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Ann Darling

NAEP Gets It One-Third Right -- THE Journal - 15 views

  • gets, the more the debate will stir and positive things can come of all this.
  • 9 Gail Desler California I look forward to following this discussion! Currently many school districts have the same keyboarding + MS Office requirement for tech proficiency shared above by Interested Parent. I think to continue with that model well into the 21st century is really the train wreck waiting to happen. I've read through the NAEP draft. as well as some of their referenced documents from ISTE, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ DOT , and the http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/2 DOT 1stcentdefinition and am hopeful that the NAEP framework will promote the integration of technology literacy across the curriculum. Thanks for starting the conversation.
  • Wed, Sep 9, 2009 Dick Schutz http://ssrn.com/author=1199505 The framework defines technology as "any modification of the natural or designed world done to fulfill human needs or desires." I can't think of any human action that wouldn't fall under that definition The definition of technological literacy is "the capacity to use, understand, and evaluate technology as well as to apply concepts and processes to solve problems and reach one’s goals. It encompasses the three areas of Technology and Society, Design and Systems, and Information and Communications Technology." That's pretty much universal expertise. This is to be measured with a 50 minute test starting at Grade 4. The specs for the tests at Grades 8 and 12 merely get more detailed and more abstract. By the time this gets run through the Item Response Theory wringer we'll have results that are sensitive to racial/SES differences but not to instructional differences. I'll look forward to your forthcoming explanations of how this came to happen.
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  • The problem? Namely, this: With no established federal definition of technological literacy, most states have chosen to follow the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) established by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and to create their curricula and assessments accordingly.
  • gical literacy that is very different from anything any state or No Child Left Behind (NCLB) envisioned. From the draft document: "In recent decades the meaning of technological literacy has taken on three quite different… forms in the United States. These are the science, technology, and society approach, the technology education approach, and the information and communications technology approach. In recognition of the importance, educational value, and interdependence of these three approaches, this framework includes all three under its broad definition of technological literacy."
  • Geoffrey H. Fletcher is the editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group. He can be reached at gfletcher@1105media.com. Comments
Clint Heitz

Critical Issue: Providing Professional Development for Effective Technology Use - 127 views

shared by Clint Heitz on 09 Feb 13 - Cached
Kelly Dau liked it
  • 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).
    • Clint Heitz
       
      Perfect use for reflective blogging on the teacher's part.
  • 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).
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  • The best integration training for teachers does not simply show them how to add technology to their what they are doing. "It helps them learn how to select digital content based on the needs and learning styles of their students, and infuse it into the curriculum
  • A professional development curriculum that helps teachers use technology for discovery learning, developing students' higher-order thinking skills, and communicating ideas is new and demanding and thus cannot be implemented in isolation (Guhlin, 1996)
  • teachers need access to follow-up discussion and collegial activities
  • The only way to ensure that all students have the same opportunities is to require all teachers to become proficient in the use of technology in content areas to support student learning.
  • An effective professional development program provides "sufficient time and follow-up support for teachers to master new content and strategies and to integrate them into their practice,
  • teachers need time to plan, practice skills, try out new ideas, collaborate, and reflect on ideas
  • The technology used for professional development should be the same as the technology used in the classroom. Funds should be available to provide teachers with technology that they can use at home or in private to become comfortable with the capabilities it offers.
  • he Commission suggests partnering with universities and forming teacher networks to help provide professional development activities at lower cost.
    • Clint Heitz
       
      This was well before development of Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)! Twitter, Facebook, Ning, and such all provide opportunities to make this idea happen.
  • consists of three types: preformative evaluation, formative evaluation, and summative evaluation.
  • Preformative evaluation
  • formative evaluation,
  • summative evaluation,
  • Such a program gives teachers the skills they need to incorporate the strengths of technology into their lesson planning rather than merely to add technology to the way they have always done things.
  • School administrators may not provide adequate time and resources for high-quality technology implementation and the associated professional development. They may see professional development as a one-shot training session to impart skills in using specific equipment. Instead, professional development should be considered an ongoing process that helps teachers develop new methods of promoting engaged learning in the classroom using technology.
anonymous

What are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? - 18 views

  •  
    "hat Are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? Today, online schooling for higher education is prevalent across many fields. While there are several benefits to online schooling, such as flexibility and convenience, there are also real and perceived disadvantages. Explore some of the potential drawbacks of online learning. View 10 Popular Schools » Online Schooling In 2012, about a quarter of undergraduate college students were enrolled in distance education courses as part -- if not all -- of their studies, according to a 2014 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. That same data found that 29.8% of graduate students in this country are enrolled in some or all distance learning classes as well. A 2013 report from Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC, pointed out that approximately 86.5% of higher education institutions offer distance learning classes. Clearly, online schooling is commonplace. Disadvantages: Student Perspective Despite advantages, online schooling is not the right fit for every student. Taking online courses is generally believed to require more self-discipline than completing a degree on campus, a belief that is supported by SCHEV -- the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Because online schooling options often allow students to complete much of the coursework at their own pace, students must be motivated to stay on schedule and manage their time accordingly. Other potential disadvantages from a student's viewpoint may include the following: Less Instructional Support Although instructors are available to students via e-mail, telephone, Web discussion boards and other online means, some students may see the lack of face-to-face interaction and one-on-one instruction as a challenge. A lack of communication or miscommunication between instructors and students may frustrate students who are struggling with course materials. That could be exacerbated by the casual nature
Chris Sloan

