Group items tagged

There was happy news for people like me Monday, when the National Endowment for the Arts announced the latest results of its annual survey of American reading habits. The percentage of Americans who reported reading a novel, a short story, a poem or a play has gone up, from 46.7 percent in 2002 to 50.2 percent in the last year - the first increase in that percentage since the NEA began investigating national reading habits in the 1980s. The NEA's 2002 report was titled "Reading at Risk;" this year's report is called "Reading on the Rise."

This incredible post by Beth Kanter is a must read for anyone in IT or working with web 2.0 and professional development. Understanding the intrisic value of a newcomer is so important for anyone working in these feels. Newcomers have more power now than they could ever imagine. Newcomers, speak out and give your opinion. The power is in your newness and guess what, if you wait till you're an "expert" then you're just like all the other experts out there. Also, it is better to be a newcomer than a latecomer!

The importance of a newcomer

FACEBOOK, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia are considered valuable educational tools by some who embrace the learning potential of the internet; they are also seen as a massive distraction with no academic benefit by others. Research in Nottingham and Notts suggests split opinions over the internet in the classroom. Some 1,500 interviews with teachers, parents and students nationwide showed the 'net was an integral part of children's personal lives, with 57% of 13 to 18-year-olds in Notts using blogs in their spare time and 58% in Nottingham. More than 60% of Nottingham teens use social networking sites. They are a big feature of leisure time - but now the science version of You Tube, developed by academics at The University of Nottingham, has been honoured in the US this week. The showcase of science videos shares the work of engineers and students online. However just a quarter of teachers use social networking tools in the classroom and their teaching, preferring to leave children to investigate outside school.

Fascinating Article about how to change people's attitudes.

Thanks to Tammy Worcester for sharing this voting/poll site. As people respond to the questions, the Google map identifies their location.

I choose to sign this declaration because: I wish to take responsibility for upholding the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in my daily life and in my community. I will do my best to speak out to protect the freedom and rights of others in my community. I affirm the following principle: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." I believe Every Human Has Rights.

AwesomeStories is a gathering place of primary-source information. Its purpose - since the site was first launched in 1999 - is to help educators and individuals find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, and government web sites. Sources held in archives, which document so much important first-hand information, are often not searchable by popular search engines. One needs to search within those institutional sites directly, using specific search phrases not readily discernible to non-scholars. The experience can be frustrating, resulting in researchers leaving sites without finding needed information. AwesomeStories is about primary sources. The stories exist as a way to place original materials in context and to hold those links together in an interesting, cohesive way (thereby encouraging people to look at them). It is a totally different kind of web site in that its purpose is to place primary sources at the forefront - not the opinions of a writer. Its objective is to take a site's users to places where those primary sources are found, and to which the site's users may otherwise not go. The author of each story is listed on the "chapters" page of the story. A link to the author provides more detailed information.

You have until July 12th to comment on the national education technology plan which was started at NECC. They want your opinion and comments on the plan - so if you do not comment, you lose the right to complain!

"What are going to be the top Internet trends of 2010? As every end of the year, influential bloggers, opinion leaders and media experts look inside their crystal balls to foresee what will be hot and where the market is headed in the following year. In this MasterNewMedia guide you will find the best 2010 predictions from the web. "

Some interesting and some obvious predictions for 2010

100 Best Education Blogs of 2009

100 Best Education Blogs of 2009

List of 100 education blogs of 2009 - I just like to "meet" new people on these lists - don't consider them definitive or scientific. Just someone's opinion.

But the final answer is worth the struggle. It reveals that the fastest path obeys a relationship known as Snell's law. What's spooky is that nature obeys it, too. Snell's law describes how light rays bend when they pass from air into water, as they do when shining into a swimming pool.... The eerie point is that light behaves as if it were considering all possible paths and automatically taking the best one. Nature - cue the theme from "The Twilight Zone" - somehow knows calculus.

Here's the issue…..everyone has an opinion and both sides have been using Twitter and the people following the stream there as a way to have their voice heard. I don't think that's a bad things, but are we teaching people that these live streams of information need to be filtered?

"I do believe that educators should use Twitter for professional purposes with other educators. I am writing this blog post as a newbie to Twitter. I am writing from the observation and opinion of what I have learned in a short period."

I hope this site helps you place today's current events into a greater historical context. Each map is well-researched and based in fact, and none of the work is meant to be biased or political. No spin or opinion, just fact-based conclusions about the history of war. Maps-of-War is created by a Flash-Designer hobbyist and professional history- buff. Enjoy your visit and feel free to save or share our work for your own use!

I love these views from my student and her use of the term "horizontal" teaching - I think she has inadevertently hit on a very important concept for us teachers to understand. "Everyone has different views, different things they are good at, and different things they know. In a classroom, the teacher used to stand in front of the students, and lecture all day long. Now many of those teachers have started to teach "horizontally". This means that the teacher doesn't necessarily stand in front of her class and lecture, but works with the class, not only teaching them, but allowing them to teach her new things as well. This video gave me different opinions and opened my mind to a flattened world. I agree in many ways with Mr Friedman, because I personally do not learn well by having someone lecture me, it is very easy to get distracted, and by learning horizontally, I can interact with my teacher and classmates, and I feel like I learn so much more, because not only do I pay attention, but the fact that I am interacting, and experiencing what she is teaching helps out a lot."

Love this phrase "horizontal learning"

Computer Science Education week in the USA is going to be December 7th - Microsoft Blogger Alfred Thompson (and in my humble opinion one of the definitive leaders in advocating computer science education) has shared a blog post about this. If you teach computer science or touch on it, consider planning some things.

Computer Science Education week