"For many of us, becoming a connected educator transformed our lives. Suddenly, we had access to networks of experts and peers invested in improving education practices and willing to share their favorite tools, resources, and strategies. .. So share with us: Tell us your stories about being a connected educator. What has it meant for you? How has it transformed student learning in your classroom? What tools and resources do you rely on most?"
How many members of the Diigo Ed group are using this forum? I don't want to be overwhelmed by too many social networking groups that I become inundated with too much information to be a truly participating member of any of them. I like the Diigo Ed group, so far!
While I am new to the Diigo Ed group (and like it so far), I joined CR 2.0 a year and a half ago and have thoroughly enjoyed the conversations, info, and (especially) the webinars! Lots of good sharing all around.
I've been using Diigo and the group Diigo in Education for quite some time, but Classroom 2.0 is active with tons of ideas for all of us.
social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and Social Media in education
Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported network. We especially hope that those who are "beginners" will find this a supportive comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog. Because of spammers, we have to approve all memberships here. While your membership is pending you are still welcome to peruse the site or attend any events!
I just joined the Classroom 2.0 ning about a week ago. It appears to have some valuable information. I am new to social networking, but am looking forward to the experience. I am very interested in Web 2.0 technologies so the ning seemed like a good place to start.
All of them responded that Twitter allows them to build connections with educators beyond those in their immediate vicinity. These connections are purposefully made as a way to find and share resources and to provide and receive support. For example, Participant 8 stated, “My primary purpose is to connect with other teachers, so that I can learn from them and share resources that I find.” Similarly, Participant 9 wrote, “I am the only biology teacher at my school. I use it [Twitter] as a means of obtaining advice, resources and collaboration…I also use it to find out about new tech tools.”
Twitter has helped me to build a strong professional reputation
they follow educators. They also follow content experts and others who share professional interests.
Participants explained that they choose to follow people who are open, positive, and constructive.
“If their tweets seem to be of interest - providing ideas or resources, as opposed to just opinion - I will network with them.” Similarly, Participant 6 stated, “I look for people who interact and don't just post links.”
those they trust
Since Twitter is considered to be a social networking website, one aspect of this study looked at dialogue that transpired between followers to show evidence of collaborative conversations rather than unidirectional sharing of information.
Survey results show that nine out of ten of the respondents were able to give concrete examples of collaboration that occurred with fellow Twitter users.
These examples included ideas such as creating units, sharing of resources, students collaborating on projects between classrooms, exchanging professional materials and readings, writing book chapters, and even co-presenting at conferences.
beyond 140-character messages. That teachers moved discussions to forums that allow for deeper discussion and expansion of ideas is encouraging; Twitter does not seem to be a place to collaborate in depth, but rather to make those initial connections - a "jumping off" point.
how using Twitter has benefited them professionally. Four unique themes emerged from their responses:
Access to resources
Supportive relationships
Increased leadership capacity
Development of a professional vision
practical resources and ideas as a benefit.
opportunities for them to take leadership roles in developing professional development, organizing conferences, publishing, and grant writing.
This research study provides new insight into how teachers use social networking sites such as Twitter for professional purposes.
“A teacher needs to be a role model, mentor, and advice giver – not a ‘friend.’” When a high school student gains access into a teacher’s network of friends and acquaintances and is able to view their family photos, for instance, the student-teacher dynamic is altered.
While students may be eager to find and friend their teachers on Facebook, many of them understand the implied rules and boundaries of this virtual environment. “I do understand why my teachers do not want me to add them until I graduate,” says Jegaraj.
sites like Facebook are social environments. Teachers guide students in a professional capacity, and being social doesn’t seem like part of the job description
"In the virtual world, the definition of a student-teacher relationship is hazy, particularly on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, where adults and teens share the same forums to connect and keep in touch with friends, classmates, relatives, and co-workers. Chances are, your teen has already found her teachers on Facebook and sent friend requests to join their networks."
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
In this forum, seven experts discuss the questions, Why do bestselling young adult novels seem darker in theme now than in past years? What’s behind this dystopian trend, and why is there so much demand for it?
