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There is a debate taking place in the world of education. It is not a new debate but recently it has gathered new energy and the boundary between polite discussion of opposing views and hostility has been stretched. The debate is that between those who are advocates of inquiry based learning and those who believe direct instruction produces the best outcomes. - This article explore how the debate has gone wrong and fails to serve the needs of learners.

I'm a so-so fan of Skype. I've used it on an infrequent basis and have had more than a few dropped calls. Audio and video alike. However, it's a cheap way to make long distance calls and seems to work better over wi-fi and the video quality is improving on a regular basis. So therefore it's probably a great tool for the classroom. But how can you use Skype to do more than just make calls? Well, there's a pantload of interesting ways! Check out these fun ideas: Collaborate! Meet with other classrooms: One of the most common projects educators utilize Skype for is setting up exchanges with classrooms around the world, usually for cultural exchange purposes or working together on a common assignment. The program's official site provides some great opportunities to meet up with like-minded teachers and students sharing the same goals. Practice a foreign language: Connect with individual learners or classrooms hailing from a different native tongue can use a Skype collaboration to sharpen grammar and pronunciation skills through conversation. Peace One Day: Far beyond classroom collaborations, the Peace One Day initiative teamed up with Skype itself and educators across the globe to teach kids about the importance of ending violence, war, and other social ills. Around the World with 80 Schools: This challenge asks participating schools to hook up with 80 worldwide and report back what all they've learned about other cultures and languages. Talk about the weather: One popular Skype project sees participants from different regions make note of the weather patterns for a specified period of time, with students comparing and contrasting the results. Collaborative poetry: In this assignment, connected classrooms pen poetic pieces together and share them via video conferencing. Practice interviews: The education system frequently receives criticism for its failure to prepare students for the real world, but using Skype to help them run through mock-up

De lo formal a lo informal- la tradición que ya no se sostiene- y de lo informal a lo formal, la nueva forma de aprendizaje de nuestro siglo… Ser un maestro en mí mismo, y tener que manejar a la gente: marcas, programas de estudios y en adelante, en gran medida confían en las soluciones centralizadas que apenas puedo imaginar de otra manera; ser (en muchos aspectos) un estudiante en  mí mismo: no puedo ayudarme a mí mismo a partir de los límites que me atan a estructuras monolíticas, y por lo tanto, gestionar un entorno abierto donde el conocimiento personal (y el aprendizaje) viene en muchas formas; constantemente saber y conocer a otras personas como yo (profesores y / o estudiantes), es muy normal que nuestros caminos se cruzan y nuestros entornos de conocimiento se superponen y enriquecen mutuamente; todo lo que digo, es algo normal que tanto como profesional y como estudiante que es necesario evaluar y ser evaluados por todo lo que hago aquí y allá, como el aprendizaje en la sociedad de la información no conoce fronteras. Todos estos aspectos de acuerdo en el proceso educativo, aunque muchos de ellos nacen de las fuerzas opuestas, por lo que algunos certifican la muerte del entorno de aprendizaje virtual , mientras que otros consideran que sigue viva y coleando , algunos parecen estar poniendo todos los huevos en el aprendizaje personal medio ambiente y / o aprendizaje social abierto , mientras que tal vez todavía hay espacio para reconsiderar los e-portfolios . Todo esto se complica si se tiene en cuenta la evaluación o el seguimiento de la adquisición de conocimientos a lo largo de toda su vida . Yo cada vez creo que la solución a todo esto, y poner en palabras de Simon Grant , tal vez no sea una sino varias herramientas de  herramientas y una herramienta para reunir pruebas que residen en sistemas diferentes. Este es mi ir a todo el asunto y que sería de manera aproximada, naturalmente :Un Escenario de Aprendizaje Inclusivo-per

This wiki was kicked off by Josie Fraser to help organise attendees, resources, schedule and outputs from the Digital Literacy debate that will be taking place online, in Elluminate, on Friday 27 March 2009, at 1pm GMT. I'm taking an open organisation approach to the event - *please do* contribute to discussions, add ideas, links, suggestions

The debate over the most effective method of instruction continues as ever and where one stands on the topic is largely influenced by the purposes one attaches to education. Analysing a series of research articles reveals the nature of the debate between advocates of direct instruction compared to those who support a problem based learning methodology.

