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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Dennis OConnor

Dennis OConnor

The Wrath Against Khan: Why Some Educators Are Questioning Khan Academy - 6 views

  • While "technology will replace teachers" seems like a silly argument to make, one need only look at the state of most school budgets and know that something's got to give. And lately, that something looks like teachers' jobs, particularly to those on the receiving end of pink slips. Granted, we haven't implemented a robot army of teachers to replace those expensive human salaries yet (South Korea is working on the robot teacher technology. I'll keep you posted.). But we are laying off teachers in mass numbers. Teachers know their jobs are on the line, something that's incredibly demoralizing for a profession already struggles mightily to retain qualified people.
  • it's hard not to see that wealth as having political not just economic impact. Indeed, the same week that Bill Gates spoke to the Council of Chief State School Officers about ending pay increases for graduate degrees in teaching, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued almost the very same statement. What does all of this have to do with Sal Khan? Well, nothing... and everything.
  • One of education historian Diane Ravitch's oft-uttered complaints is that we now have a bunch of billionaires like Gates dictating education policy and education reform, without ever having been classroom teachers themselves (or without having attended public school). But the skepticism about Khan Academy isn't just a matter of wealth or credentials of Khan or his backers. It's a matter of pedagogy.
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  • No doubt, Khan has done something incredible by creating thousands of videos, distributing them online for free, and now designing an analytics dashboard for people to monitor and guide students' movements through the Khan Academy material. And no doubt, lots of people say they've learned a lot by watching the videos. The ability pause, rewind, and replay is often cited as the difference between "getting" the subject matter through classroom instruction and "getting it" via Khan Academy's lecture-demonstrations.
  • Although there's a tech component here that makes this appear innovative, that's really a matter of form, not content, that's new. There's actually very little in the videos that distinguishes Khan from "traditional" teaching. A teacher talks. Students listen. And that's "learning." Repeat over and over again (Pause, rewind, replay in this case). And that's "drilling."
Dennis OConnor

StatPlanet Map Maker - Example Maps and Visualizations - 6 views

  • StatPlanet Map Maker has been used for a wide range of purposes, such as for monitoring HIV & AIDS at country level, mapping human development trends, visualizing global marketing data, and analyzing the implementation of national programs.
Dennis OConnor

E-Learning and Online Teaching | Scoop.it - 9 views

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    Hi impact, curated magazine of articles and professional resources for those interested in e-learning and online teaching. Published by Dennis O'Connor, Program Advisor for the University of Wisconsin Stout E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program.
Dennis OConnor

Research & Initiatives - Joan Ganz Cooney Center - 2 views

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    The Cooney Center investigates and creates new knowledge, putting it directly into practice by engaging key decision-makers to invest and take action. Working closely with our national advisors, Cooney Center Fellows, media scholars, and practitioners, the Cooney Center conducts and disseminates timely research that examines key issues in the field of digital media and learning.
Dennis OConnor

Information Investigator 3 by Carl Heine on Prezi - 9 views

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    What if every student (and educator) was a good online researcher?  I know, you don't have the time to teach information fluency skills.  What if you could get a significant advance is skills with just a 2 -3  hour time commitment?  Here's a great Prezi 'fly by" of the new Information Investigator 3.1 online self paced class.  Watch the presentation carefully to find the link to a free code to take the class for evaluation purposes. 
Dennis OConnor

Education Week: Bringing Professional Development Into the 21st Century - 15 views

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    But the body of research reveals that staff-development costs, including central-office and local staff, hours of teacher time, stipends, salary increases, substitutes, facilities, instructors, and material expenditures hover in the range of $8,000 to $16,000 per teacher, per year, especially in larger districts. Most districts have no idea they spend that much on staff development. Sadly though, most administrators agree their professional-development outlay has no correlation with student-achievement results.
Dennis OConnor

ThumbScribes - Collaborative Writing Community - 11 views

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    ThumbScribes is a platform for creating collaborative content.Co+Create haiku, poems, short stories, flash fiction, novellas, exquisite corpse and songs, real time or asynchronously with your computer, tablet, cell phone or even IM.
Dennis OConnor

TwHistory - 8 views

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    Create historical twitter character then tweet based on history research  Quote from Mark Rounds Web-Ed Tools Paper.li, "Participants choose a historical event, create Twitter accounts for individual characters, pore over primary source documents and think critically about the times, dates, and durations of events to create hundreds of Tweets as they might have been broadcast had Twitter existed before the 21st century. They then submit all those Tweets to the engineers at TwHistory, specifying a start date for their event, and then watch it unfold - over a day, a week, a month or more - reflecting the event's actual duration."
Dennis OConnor

Education Week Teacher: High-Tech Teaching in a Low-Tech Classroom - 12 views

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    Might help create a blended classroom, even when you have to share the blender.  Common sense advise for the real world of underequipped classrooms and stretched thin teachers.
Dennis OConnor

Education Week: E-Learning for Special Populations - 11 views

  • This special report, another installment in Education Week's series on virtual education, examines the growing e-learning opportunities for students with disabilities, English-language learners, gifted and talented students, and those at risk of failing in school. It shows the barriers that exist for greater participation among special populations, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of this approach. It also looks at the funding tactics schools are using to build virtual education programs for special populations and the evolving professional-development needs for these efforts.
  • Download the interactive PDF version of the report, E-Learning for Special Populations.
Dennis OConnor

Virtual School Meanderings By Michael Barbour K-12 Certificate Series: Univer... - 2 views

  • Continuing the Certificate Series, where I have been describing and discussing each of the certificates in online teaching that are focused on the K-12 environment. The sixth one I wanted to discuss was the E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program at University of Wisconsin-Stout.
Dennis OConnor

#PleaseHelp: Learning to Write (Again) on Twitter | Digital Is ... - 10 views

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    A writing teacher's narrative about re-discovering a writers process by slowly learning Twitter.  This is a thoughtful account that may lure some who are hesitant about using twitter into giving it a try. (More than a try really, it takes some time for you too find your voice and your audience.)
Dennis OConnor

Bullying | Scoop.it - 19 views

  • “School and Cyber Bullying - Info & Tips on bullying types, tactics, targets etc. ” Created and curated by UllaMS UllaMS curates this topic from blogs, tweets, videos and much more: find out how!
Dennis OConnor

Martin Dougiamas Keynote at Moodlemoot Canada | Some Random Thoughts - 7 views

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    An important overview for any one using Moodle, especially useful for those contemplating an upgrade to 2.0 .  (I'll make the move when we have 2.1 or 2.2.)  
Dennis OConnor

Jeff Clark - Portfolio Illustrating Patterns in Data - 10 views

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    This is a tantalizing portfolio page of infographic generators.  As a writing teacher I see many applications. As an information fluency advocate I see a way to understand data that excites the mind. Many of these programs use social media sources to build visual comparisons and patterns.   What a find! 
Dennis OConnor

The Power of Twitter in Information Discovery | Both Sides of the Table - 4 views

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    The author provides a short history of information discovery that provides a fascinating context for the article.  You see the evolution of web info over the paste decade. You also get some true insight on how to consume information using social tools.  Abundant links to web 2.0 apps make this article well worth the time to read (and re-read it).  
Dennis OConnor

YouTube - RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms - 4 views

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    This is an amazing illustration of Sir Kenneth Robinson's presentation on schooling in the 21st century.  It's fascinating to watch an illustrator create a visual map of Robinson's ideas as they are spoken.  The content of the presentation is enormously important to any educator struggling to change the system.  It's even more important to those who've been subdued and mislead by old ideas into thinking they can't learn or create.
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