n recent years, there has been explosive growth in students creating, manipulating, and sharing content online (National School Boards Association, 2007). Recognizing the educational value of encouraging such behaviors, many school leaders have shifted their energies from limiting the use of these technologies to limiting their abuse. As with any other behavior, when schools teach and set expectations for appropriate technology use, students rise to meet the expectations. Such conditions allow educators to focus on, in the words of social technology guru Howard Rheingold (n.d.), educating “children about the necessity for critical thinking and [encouraging] them to exercise their own knowledge of how to make moral choices." One process for creating the necessary conditions is reported in From Fear to Facebook, the first-person account of one California principal who endured a series of false starts to finally arrive at a place where students in his school were maximizing their use of laptops and participatory technologies without the constant distractions of misuse (Levinson, 2010). Other similar processes and programs are emerging, and they all share a common theme: an education that fails to account for the use of social media tools prepares students well for the past, but not for their future.
Eric Robertson on 19 Feb 13Host Eric Robertson's conversation with Michael Truong, Associate Director of UC Merced's Center for Research on Teaching Excellence looks at technology innovations at the UC system's newest campus as an indicator for what is happening nationally. After covering topics ranging from the role of Learning Management Systems to trends in student technology purchases, their conversation focuses on UC Merced's Mobile App Learning Lounge, a resource designed to help students and faculty explore the possibilities of teaching and learning using mobile applications. Truong argues that mobile tools are dramatically enhancing assessment, communication between students and faculty, collaboration activities, and even access to and time spent with learning materials. The conversation concludes with a fascinating discussion about the challenges of teaching in an age of technology driven distraction. Referencing thinkers like Michael Wesch, Sherry Terkle and Nicholas Carr, Robertson and Truong explore how faculty can help students develop critical thinking skills in a "search culture" by moving beyond consuming knowledge to curating and producing it.
