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Practice logs can promote these helpful activities. Such logs can show how often teachers use a new practice, how it worked, what problems occurred, and what help they needed (Sparks, 1998).

Professional development for technology use should demonstrate projects in specific curriculum areas and help teachers integrate technology into the content.

Specific content can help teachers analyze, synthesize, and structure ideas into projects that they can use in their classrooms (Center for Applied Special Technology, 1996).

Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."

External audiences certainly motivate students to do their best work. But students can also serve as their own authentic audience when asked to create meaningful work to share with one another.

Students most likely won't find this difficult. After all, you're asking them to surf the Web and tag pages they like. That's something they do via Facebook every day. By having them share course-related content with their peers in the class, however, you'll tap into their desires to be part of your course's learning community. And you might be surprised by the resources they find and share.

A few months ago, I discovered MentorMob (MM), which allows any user to create “Learning Playlists” to share or open up to other fellow learners who might want to add or edit the content in the playlist. The end product is the ultimate learning tool for students, especially when the playlist is populated with high-quality content, including visual, audio and interactive elements

academia is just scratching the surface about the implications of social networking and what exactly it is, what it means, and how it happens

scholarly speculation

"Has social networking technology (blog-friendly phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) made us better or worse off as a society, either from an economic, psychological, or sociological perspective?"

technology needs to be — above everything else — in the service of learning. Administrators who fail to articulate the connection between iPads and learning often hamper their iPad initiative.

put the iPads in the hands of teachers who understand that active learners learn best

Focusing on iPad-versus.-laptop comparisons stifles the ability to see how the iPad facilitates student-centered learning

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patchwork collection of online courses that's difficult for students to navigate.

they can improve their online-education efforts to help students find streamlined, affordable pathways to a degree.