HASTAC | Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory - 39 views

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    HASTAC ("haystack") is a network of individuals and institutions inspired by the possibilities that new technologies offer us for shaping how we learn, teach, communicate, create, and organize our local and global communities. We are motivated by the conviction that the digital era provides rich opportunities for informal and formal learning and for collaborative, networked research that extends across traditional disciplines, across the boundaries of academe and community, across the "two cultures" of humanism and technology, across the divide of thinking versus making, and across social strata and national borders.
Jeff Andersen

Quality digital tools and services enhance the student experience, boost recruitment ef... - 9 views

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    Dive Brief: Implementing new technologies can yield challenges for students, faculty and other campus users that are not accustomed to these tools, especially if instruction on their use is "nebulous and frustrating," writes Eric Stoller, a student affairs and technology blogger for Inside Higher Ed. Stoller suggests institutions provide quality customer service around digital services, and pressure "old-guard" technology companies to provide systems that meet or exceed users' expectations or aligning themselves with "solutions/providers with less built-in corporate rigidity." He also advises that institutions' marketing teams and communications offices make sure that digital services like campus mobile apps make sense for their students' preferred user experiences, so that the technologies enhance the overall student experience and boost branding and recruitment efforts.
Florence Dujardin

Beyond natives and immigrants: exploring types of net generation students - Kennedy - 2... - 33 views

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    Abstract: Previously assumed to be a homogenous and highly skilled group with respect to information and communications technology, the so-called Net Generation has instead been shown to possess a diverse range of technology skills and preferences. To better understand this diversity, we subjected data from 2096 students aged between 17 and 26 from three Australian universities to a cluster analysis. Through this analysis, we identified four distinct types of technology users: power users (14% of sample), ordinary users (27%), irregular users (14%) and basic users (45%). A series of exploratory chi-square analyses revealed significant associations between the different types of technology users and the university that students attended, their gender and age and whether the student was local or international. No associations were found for analyses related discipline area, socio-economic status or rurality of residence. The findings are discussed in light of the rhetoric associated with commentaries about the Net Generation, and suggestions about their implications for teaching and learning in universities are offered.
Nigel Coutts

Why might we want to learn Digital Technologies? - The Learner's Way - 14 views

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    Understanding the "Why" of any initiative should be a key step prior to implementation. Without a clear understanding of our "Why" how are we to judge the success of what we are implementing. How will we know which steps take us in the right direction if we have no concept of why we are journeying. In our implementation of ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) and now Digital Technologies, a lack of clarity on the matter of "Why" has often been the most significant challenge to success. 
Gregory Louie

Students tap into technology - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - 1 views

  • use their laptops to read "Don Quixote" and Dante's "Divine Comedy" on the Internet
  • Technology is the wave of the future
  • a computer program
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  • "Most jobs require computers," noted Brittnee Stephen, 16, as she assembled a slideshow on her HP Mini laptop. "It's good that we're learning it now."
    • Ed Webb
       
      The technology is still very visible, if students are talking in terms of 'computers' rather than the skills involved. We don't talk about 'paper' but writing, critical reading etc. Yet here the platform itself is emphasized. Early days, I guess.
  • has just begun incorporating technology
    • Ed Webb
       
      Uh, no. They have been using 'technology' forever, in the form of, say, books.
  • students seem far more interested in learning via interactive technology than they had been with a chalkboard and an overhead projector
    • Ed Webb
       
      Well, the problem here is that some of that can be ascribed to novelty. Once every class uses 'interactive technology' (yuk) then how much difference will there be? The tools are great. All tools can be useful. But focus on the pedagogy, people!
    • Scott Merrick
       
      I'm for focusing on understanding. I love the word "pedagogy" because most lay people don't really know what it entails--theory (which can be anything institutional or community deems effective or correct), practice (which, as we know, can be summed up with the phrase "mileage will vary"), and some third thing which if I could come up with it I'd have the magic 3 elements in an effective argument. I think effective tools used effectively by effective teachers (there! 3 uses of one adjective!) will remain effective as long as they are used to promote understanding. No argument here, Ed, just sayin'...
    • Ed Webb
       
