective flipped approaches.

Abstract: Modern academic libraries cater the information needs of a more demanding and tech-savvy new generation user group that prefers to reside in an open, self-generated online environment largely supported by Web 2.0 technologies. To reach the users where they are, the libraries should revamp their service strategies by incorporating tools like blogs and online social networks. Blog is a handy technology for library professionals which can be reshaped as an information and publicity tool, as a feedback instrument, as an interactive and collaborative learning medium and as a facility for library promotion. Online social networks connect like minded people who share information, ideas and feelings. The unparalleled growth of user bases of these networks presents an opportunity before academic libraries that may be harnessed by making the library an active member of these communities. The experience of an academic library in India shows that reaching the user at their own time and space is more easy and productive when we adapt new web technologies.

Download your favourite books and MP3s on your Stream and leave home with your library in the palm of your hand. This versatile, powerful DAISY-MP3 and NISO player lets you read and navigate through complex books, such as reference manuals and school books, as well as novels and magazines. You can also use its built in text to speech to read books in text format such as Bookshare. And thats not all there are many more functions, including an integrated microphone to record voice notes. No other DAISY player offers you so much in such a small package and at such an affordable price.

Worth thinking!

Educational Origami is a blog , and a wiki, about the integration of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) into the classroom, this is one of the largest challenges that I feel we as teachers face. It's about 21st Century Learning and 21st Century Teaching. Marc Prensky coined the now popular and famous phrase "Digital natives and digital immigrants" in his two papers by the same name. Ian Jukes talks about Digital Children. The world is not as simple as saying teachers are digital immigrants and students digital natives. In fact people fit into both camps. We know that experience, like using a computer, will change the structure of our brain, This is a concept called Neuroplasticity. We also know that, the more intense the experience, the more profound the change. Our students, who often have a greater exposure to technology, are likely to be more neurologically adapted, but adults can as easily be "Digital Natives". I made this wiki on request from Miguel Guhlin after I blogged about matching ICT tools to traditional classroom practice and Bloom's Taxonomy.The wiki has grown a little since then.

Almost everyone who thinks seriously about education agrees that this paradigm-sometimes derided as "sage on a stage"-is flawed. They just can't agree on what should replace it. Flipped classrooms? Massive open online courses? Hands-on, project-based learning?  

Wiggins Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

Effective Feedback - Grant Wiggins