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To me it really brought home how artificial speeches about canned subjects in front of a class are little to no preparation about talking to people naturally in a real-world setting. It’s like the students are only good at “pretend speaking”

(These types of schooly speeches also unconsciously perpetuate the teacher-centered model of 20th century classrooms, with students being trained to carry that largely stultifying ritual into the future.) 

Ours is a century of sharing ideas, and sharing the stage, with the audience. (I’ll resist the Speech 2.0 label.)

Students clearly take pride in being able to use the same computer-based tools employed by professionals. As one teacher expressed it, "Students gain a sense of empowerment from learning to control the computer and to use it in ways they associate with the real world." Technology is valued within our culture. It is something that costs money and that bestows the power to add value. By giving students technology tools, we are implicitly giving weight to their school activities. Students are very sensitive to this message that they, and their work, are important.

When students are using technology as a tool or a support for communicating with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role of recipient of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or broadcast. The student is actively making choices about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or display information.

When students are using technology as a tool or a support for communicating with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role of recipient of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or broadcast.

What the Internet is doing to our brains

A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.

Brown's class was discussing some of the whaling calculations in Moby Dick. When one student asked a question involving a complex computation, three students quickly pulled out their cell phones and did the math. Brown was surprised to learn that most cell phones have a built-in calculator. She was even more surprised at how literate her students were with the many functions included in their phones. She took a quick poll and found that all her students either had a cell phone or easy access to one. In fact, students became genuinely engaged in a class discussion about phone features. This got Brown thinking about how she might incorporate this technology into learning activities.

Brown noticed that many students used text messaging to communicate, and considered how she might use cell phones in summarizing and analyzing text to help her students better understand Richard III. Effective summarizing is one of the most powerful skills students can cultivate. It provides students with tools for identifying the most important aspects of what they are learning, especially when teachers use a frame of reference (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Summarizing helps students identify critical information. Research shows gains in reading comprehension when students learn how to incorporate isummary framesi (series of questions designed to highlight critical passages) as a tool for summarizing (Meyer & Freedle, 1984). When students use this strategy, they are better able to understand what they are reading, identify key information, and provide a summary that helps them retain the information (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, 1987).

To manage the learning project, Brown asked a tech-savvy colleague to help her build a simple weblog. Once it was set up, it took Brown and her students 10 minutes in the school's computer lab to learn how to post entries. The weblog was intentionally basic. The only entries were selected passages from text of Richard III and Brown's six narrative-framing questions. Her questions deliberately focused students' attention on key passages. If students could understand these passages well enough to summarize them, Brown knew that their comprehension of the play would increase.

They see the broad difference between the two as being the amount of self-determination or self-direction; with cooperative learning being very much teacher-controlled and collaborative learning being learner-controlled.

However, experientially I believe that what distinguishes collaboration from cooperation comes down to exactly what is shared. When cooperating, it is only physical resources (objects, time, money) or intellectual resources (knowledge, expertise) that are shared. Whereas when collaborating, in addition to these shared physical and intellectual resources, are shared goals, responsibilities, values, beliefs and attitudes. Some of these intellectual resources (both cognitive and affective) may become shared through the practice of cooperation but with collaboration they are factored in from the start. From this collaborative sharing comes synergy which adds value by producing something new and unique.

There is another important area that needs to be addressed with collaborative learning software which is related to communication; namely knowledge construction. It has been noted by researches that threaded discourse, of the type found in Lotus Notes and the majority Web-based conferencing software, actually works against convergent thinking processes over time (Hiltz, 1986; Harassim, 1990; Eastmond, 1994). It is found that this can have "a negative effect both on the learner's efforts to synthesize ideas, and on collaborative processes which become increasingly fragmented as discussion threads and individual interests diverge." (Hewitt, 1997).

Only 4.6 percent of Chief Academic Officers agreed that there are no significant barriers to widespread adoption of online learning. Nearly two-thirds of the academic leaders cite the need for more discipline on the part of online students as a critical barrier. Faculty issues, both acceptance of online and the need for greater time and effort to teach online, are also important barriers. Neither a perceived lack of demand on the part of potential students nor the acceptance of an online degree by potential employers was seen as a critical barrier.

Sponsored by Bank of America, the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing recognizes young women at the high-school level for their computing-related achievements and interests. By generating visibility for these young women in their local communities, the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing encourages their continued interest in computing, attracts the attention and support of educational and corporate institutions, and emphasizes at a personal level the importance of women's participation.

Posting, after all, isn’t about airing your own views. It’s about connecting, and the best way to connect is to clearly draw the link between their content, and yours.

When connecting online, it is more important to find the places you can add value rather than to pursue a particular goal or objective.

Teacher (as student). Students see the teaching part of our persona every day. We stand before them telling and showing them how wise and passionate we are about the topics we teach. But, do we stand before them as learners? What would that do to engagement, if we shared with students how we came to know, how we faced and conquered learning challenges, and most importantly how we can help them do the same. Teachers who stand before their class as learners first, are more successful teachers because of it.

Lisa Parisi This morning I came here before I went to twitter. This seems to be the place to be right now. Still not sure of all the groupings, taggings, etc. Reading what everyone writes and hoping to get it soon

Will play on Sunday with Karen McMillan and Alice Barr. Anyone else want to join? Anyone want to teach?

Ryan Bretag I'll join in the fun if you'll have me. Let me know time when you know.