      Perhaps the magic third thing would be 'attitude' or 'state of mind'? Alternatively, perhaps another of those non-transparent terms, 'praxis'. The point I was trying to make, of course, was that it ain't what you use, it's the way that you use it.
  • "I think the kids that have turned school off because it's boring to them will come here and see something familiar,"
    • Ed Webb
       
      Boring and familiar seem to me to be closely related, not opposites. I suspect that often when students say their learning environment is 'boring' they mean 'challenging'.
  • Educational technology does not come cheaply
    • Ed Webb
       
      The cost of books is astronomical!
  • "Learning is changing,"
    • Ed Webb
       
      Was it EVER the case that we could "just deliver a lecture and expect all the kids to get it"?
    • Gregory Louie
       
      Computer technology in my classroom has revolutionized my teaching of biology. Instead of static images on a printed page, or talk and chalk, my students can manipulate 3-D images of DNA, RNA and proteins. These have even been embedded in a research-based learning progression that leads the students to a robust understanding of the foundational elements of molecular literacy. 1. Atoms and molecules are constantly in motion. (A visualization is not possible on a 2-3 printed page.) 2. All atoms and molecules have a 3-D structure that determines how they interact with other particles. 3. Charges and other intermolecular forces play a role in atomic and molecular interactions. My students can see these for themselves, change the number of particles in a box, or the distribution of charge on a large particle or the temperature of the box and other thought experiments which they can follow in real-time. There is no way, I could do that without the computer!
Tony Baldasaro

When did teachers start to fear technology? | SeacoastOnline.com - 0 views

  • My students are more involved with technology than ever before. They have taken the lead in mass networking and graphic design
  • They block network programs such as Facebook because of a fear of what might be abused. They block all Web-based e-mail systems that in all reality should help the majority of students. They also reject the use of iPods and cell phones because they believe the use of these new technologies would reduce a student's capacity to learn
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      The opposite is true, these technologies increase a student's capacity to learn.
  • no one is going to stop the use of these technologies.
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  • The second thing it published was pornography.
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      I wish this comment wasn't here, it cheapens his argument.
  • Facebook technology should be used in our classrooms to communicate with classrooms around the world to show the concept all students are in the process of attaining their dreams.
  • Today it is the other way around.
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    Since I've been teaching for more than three decades I remember a time when technology was accepted by all teachers. In fact, I remember a time when my administration gave me my first Apple computer to use. My students were all huddled around me as I investigated new learning tools. The graphics were terrible but it was like magic to my students.
Florence Dujardin

Promoting Student Engagement by Integrating New Technology into Tertiary Education: The... - 3 views

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    Teachers in tertiary education need new strategies to communicate with students of the net generation and to shape enticing educational experiences for them. The use of new approaches such as video-recorded lectures to communicate directly and individually with all students has been the preserve of technology-savvy educators. However, a recent technological advance - the Apple iPad - has the potential to change this situation, offering access to effective and efficient pedagogy in an easy and intuitive way. This paper is a report on the use of the iPad in teaching activities over the past 15 months, showing how it can be used to enhance engagement with learning for tertiary students, both those studying live on campus and those studying at a distance.
Christophe Gigon

elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age - 17 views

  • Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn.
    • Rose Molter
       
      I aggree that as teachers we need to realize that technology has changed instruction and the way that our students learn and the way that we learn and instruct.
    • Orlando Gonzalez
       
      Technology has always changed the way we live. How did we respond to changes in the past? One thought is that some institutions, some businesses disappeared, while others, who took advantage of the new tech, appeared to replace the old. It will happen again and we as educators need to lead the way.
    • Maureen Curran
       
      With technology our students brains are wired differently and they can multi-task and learn in multiple virtual environments all at once. This should make us think about how we present lessons, structure learning and keep kids engaged.
    • Mike Burnett
       
      Rubbish. The idea that digital native are adept at multitasking is wrong. They may be doing many things but the quality and depth is reduced. There is a significant body of research to support this. Development of grit and determination are key attributes of successful people. Set and demand high standards. No one plays sport or an instrument because it is easy rather because they can clearly see a link between hard work and pleasure.
  • Information development was slow.
  • Many learners will move into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields over the course of their lifetime.
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  • Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience.
  • Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime.
  • Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains.
  • Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories.
  • Principles of connectivism:
  • Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. Learning may reside in non-human appliances. Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning. Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
    • Rose Molter
       
      I think it is important for us to realize the importance of connections.
  • The organization and the individual are both learning organisms.
  • Classrooms which emulate the “fuzziness”
    • Maureen Curran
       
      So what does this look like? I feel that when I attempt this, evaluators and administrators don't necessarily understand. They want a neat, quiet, well-managed, orderly classroom.
    • Maureen Curran
       
