Group items tagged

“butterfly brain.” Constantly flitting from subject to subject, we lose focus on the single task.

"We already have a guitar. I can learn on my own and with my friends." Me: "It seems like you should get lessons for the basics." Her: "Mom, that's what the Internet is for." It turns out she's already been practicing with the help of YouTube tutorials.

because of the abundance of knowledge and social connections

balancing the competitive pressures of college-readiness, the need for unstructured learning and socializing, and the role of the Internet in all of that

physical spaces in all states of maintenance are by necessity temporal spaces; we orient

Time is a background-level context that we assume is there.

there are some spaces – and indeed, some object – that we perceive as more temporally-laden than others, regardless of whether or not those spaces and objects are in a state of ruin

The Common Core places an extraordinary emphasis on vocabulary development

Teachers are engaged in practices like these because they are pressured and afraid, not because they think the assessments are educationally sound. Their principals are pressured and nervous about their own scores and the school’s scores. Guaranteed, every child in the class feels that pressure and trepidation as well.

I am troubled that a company that has a multi-million dollar contract to create tests for the state should also be able to profit from producing test prep materials. I am even more deeply troubled that this wonderful little girl, whom I have known since she was born, is being subject to this distortion of what her primary education should be.

Has this tool been recommended by colleagues or student I respect, or is someone else willing to try this tool with me?

In other words, model what you want your students to do: Use technology as a tool for learning.

A simple and popular workaround for awkward or potentially unprofessional interactions is to use Facebook pages, groups or separate accounts in the classroom. Pages are essentially separate profiles that students can Like in order to receive updates, and you can add students to groups in order to stay connected. Creating a separate profile for yourself is an easy way to prevent students from seeing any personal information that you would normally have on Facebook.

When you set a social media policy for your classroom, it’s important to delineate clear guidelines with your students on how they should and should not interact with you.

“During the term, I perceive that friending a student creates uncomfortable boundaries for the student-professor relationship,” she says. “After all, students post information about their personal lives and vice versa.”