Group items tagged

"As an educator who is addicted to Twitter I have always read about students getting introduced to Twitter and wondered how it would work. After reading and reading I have finally decided to give it a go. Here is my introduction to Twitter in my classroom. Last Tuesday, the day started like any other. Roll call, discussion, introduction to an activity and a bit of a laugh with my Year 7 and 8 Technology class. We had been discussing the importance of being an active online user and being a positive digital citizen (the students are preparing some presentations for Year 2-3 children later in the term). The conversation moved into learning environments and we discussed the small and "un-student friendly" (their words) environment that they were currently sitting in. "Take the teachable moment and run with it" my inner, energetic teacher yelled from my shoulder. So there we were talking about the "Ultimate Learning Environment", when one of my students asked me "Why is social media so big?". Good question I thought, why is it 'so big'. So we unpacked that question and broke it down. We talked about Social Media and what it was and how it worked, they gave me excellent examples and we tied it back into our discussion about digital citizenship. From this point, as a class, we decided we would use social media to help us with our learning. The students had no idea how it could work. I suggested twitter and how I use it. We pulled up my profile and saw how it worked (discussion only). The decision was then made -> Let's ask the twitterverse to help us!! On rolled Monday 5th May and in our first class (I see this group twice a week) we decided that tomorrow would be the day, we would ask twitter for their advice on "What makes a GREAT learningenvironment?". The students already have some fantastic ideas and a plan of where they want to see their environment heading but they needed some depth to their plan and some other opinions outside of

"It seems only fitting to explore the role of questions in education by asking questions about the process of doing so. I propose that we start with the customary way of framing this topic and then proceed to questions that are deeper and potentially more subversive of traditional schooling. 1. WHICH QUESTIONS? To begin, let's consider what we might ask our students. The least interesting questions are those with straightforward factual answers. That's why a number of writers have encouraged the use of questions described variously as "true" (Wolf, 1987), "essential" (Simon, 2002), "generative" (Perkins, 1992; Perrone, 1998), "guiding" (Traver, 1998), or "fertile" (Harpaz & Lefstein, 2000). What the best of these share is that they're open-ended. Sometimes, in fact, no definitive right answer can be found at all. And even when there is one - or at least when there is reason to prefer some responses to others - the answer isn't obvious and can't be summarized in a sentence. Why is it so hard to find a cure for cancer? Do numbers ever end? Why do people lie? Why did we invade Vietnam? Grappling with meaty questions like these (which were among those generated by a class in Plainview, NY) is a real project . . . literally. A question-based approach to teaching tends to shade into learning that is problem- (Delisle, 1997) and project-based (Kilpatrick, 1918; Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Wolk, 1998). Intellectual proficiency is strengthened as students figure out how to do justice to a rich question. As they investigate and come to understand important ideas more fully, new questions arise along with better ways of asking them, and the learning spirals upwards. Guiding students through this process is not a technique that can be stapled onto our existing pedagogy, nor is it something that teachers can be trained to master during an in-service day. What's required is a continual focus on creating a classroom that is about thinking rather

"Our new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content. Low-tech Magazine was born in 2007 and has seen minimal changes ever since. Because a website redesign was long overdue - and because we try to practice what we preach - we decided to build a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered version of Low-tech Magazine. The new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content. Why a Low-tech Website? We were told that the Internet would "dematerialise" society and decrease energy use. Contrary to this projection, it has become a large and rapidly growing consumer of energy itself. In order to offset the negative consequences associated with high energy consumption, renewable energy has been proposed as a means to lower emissions from powering data centers. For example, Greenpeace's yearly ClickClean report ranks major Internet companies based on their use of renewable power sources."

"Ce dossier, coordonné par Alex Haché et publié en 2014, revient sur les principes directeurs de la souveraineté technologique et propose un tour d'horizon théorique et pratique de quelques initiatives de développement de technologies libres pour mieux esquisser les limites et les défis qui se dressent aujourd'hui dans la lutte pour la souveraineté technologique."

The aim of the Transmedia Literacy project is to understand how the young boys and girls are learning skills outside the school. The construction of those cultural competencies and social skills will be at the centre of the research. Once the informal learning strategies and practices applied by young people outside the formal institutions are identified, the team will 'translate' them into a series of activities and proposals to be implemented inside school settings. The Transmedia Literacy Project will also produce a Teacher's Kit that will be designed to facilitate the integration of transliteracies in the classroom.

"Todos tenemos clara la importancia de dar ejemplo. Como docentes, por ejemplo, las decisiones que tomemos, nuestra forma de actuar, el vocabulario que empleemos con los alumnos e, incluso, todo lo que rodea a nuestra persona, hace que lo anterior impregne parte del aprendizaje de nuestros alumnos. Sí, los alumnos toman ejemplo de lo que ven. Nosotros sólo somos una pequeña parte de la gran cantidad de inputs que reciben pero, seguramente, esa pequeña parte va a formar parte de un "todo" que configurará la personalidad y las maneras de hacer de los alumnos en un futuro. Si todo el mundo tira papeles en el suelo, la gente va a seguir tirando papeles. Si hay una parte importante de la población que defiende el machismo, la sociedad va a seguir siendo machista. Si hay una visión mayoritaria que el pagar en negro (o en B) es una práctica extendida, la práctica va a asimilarse como algo normal. Y al final, la única forma que va a tener la sociedad para luchar contra lo anterior va a ser la "obligación" impuesta o la "penalización" de esas conductas asumidas como normales que, por desgracia no lo son. Penalización que, por desgracia, parece que tenga más afección sobre unos que sobre otros. Y, al final, esa variabilidad de la misma hace que tampoco llegue a ser totalmente efectiva. ¿A qué viene lo anterior? Pues viene de la noticia que un tribunal de la India ha sentenciado "obligar a los funcionarios públicos de su país a asistir a escuelas públicas" bajo la justificación de que "en la actualidad, el Estado dispone de un sistema educativo tridimensional compuesto por escuelas anglófonas, escuelas privadas y escuelas públicas. La educación pública solo puede mejorar si se obliga a los funcionarios del Gobierno a enviar a sus hijos a estos centros escolares" (fuente). Así pues se obliga a los funcionarios públicos de ese país a usar servicios públicos con la justificación de la ejemplarización de dicha decisión. Ello me

"1. La orientación a las necesidades reales. 2. El Empoderamiento de los profesionales de la educación. 3. La creación de comunidades de aprendizaje. 4. La garantía del aprendizaje de los más desprotegidos. 5. La incorporación de las evidencias científicas. 6. La prevención de la brecha participativa digital. 7. La integración de nuevos actores. 8. La creación de un ecosistema digital educativo. 9. La protección de la intimidad, en especial de los menores. 10. Una estrategia a largo plazo."