      If new learning approaches are required, then why are we still being evaluated in a linear way?
  • John Seely Brown presents an interesting notion that the internet leverages the small efforts of many with the large efforts of few.
  • The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today.
  • Knowledge is growing exponentially
  • amount of knowledge
  • is doubling every 18 months
  • To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.”
  • (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed).
  • know-where
  • learning
  • a persisting change in human performance or performance potential…[which] must come about as a result of the learner’s experience and interaction with the world”
  • Learning theories are concerned with the actual process of learning, not with the value of what is being learned.
  • The ability to synthesize and recognize connections and patterns is a valuable skill.
  • knowledge is no longer acquired in the linear manner
  • What is the impact of chaos as a complex pattern recognition process on learning
  • An entirely new approach is needed.
  • Chaos is the breakdown of predictability, evidenced in complicated arrangements that initially defy order.
  • Meaning-making and forming connections between specialized communities are important activities.
  • Chaos, as a science, recognizes the connection of everything to everything.
  • If the underlying conditions used to make decisions change, the decision itself is no longer as correct as it was at the time it was made.
  • principle that people, groups, systems, nodes, entities can be connected to create an integrated whole.
  • Connections between disparate ideas and fields can create new innovations.
  • Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual
  • decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations
  • The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital.
  • Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism do not attempt to address the challenges of organizational knowledge and transference.
  • The health of the learning ecology of the organization depends on effective nurturing of information flow.
  • This cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have formed.
  • This amplification of learning, knowledge and understanding through the extension of a personal network is the epitome of connectivism.
  • Diverse teams of varying viewpoints are a critical structure for completely exploring ideas
  • An organizations ability to foster, nurture, and synthesize the impacts of varying views of information is critical to knowledge economy surviva
  • As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses.
    • BalancEd Tech
       
      Access is not enough. Prior knowledge and understanding is needed. Processing is needed. Evaluation of processing and outputs is needed. Feeding that back into the "system" is needed.
  • learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity
  • learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity
Laura Doto

Final Report: Friendship | DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH - 1 views

  • Social relations—not simply physical space—structure the social worlds of youth.
    • Laura Doto
       
