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edWeb.net is a highly-acclaimed professional social and learning network that has become a vibrant online community for exceptional educators, decision-makers, and influencers who are on the leading edge of innovation in education. edWeb won the 2012 Edublog Award for Best Free and Open Professional Development for Educators and was ranked the #1 professional social network specifically for educators by the SIMBA PreK-12 Professional Development Market Forecast 2012-2013, CoSN's K-12 IT Leadership Survey 2013, and the 2012 Survey of K-12 Educators on Social Networking, Online Communities, and Web 2.0 Tools.

edWeb.net is a highly-acclaimed professional social and learning network that has become a vibrant online community for exceptional educators, decision-makers, and influencers who are on the leading edge of innovation in education. edWeb won the 2012 Edublog Award for Best Free and Open Professional Development for Educators and was ranked the #1 professional social network specifically for educators by the SIMBA PreK-12 Professional Development Market Forecast 2012-2013, CoSN's K-12 IT Leadership Survey 2013, and the 2012 Survey of K-12 Educators on Social Networking, Online Communities, and Web 2.0 Tools.

Go to: http://home.edweb.net/ Excellent resource for online learning, many communities

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

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"Even as we are seeing more schools and educators transform the way they teach and learn with technology, many more are not. .. Opinions vary on the merits of educational technology, but common themes seem to have emerged.  Some of the reasons for not embracing technology have to do with several misconceptions revolving around fear."

Focusing on the innovations in content publishing that come from social networking and from gaming cultures: Nelson, Coupland and Alice

Slideshow for those who train teaches who are stuggling with technology.