This page is a supplement to Mark Pegrum's seminar entitled Personal learning networks for students and teachers, delivered at the Big Day In, Navitas, Sydney, 29 July 2011.
We search billions of words in our phrase dictionary on how commonly used they are to identify the proper sentence structure. This helps improve the use of collocation, diction and syntax in your writing when choosing the appropriate sentence pattern. Our wording tool acts as a correct sentence structure checker, e.g. by associating correct examples of prepositions with common language usage to give you the best suggestions for the proper preposition. Our tool can help teach wording, grammar, and expressions, which helps you identify the proper word choice and word order.
A range of online learning and teaching formats have been developed to provide teachers with scaffolded environments in which to integrate the web into the classroom. "Hotlists", "Knowledge Hunts" and "WebQuests" have all become part of the language of pedagogy for the 21st century.
Earlier this year a group of teachers I work with explored the 'Eight Cultural Forces' identified by Ron Ritchhart of Harvard's Project Zero. In doing so we decided to focus on our use of the term learning instead of the word work. Our goal was to bring our language choices into the spotlight and explore how a more deliberate focus on learning might alter the culture of our classrooms. Two terms later this focus persists and it is worth reflecting on the effect that this has had.
As technology evolves and its inner workings increasingly disappear from view, replaced with solid-state parts hidden by glass, aluminium and plastic, our understanding of what makes the world operate is similarly impeded. When machinery from just a few decades ago is viewed a world of moving parts, linkages, cogs and levers is revealed. These mechanical objects contain an inherent beauty and inspire curiosity in ways that modern devices with their pristine surfaces and simplified design language do not. Opportunities to explore devices from the past open our eyes and lead us to new questions of how our devices function, how machines do the jobs we need them to do and how engineers solve problems.
What is Wolfram Alpha? It is a supercomputing brain. It provides calculates and provides comprehensive answers to most any science or math question. Unlike other search sources, you and your students can ask questions in plain language or various forms of abbreviated notation.
Contrary to popular belief, Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine. Unlike popular search engines, which simply retrieve documents based on keyword searches, Wolfram computes answers based on known models of human knowledge. It provides answers which are complete with data and algorithms, representing real-world knowledge.
"Build voice AI into your apps
Deepgram's voice AI platform provides APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and language understanding. From medical transcription to autonomous agents, Deepgram is the go-to choice for developers of voice AI experiences."
Twitter could not possibly be further away from the concept of a computer game or a three dimensional visually rich virtual world. Suddenly instead of learning to fly and exchanging our money for Linden bucks (the currency of Linden Labs' Second Life) we were exchanging grammatically correct sentences for status updates of less than 140 characters! Who could have seen it coming? Perhaps Gartner, who also predicted that "90 Per Cent of Corporate Virtual World Projects Fail Within 18 Months".
Twitter could not possibly be further away from the concept of a computer game or a three dimensional visually rich virtual world. Suddenly instead of learning to fly and exchanging our money for Linden bucks (the currency of Linden Labs' Second Life) we were exchanging grammatically correct sentences for status updates of less than 140 characters! Who could have seen it coming? Perhaps Gartner, who also predicted that "90 Per Cent of Corporate Virtual World Projects Fail Within 18 Months".
"One of the most common criticisms leveled at teachers who do attempt to integrate technology into their classroom environment, is that this often results in a lot of 'faffing around' or time wasted while struggling to get the technology to work properly. To some extent I feel that this criticism is fair, but I don't think it's a criticism that should be leveled at teachers, but would be better directed at the people who control the way technology is layered onto the classroom environment, so lets look at that."
ne of the most common criticisms leveled at teachers who do attempt to integrate technology into their classroom environment, is that this often results in a lot of 'faffing around' or time wasted while struggling to get the technology to work properly. To some extent I feel that this criticism is fair, but I don't think it's a criticism that should be leveled at teachers, but would be better directed at the people who control the way technology is layered onto the classroom environment, so lets look at that.