      A critical conclusion to be realized that can inform our assumptions as educators.
  • When teens are involved in friendship-driven practices, online and offline are not separate worlds—they are simply different settings in which to gather with friends and peers
  • these dynamics reinforce existing friendship patterns as well as constitute new kinds of social arrangements.
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  • Homophily describes the likelihood that people connect to others who share their interests and identity.
  • One survey of Israeli teens suggests that those who develop friendships online tend toward less homogenous connections than teens who do not build such connections
  • Teens frequently use social media as additional channels of communication to get to know classmates and turn acquaintances into friendships.
  • Some teens—especially marginalized and ostracized ones—often relish the opportunity to find connections beyond their schools. Teens who are driven by specific interests that may not be supported by their schools, such as those described in the Creative Production and Gaming chapters, often build relationships with others online through shared practice.
  • there are plenty of teens who relish the opportunity to make new connections through social media, this practice is heavily stigmatized
  • the public myths about online “predators” do not reflect the actual realities of sexual solicitation and risky online behavior (Wolak et al. 2008). Not only do unfounded fears limit teenagers unnecessarily, they also obscure preventable problematic behavior
  • As she described her typical session on Photobucket, it became clear that a shared understanding of friendship and romance was being constructed by her and other Photobucket users:
  • The fact that they draw from all of these sources suggests that youth’s friendship maintenance is in tune with a discourse of love and friendship that is being widely displayed and (re)circulated.
  • “It’s like have you noticed that you may have someone in your Top 8 but you’re not in theirs and you kinda think to yourself that you’re not as important to that person as they are to you . . . and oh, to be in the coveted number-one spot!”
  • Taking someone off your Top 8 is your new passive-aggressive power play when someone pisses you off.
  • Top Friends are persistent, publicly displayed, and easily alterable. This makes it difficult for teens to avoid the issue or make excuses such as “I forgot.” When pressured to include someone, teens often oblige or attempt to ward off this interaction by listing those who list them
  • Other teens avoid this struggle by listing only bands or family members. While teens may get jealous if other peers are listed, family members are exempt from the comparative urge.
  • to avoid social drama with her friends:
  • The Top Friends feature is a good example of how structural aspects of software can force articulations that do not map well to how offline social behavior works.
  • teens have developed a variety of social norms to govern what is and is not appropriate
  • The problem with explicit ranking, however, is that it creates or accentuates hierarchies where they did not exist offline, or were deliberately and strategically ambiguous, thus forcing a new set of social-status negotiations. The give-and-take over these forms of social ranking is an example of how social norms are being negotiated in tandem with the adoption of new technologies, and how peers give ongoing feedback to one another as part of these struggles to develop new cultural standards.
  • While teen dramas are only one component of friendship, they are often made extremely visible by social media. The persistent and networked qualities of social media alter the ways that these dramas play out in teen life. For this reason, it is important to pay special attention to the role that social media play in the negotiation of teen status.
  • primarily a continuation of broader dramas.
  • social media amplify dramas because they extend social worlds beyond the school.
  • Gossip and rumors have played a role in teen struggles for status and attention since well before social media entered the scene
  • social media certainly alter the efficiency and potential scale of interactions. Because of this, there is greater potential for gossip to spread much further and at a faster pace, making social media a culprit in teen drama. While teen gossip predates the Internet, some teens blame the technologies for their roles in making gossip easier and more viral
  • That’s what happened with me and my friends. We got into a lot of drama with it and I was like, anyone can write anything. It can be fact, fiction. Most people, what they read they believe. Even if it’s not true (C.J. Pascoe, Living Digital).
  • finds the News Feed useful “because it helps you to see who’s keeping track of who and who’s talking to who.” She enjoys knowing when two people break up so that she knows why someone is upset or when she should reach out to offer support. Knowing this information also prevents awkward conversations that might reference the new ex. While she loves the ability to keep up with the lives of her peers, she also realizes that this means that “everybody knows your business.”
  • Some teens find the News Feed annoying or irrelevant. Gadil, an Indian 16-year-old from Los Angeles, thinks that it is impersonal while others think it is downright creepy. For Tara, a Vietnamese 16-year-old from Michigan, the News Feed takes what was public and makes it more public: “Facebook’s already public. I think it makes it way too like stalker-ish.” Her 18-year-old sister, Lila, concurs and points out that it gets “rumors going faster.” Kat, a white 14-year-old from Salem, Massachusetts, uses Facebook’s privacy settings to hide stories from the News Feed for the sake of appearances.
  • While gossip is fairly universal among teens, the rumors that are spread can be quite hurtful. Some of this escalates to the level of bullying. We are unable to assess whether or not bullying is on the rise because of social media. Other scholars have found that most teens do not experience Internet-driven harassment (Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor 2007). Those who do may not fit the traditional profile of those who experience school-based bullying (Ybarra, Diener-West, and Leaf 2007), but harassment, both mediated and unmediated, is linked to a myriad of psychosocial issues that includes substance use and school problems (Hinduja and Patchin 2008; Ybarra et al. 2007).