Connecting “The Giver” to Other Dystopian Literature
New York Times discussion of why young adults read dystopian stories such as "The Giver." The Author talks about the book and a panel of 8 experts discuss dystopian literature. Exercises are provided that students can use when studying such stories and novels.
Have you ever seen a grassy lawn on a college campus with a multitude of little dirt paths criss crossing it? Each trail is worn by students making the same decision, branching where someone thought to head somewhere new and others followed. That’s the right model for how we should let students teach themselves.
We need writers, and filmmakers, and animators, and everyone else who generates educational content. We need editors and watchdogs to evaluate the content and make sure it is good. We need teachers who can hold students hands as they walk their educational path, and who can inspire them to explore areas they may find boring at first. We need supervisors and tests to evaluate how well this system is working. We need parents and communities to decide our expectations for that system. We need all those things.
The future of education doesn’t depend on us digitizing and updating textbooks, it will rely on us leaving the textbook format behind entirely.
Every page of Life on Earth will be filled with compelling animations of biological processes, real footage of organisms, and interviews with scientists. The textbook won’t be a dead piece of paper, it will be alive, constantly updated by the latest in scientific understanding. There will likely be homework servers and online forums to connect students together.
Trainers and facilitators need to remember these numbers:
90, 20, 8, 6.
90 minutes is the ideal chunk of time for participants can learn and understand
20 minutes is how long participants can listen and retain information
8 minutes is the length of time you can talk for before before they stop listening. We are trained to focus for just eight minutes due to decades of TV watching, where ad breaks occur approximately every eight to ten minutes.
6 is the ideal number of times to present information to make sure a learner remembers the content.
the challenge for facilitators is to keep things changing so that learners’ RAS keep firing so they stay alert to the learning
It’s essential that trainers and facilitators keep learning themselves, to acquire new tools that will help them keep ensuring the training sticks!
And if you’ve been ignoring social media, now’s the time to reconsider because it’s clearly here to stay.
Blended learning is about mixing up face-to-face learning with webinars, blogging, emails, forums, video, online learning and social media.
trainers must move away from doing things in the same old way, must reach out to learners in new ways, personalise their learning campaigns, and help people connect to each other around issues they care about!
From planning phase to project end, things have to change – become familiar with new styles of presenting using multimedia, and carefully choose visuals to tell your story!
are you trapped in DDD – Dinosaur design and development?
Activity Based Curriculum Design
70% of learning happens on the job
20% of learning happens through coaching and mentoring
10% of learning happens in training room and formal learning
BCF principle – better cheaper faster
no more plan-plan-do, its plan-do plan-do plan-do
Get used to bigger groups
Our community must start the shift by preparing learners for this new way of learning!
Bloggers spend significant time pushing their own thinking—and having their thinking pushed by others. They respond to comments and link to other writers, connecting to and creating interesting ideas. Some develop curriculum and instructional materials together. Others review resources and debate the merits of the individual tools of teaching. Philosophical conversations about what works in schools are common as teachers talk about everything from homework and grading practices to school and district policies that affect teaching and learning. Blogs become a forum for public articulation—and public articulation is essential for educators interested in refining and revising their thinking about teaching and learning.
That's when I introduce them to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed readers.
Diigo's "group forums" are threaded, allowing users to start new strands or to reply to strands started by others.
powerful learning depends on the quality of the conversation that develops around the content being studied together.
This handout--including a description of each role and a group sign-up sheet---can be used with student social bookmarking efforts:
Handout_SocialBookmarkingRoles.pdf
Captain Cannonball should find four or five key points in a shared reading to highlight and craft initial questions for other readers to consider
hallenging the thinking of peers in the conversation. Directly responding to comments made by others, the Provocateur works to remind everyone that there are two sides to every story.
for connections. Middle Men
question statements made and conclusions drawn throughout a shared reading.
dentify important "takeaways" that a group can learn from
Fred,
What an incredible resource. It has changed my thinking about collaborative annotation technologies. Thank you!
-tbf
Todd Finley
http://bit.ly/Hfs8N
The driving force behind the Web 2.0 revolution is a spirit of intellectual philanthropy and collective intelligence that is made possible by new technologies for communication, collaboration and information management. One of the best examples of collective intelligence in action are the wide range of social bookmarking applications that have been embraced in recent years.