a new study shows that a separate gap has emerged, with lower-income students again lagging more affluent students in their ability to find, evaluate, integrate and communicate the information they find online.
Teachers have to expect and recognize that they can’t just say ‘Google something,’ because some of our students still don’t know what that means
teachers often assumed that because adolescents seemed so comfortable with technology that they actually knew how to use it in an academic context. Teachers have the “perception that the students are already tech savvy and can navigate and move around more quickly than the teachers,” Mr. Damico said. “B
ll learning styles and levels can be met. Teachers can organize their classes and post different documents, assignments, tests, etc. for their students to work on without the students knowing they are receiving something that has been specifically developed for their own level.
This is a useful news site which provides the same news story written at three different levels of English, making it a wonderful tool for ESL classes and differentiating for different age groups.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English+As+An+Additional+Language
Amazing! Bloom updated for the 21st century with a comprehensive toolkit of apps that help encourage and foster each cog of cognition. Great for problem/inquiry based investigations and collaborations.
This page gathers all of the Bloomin' Apps projects in one place!
Each of the images has clickable hotspots and includes suggestions for iPad, Google, Android, and Web 2.0 applications
to support each of the levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.
Each image has clickable hotspots and includes suggestions for iPad, Android, Google and Web 2.0 applications to support each of the levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.
"A free resource to help teachers and students to gain a deeper understanding of how the body works has been launched by The Physiological Society in partnership with the University of Liverpool.
The resource, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), has been specifically designed to support the A-level Biology curriculum, with a focus on the respiratory, cardiovascular and nervous systems."
According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
The evidence to date is mixed
A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
loosely structured by open-ended narratives
They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
first project was a traditional effects study
second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
ethnography
sociocultural perspective
as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
eight defining characteristics of third places
there is no default obligation
To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
conversation plays an analogous role
"In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
third places must also be easy to access
such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
barriers to initial access.
"What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
"It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
affective sense
As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
bridging social capital is inclusive.
This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
bonding social capital is exclusive.
social superglue.
it can also result in insularity.
shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.
Asa Spencer of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in the Education Gadfly Weekly:
"Traditionalists cringe, tech buffs rejoice: This latest NAEP writing assessment for grades eight and twelve marks the first computer-based appraisal (by the "nation's report card") of student proficiency in this subject. It evaluates students' writing skills (what NAEP calls both academic and workplace writing) based on three criteria: idea development, organization, and language facility and conventions. Results were predictably bad: Just twenty-four percent of eighth graders and 27 percent of twelfth graders scored proficient or above. Boys performed particularly poorly; half as many eighth-grade males reached proficiency as their female counterparts. The use of computers adds a level of complexity to these analyses: The software allows those being tested to use a thesaurus (which 29 percent of eighth graders exploited), text-to-speech software (71 percent of eighth graders used), spell check (three-quarters of twelfth graders), and kindred functions. It is unclear whether use of these crutches affected a student's "language facility" scores, though it sure seems likely. While this new mechanism for assessing kids' writing prowess makes it impossible to track trend data, one can make (disheartening) comparisons across subjects. About a third of eighth graders hit the NAEP proficiency benchmark in the latest science, math, and reading assessments, compared to a quarter for writing. So where to go from here? The report also notes that twelfth-grade students who write four to five pages a week score ten points higher than those who write just one page a week. Encouraging students to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) is a start."
New report from Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, September 2012, by Anthony P. Carnevale, Tamara Jayasundera, Andrew R. Hanson -
Daniela Fairchild of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in The Education Gadfly Weekly:
"At 31 percent, the United States currently ranks second among OECD nations-behind Norway-for the percentage of its workforce with a four-year college education. That's the good news. The bad news is that we rank sixteenth for the percentage of our workforce with a sub-baccalaureate education (think: postsecondary and industry-based certificates, associate's degrees). Yet a swath of jobs in America calls for just that sort of preparation, which often begins in high school. Dubbed "middle jobs" in this report by the Center on Education and the Workforce, these employment opportunities pay at least $35,000 a year and are divided among white- and blue-collar work. Yet they are largely ignored in our era of "college for all." In two parts, this report delineates five major categories of career and technical education (CTE), then lists specific occupations that require this type of education. It's full of facts and figures and an excellent resource for those looking to expand rigorous CTE in the U.S. Most importantly, it presents this imperative: Collect data on students who emerge from these programs. By tracking their job placements and wage earnings, we can begin to rate CTE programs, shutter those that are ineffective, and scale up those that are successful. If CTE is ever to gain traction in the U.S.-and shed the stigma of being low-level voc-tech education for kids who can't quite make it academically-this will be a necessary first step."
Northern Star Online (NSO) is a collaborative of 15 independent school districts and 4 educational service agencies created to further the State of Minnesota's goal of promoting high quality online learning for high school students. If you are looking for high school level courses, you can take them online with Northern Star Online.
Nice set of manipulatable visualizations to explore basic data and trends and relationships dealing with poverty, gender, and level of educational attainment.
One of the best websites I have seen for math tutorials at all levels - k through Algebra 2. Also, a great site for games puzzles, or questions of the day.
Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg speaks to why women are not leading more in the workplace. She focuses on women's self-perceptions and how that influences their ability to be promoted to high levels.
Standardised testing and the resultant scores are good indicators for potential learning difficulties or strengths. But they're no substitute for face to face interactions. And sometimes that one on one interaction needs an experienced hand to really pinpoint the need. I'm committed to working with Gloria as much as I can this year. If our chance meeting didn't occur, she could have spent the year only working with a teacher aide group with students with learning difficulties. We can't let the push for standardised testing, even at the diagnostic rather than school comparison level, blind us form the fact we need to get to know our students more intimately. We owe it to the Glorias in our classrooms.
In an effort to help teachers identify apps and Web 2.0 tools that can be used to attain various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, we have re-constructed the Bloom's Taxonomy Wheel for the iPad with apps that Zeeland students have available on their iPad.
I like the metaphor of "brain sweat." It captures what we're going for as teachers.
Are the students teaching each other?
Are the questions simple, level 1 questions or higher level questions that could even stump an adult? If a student can make a teacher's brain sweat, then you know they are really engaged and thinking.