  • Measuring “cyberbullying” or Internet harassment is difficult, in part because both scholars and teens struggle to define it. The teens we interviewed spoke regularly of “drama” or “gossip” or “rumors,” but few used the language of “bullying” or “harassment” unless we introduced these terms. When Sasha, a white 16-year-old from Michigan, was asked specifically about whether or not rumors were bullying, she said: I don’t know, people at school, they don’t realize when they are bullying a lot of the time nowadays because it’s not so much physical anymore. It’s more like you think you’re joking around with someone in school but it’s really hurting them. Like you think it’s a funny inside joke between you two, but it’s really hurtful to them, and you can’t realize it anymore. Sasha, like many of the teens we interviewed, saw rumors as hurtful, but she was not sure if they were bullying. Some teens saw bullying as being about physical harm; others saw it as premeditated, intentionally malicious, and sustained in nature. While all acknowledged that it could take place online, the teens we interviewed thought that most bullying took place offline, even if they talked about how drama was happening online.
  • it did not matter whether it was online or offline; the result was still the same. In handling this, she did not get offline, but she did switch schools and friend groups.
  • Technology provides more channels through which youth can potentially bully one another. That said, most teens we interviewed who discussed being bullied did not focus on the use of technology and did not believe that technology is a significant factor in bullying.
  • They did, though, see rumors, drama, and gossip as pervasive. The distinction may be more connected with language and conception than with practice. Bianca, a white 16-year-old from Michigan, sees drama as being fueled by her peers’ desire to get attention and have something to talk about. She thinks the reason that people create drama is boredom. While drama can be hurtful, many teens see it simply as a part of everyday social life.
  • Although some drama may start out of boredom or entertainment, it is situated in a context where negotiating social relations and school hierarchies is part of everyday life. Teens are dealing daily with sociability and related tensions.
  • Tara thinks that it emerges because some teens do not know how to best negotiate their feelings and the feelings of others.
  • Teens can use the ability to publicly validate one another on social network sites to reaffirm a friendship.
  • So, while drama is common, teens actually spend much more time and effort trying to preserve harmony, reassure friends, and reaffirm relationships. This spirit of reciprocity is common across a wide range of peer-based learning environments we have observed.
  • From this perspective, commenting is not as much about being nice as it is about relying on reciprocity for self-gain
  • That makes them feel like they’re popular, that they’re getting comments all the time by different people, even people that they don’t know. So it makes them feel popular in a way (Rural and Urban Youth).
  • Gossip, drama, bullying, and posing are unavoidable side effects of teens’ everyday negotiations over friendship and peer status. What takes place in this realm resembles much of what took place even before the Internet, but certain features of social media alter the dynamics around these processes. The public, persistent, searchable, and spreadable nature of mediated information affects the way rumors flow and how dramas play out. The explicitness surrounding the display of relationships and online communication can heighten the social stakes and intensity of status negotiation. The scale of this varies, but those who experience mediated harassment are certainly scarred by the process. Further, the ethic of reciprocity embedded in networked publics supports the development of friendships and shared norms, but it also plays into pressures toward conformity and participation in local, school-based peer networks. While there is a dark side to what takes place, teens still relish the friendship opportunities that social media provide.
  • While social warfare and drama do exist, the value of social media rests in their ability to strengthen connections. Teens leverage social media for a variety of practices that are familiar elements of teen life: gossiping, flirting, joking around, and hanging out. Although the underlying practices are quite familiar, the networked, public nature of online communication does inflect these practices in new ways.
  • Adults’ efforts to regulate youth access to MySpace are the latest example of how adults are working to hold on to authority over teen socialization in the face of a gradual erosion of parental influence during the teen years.
  • learning how to manage the unique affordances of networked sociality can help teens navigate future collegiate and professional spheres where mediated interactions are assumed.
  • articulating those friendships online means that they become subject to public scrutiny in new ways;
  • This makes lessons about social life (both the failures and successes) more consequential and persistent
  • make these dynamics visible in a more persistent and accessible public arena.
  • co-constructing new sets of social norms together with their peers and the efforts of technology developers. The dynamics of social reciprocity and negotiations over popularity and status are all being supported by participation in publics of the networked variety as formative influences in teen life. While we see no indication that social media are changing the fundamental nature of these friendship practices, we do see differences in the intensity of engagement among peers, and conversely, in the relative alienation of parents and teachers from these social worlds.
  •  
    MacArthur Foundation Study - Friendship chapter
Andrew McCluskey

Occupy Your Brain - 111 views

  • One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority.
  • Once learning is institutionalized under a central authority, both freedom for the individual and respect for the local are radically curtailed.  The child in a classroom generally finds herself in a situation where she may not move, speak, laugh, sing, eat, drink, read, think her own thoughts, or even  use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure.
  • In what should be considered a chilling development, there are murmurings of the idea of creating global standards for education – in other words, the creation of a single centralized authority dictating what every child on the planet must learn.
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  • In “developed” societies, we are so accustomed to centralized control over learning that it has become functionally invisible to us, and most people accept it as natural, inevitable, and consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy.   We assume that this central authority, because it is associated with something that seems like an unequivocal good – “education” – must itself be fundamentally good, a sort of benevolent dictatorship of the intellect. 
  • We endorse strict legal codes which render this process compulsory, and in a truly Orwellian twist, many of us now view it as a fundamental human right to be legally compelled to learn what a higher authority tells us to learn.
  • And yet the idea of centrally-controlled education is as problematic as the idea of centrally-controlled media – and for exactly the same reasons.
  • The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect all forms of communication, information-sharing, knowledge, opinion and belief – what the Supreme Court has termed “the sphere of intellect and spirit” – from government control.
  • by the mid-19th century, with Indians still to conquer and waves of immigrants to assimilate, the temptation to find a way to manage the minds of an increasingly diverse and independent-minded population became too great to resist, and the idea of the Common School was born.
  • We would keep our freedom of speech and press, but first we would all be well-schooled by those in power.
  • A deeply democratic idea — the free and equal education of every child — was wedded to a deeply anti-democratic idea — that this education would be controlled from the top down by state-appointed educrats.
  • The fundamental point of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that the apparatus of democratic government has been completely bought and paid for by a tiny number of grotesquely wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbying groups.  Our votes no longer matter.  Our wishes no longer count.  Our power as citizens has been sold to the highest bidder.
  • Our kids are so drowned in disconnected information that it becomes quite random what they do and don’t remember, and they’re so overburdened with endless homework and tests that they have little time or energy to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around them.
  • If in ten years we can create Wikipedia out of thin air, what could we create if we trusted our children, our teachers, our parents, our neighbors, to generate community learning webs that are open, alive, and responsive to individual needs and aspirations?  What could we create if instead of trying to “scale up” every innovation into a monolithic bureaucracy we “scaled down” to allow local and individual control, freedom, experimentation, and diversity?
  • The most academically “gifted” students excel at obedience, instinctively shaping their thinking to the prescribed curriculum and unconsciously framing out of their awareness ideas that won’t earn the praise of their superiors.  Those who resist sitting still for this process are marginalized, labeled as less intelligent or even as mildly brain-damaged, and, increasingly, drugged into compliance.
  • the very root, the very essence, of any theory of democratic liberty is a basic trust in the fundamental intelligence of the ordinary person.   Democracy rests on the premise that the ordinary person — the waitress, the carpenter, the shopkeeper — is competent to make her own judgments about matters of domestic policy, international affairs, taxes, justice, peace, and war, and that the government must abide by the decisions of ordinary people, not vice versa.  Of course that’s not the way our system really works, and never has been.   But most of us recall at some deep level of our beings that any vision of a just world relies on this fundamental respect for the common sense of the ordinary human being.
  • This is what we spend our childhood in school unlearning. 
  • If before we reach the age of majority we must submit our brains for twelve years of evaluation and control by government experts, are we then truly free to exercise our vote according to the dictates of our own common sense and conscience?  Do we even know what our own common sense is anymore?
  • We live in a country where a serious candidate for the Presidency is unaware that China has nuclear weapons, where half the population does not understand that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, where nobody pays attention as Congress dismantles the securities regulations that limit the power of the banks, where 45% of American high school students graduate without knowing that the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.   At what point do we begin to ask ourselves if we are trying to control quality in the wrong way?
  • Human beings, collaborating with one another in voluntary relationships, communicating and checking and counter-checking and elaborating and expanding on one another’s knowledge and intelligence, have created a collective public resource more vast and more alive than anything that has ever existed on the planet.
  • But this is not a paeon to technology; this is about what human intelligence is capable of when people are free to interact in open, horizontal, non-hierarchical networks of communication and collaboration.
  • Positive social change has occurred not through top-down, hierarchically controlled organizations, but through what the Berkana Institute calls “emergence,” where people begin networking and forming voluntary communities of practice. When the goal is to maximize the functioning of human intelligence, you need to activate the unique skills, talents, and knowledge bases of diverse individuals, not put everybody through a uniform mill to produce uniform results. 
  • You need a non-punitive structure that encourages collaboration rather than competition, risk-taking rather than mistake-avoidance, and innovation rather than repetition of known quantities.
  • if we really want to return power to the 99% in a lasting, stable, sustainable way, we need to begin the work of creating open, egalitarian, horizontal networks of learning in our communities.
  • They are taught to focus on competing with each other and gaming the system rather than on gaining a deep understanding of the way power flows through their world.
  • And what could we create, what ecological problems could we solve, what despair might we alleviate, if instead of imposing our rigid curriculum and the destructive economy it serves on the entire world, we embraced as part of our vast collective intelligence the wisdom and knowledge of the world’s thousands of sustainable indigenous cultures?
  • They knew this about their situation: nobody was on their side.  Certainly not the moneyed classes and the economic system, and not the government, either.  So if they were going to change anything, it had to come out of themselves.
  • As our climate heats up, as mountaintops are removed from Orissa to West Virginia, as the oceans fill with plastic and soils become too contaminated to grow food, as the economy crumbles and children go hungry and the 0.001% grows so concentrated, so powerful, so wealthy that democracy becomes impossible, it’s time to ask ourselves; who’s educating us?  To what end?  The Adivasis are occupying their forests and mountains as our children are occupying our cities and parks.  But they understand that the first thing they must take back is their common sense. 
  • They must occupy their brains.
  • Isn’t it time for us to do the same?
  •  
    Carol Black, creator of the documentary, "Schooling the World" discusses the conflicting ideas of centralized control of education and standardization against the so-called freedom to think independently--"what the Supreme Court has termed 'the sphere of intellect and spirit" (Black, 2012). Root questions: "who's educating us? to what end?" (Black, 2012).
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    This is a must read. Carol Black echoes here many of the ideas of Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and the like.
Margaret Moore-Taylor

Digital Wish - About Digital Wish - 5 views

  •  
    a website to empower teachers to solve their own technology shortfalls by connecting classrooms with their communities using the Internet. A year later, www.digitalwish.org launched with a simple wish list feature and a few technology products. The need for classroom technology was so great that 1,000 teachers posted wishes in the first month. With such high demand, we began the process of turning Digital Wish into an official nonprofit organization.
Rich Robles

Social networking sites and our lives | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life ... - 53 views

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    Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project decided to examine social networking sites in a survey that explored people's overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement. The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people's social worlds. Wherever possible, we seek to disentangle whether people's varying social behaviors and attitudes are related to the different ways they use social networking sites, or to other relevant demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and social class.
Roland Gesthuizen

Preparing Your School for an iPad Implementation - iPads in Education - 52 views

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    "Planning is imperative for any technology initiative - iPad or otherwise. You need to ensure that you clearly understand and communicate how the technology integrates with your overall pedagogical objectives. Too many institutions purchase technology and then search for ways to utilize it, or leave it collecting dust on the shelf."
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    Some good planning points for educators planning any iPads in the classroom as class sets or 1:1 deployments
Peter Beens

PLUS - Picture Licensing Universal System - 37 views

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    The PLUS Coalition is an international non-profit initiative on a mission to simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights. Organized by respected associations, leading companies, standards bodies, scholars and industry experts, the PLUS Coalition exists for the benefit of all communities involved in creating, distributing, using and preserving images. Spanning more than thirty countries, these diverse stakeholders have collaborated to develop PLUS, a system of standards that makes it easier to communicate, understand and manage image rights in all countries. The PLUS Coalition exists at the crossroads between technology, commerce, the arts, preservation and education.
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    An alternative to creative commons licensing?
Kelly Boushell

Google Apps for Education - 3 views

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    Google Apps Education Edition is a broad IT solution that schools can use to bring communication and collaboration tools to the entire academic community for free. Google manages all the technology details, so you can focus your time, energy and budgets on teaching your kids. Students, teachers and staff can share ideas more quickly and get things done more effectively when they have access to the same powerful communication and sharing tools. Google Apps Education Edition lets tech administrators provide email, sharable online calendars, instant messaging tools and even a dedicated website to faculty, students and staff for free. There's no hardware or software to install or maintain, since everything is delivered through a standard web browser -- anytime, from anyplace.
Andy Whiteway

Building an Internet Culture - 0 views

  • ten conclusions that might guide a country's development of a culturally appropriate Internet policy
  • Do not spend vast sums of money to buy machinery that you are going to set down on top of existing dysfunctional institutions. The Internet, for example, will not fix your schools. Perhaps the Internet can be part of a much larger and more complicated plan for fixing your schools, but simply installing an Internet connection will almost surely be a waste of money.
  • Learning how to use the Internet is primarily a matter of institutional arrangements, not technical skills
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  • Build Internet civil society. Find those people in every sector of society that want to use the Internet for positive social purposes, introduce them to one another, and connect them to their counterparts in other countries around the world. Numerous organizations in other countries can help with this.
  • Machinery does not reform society, repair institutions, build social networks, or produce a democratic culture. People must do those things, and the Internet is simply one tool among many. Find talented people and give them the tools they need. When they do great things, contribute to your society's Internet culture by publicizing their ideas.
  • For children, practical experience in organizing complicated social events, for example theater productions, is more important than computer skills. The Internet can be a powerful tool for education if it is integrated into a coherent pedagogy. But someone who has experience with the social skills of organizing will immediately comprehend the purpose of the Internet, and will readily acquire the technical skills when the time comes
  • Conduct extensive, structured analysis of the technical and cultural environment. Include the people whose work will actually be affected. A shared analytical process will help envision how the technology will fit into the whole way of life around it, and the technology will have a greater chance of actually being used.
  • Don't distribute the technology randomly. Electronic mail is useless unless the people you want to communicate with are also online, and people will not read their e-mail unless they want to. Therefore, you should focus your effort on particular communities, starting with the communities that have a strong sense of identity, a good record of sharing information, and a collective motivation to get online.
    • Andy Whiteway
       
      This community could so easily be the students - but how often do schools seem to be obsessed with givgin staff lots of access to technology and email but block/restrict students' use of it?
Dean Whaley

iowaonlinelearning - Teaching Standards - 27 views

  • Creates a learning community that encourages collaboration and interaction, including student-teacher, student-student, and student-content (SREB D.2, Varvel VII.B, ITS 6.a)
    • Dean Whaley
       
      What I see in these is that many of these we should be doing already.
  • AEA PD Online Website HomeAbout UsFAQsCurrent InitiativesResearch & ResourcesInstructor ToolboxK-12 Online LearningProject OLLIE Current Projects • Transition Process• Marketing Plan• Job Descriptions guest · Join · Help · Sign In · Teaching StandardsProtected page Details and Tags Print Download PDF Backlinks Source Delete Rename Redirect Permissions Lock discussion (1) history notify me Details last edit by eabbey Mar 11, 2011 6:56 am - 26 revisions Tags none Iowa Online Teaching Standards Composed from Iowa Teaching Standards and Other Resources 1. Demonstrates ability to enhance academic performance and support for the agency's student achievement goals (ITS 1) • Knows and aligns instruction to the achievement goals of the local agency and the state, such as with the Iowa Core (Varvel I.A, ITS 1.f, ITS 3.a) • Continuously uses data to evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of instructional strategies (SREB J.7, ITS 1.c) • Utilizes a course evaluation and student feedback data to improve the course (Varvel VI.F) • Provides and communicates evidence of learning and course data to students and colleagues (SREB J.6, ITS 1.a) 2. Demonstrates competence in content knowledge (including technological knowledge) appropriate to the instructional position (ITS 2) • Meets the professional teaching standards established by a state-licensing agency, or has the academic credentials in the field in which he or she is teaching (SREB A.1, Varvel II.A) • Knows the content of the subject to be taught and understands how to teach the content to students (SREB A.3, Varvel II.A, ITS 2.a) • Is knowledgeable and has the ability to use computer programs required in online education to improve learning and teaching, including course management software (CMS) and synchronous/asynchronous communication t
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