Join debates about elearning topics

The debate on the possible replacement of Desktop applications is one that has already been decided...

"In the Evolution vs. Creationism debate, it is important to be able to spot all the logical fallacies that Creationists tend to throw around. This essay covers many bare essentials of logical thinking, as well as ways to critically evaluate an argument. The logical fallacies listed here are the ones most often used by Creationists, although Creationists have, to date, used almost every single logical fallacy in existence to "prove" their case. Each fallacy will have its own little paragraph, describing it, why it is fallacious and how to counter it. Enjoy! THE STRAWMAN ATTACK: The strawman is, perhaps, the most heavily-employed tactic used by Creationists. The strawman attack's name comes from the idea of setting up a strawman and knocking it down. The strawman is a false man, metaphorically representing a false argument. The strawman attack is a very dishonest one. Creationists ruthlessly use this tactic to win public support. In essence, the strawman attack is putting words in your opponent's mouth and then attacking the resulting position, while simultaenously evading the real argument."

After two days of talking about curriculum, integration, STEM, STEAM and HASS I am left with more questions than I started with. In some respects, the concept of curriculum integration is simple. It is after all something that Primary teachers almost take for granted. But for Senior and Tertiary educators the question of curriculum integration is inherently complex. At all levels questions emerge of what curriculum integration might achieve, what purposes it serves, what it could and should look like and how it should be supported by curriculum planners. In the current climate, with its debate around the role of education within an innovation economy, shaped by technology and confronting demands for a STEAM enabled workforce the shape of our curriculum is under pressure. 

An interesting and shocking site which shows live statistics for world population, economics, the environment, and many more. Useful resource for sparking debates. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

Spin-off from the Facebook group with the same name which some teachers created last year. Most of us are teachers at Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas, and we like to share ideas, links and debate in Facebook, but we thought that all these posts would be better organized if we had a group so they wouldn't be lost among other entries in our personal Facebook wall. When the group started to grow (there are 92 of us already), we realized that we were missing some kind of categorization, so we thought a blog would do the trick. And here we are. We choose the ideas that are more popular among the posts in our group in Facebook and write a post here.

This is a superb video lecture and debate site with amazing world class speakers talking about a range of topics, including education, science, technology and more. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

Privacy will remain a major debated topic in 2014, and as targeted tracking technologies gains upper hand, may even pose serious security concerns.

What is LearnHub? This is a social learning network where people teach & learn online. Teach * Sell online courses & tutoring * Enhance face-to-face classes * Host discussions & debates Learn * Join communities on many topics * Find lessons, tests, courses, and tutors * Ask questions & get answers

In a much-debated 1983 essay on distance learning, Richard E. Clark, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Southern California, argued that it was beside the point to ask whether distance education is better or worse than the traditional classroom. The medium isn't the crucial variable, Mr. Clark wrote. What is important is to look at the effectiveness of specific instructional strategies, regardless of how those strategies are delivered. Last week, more than 25 years after Mr. Clark's provocation, the U.S. Department of Education released a report that, at least at first glance, carries a strong message about the medium: Students learn more effectively in online settings. Most powerful of all appear to be "blended" courses that offer both face-to-face and online elements. Previous research has generally found that online and offline courses are equally effective.

Sometimes, it seems everyone who ever went to school is an expert on education and has a plan to make it better. Actual teaching experience, years of professional learning and formal training are all easily swept aside. The result is an ongoing dialog around what schools should do, what teachers need to do more of or less of and how the academic success of the nation is linked to strategy x or y.

 If the young people of today are to thrive beyond the walls of the classroom they will need to be able to cope with a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The children of todays Kindergarten will enter the workplace in the fourth-decade of the 21st Century. We debate the merits of teaching 21st Century Skills and what they might be while teaching children who have lived their entire lives in that very century. The challenge is how will schools and individual teachers respond to this drive for urgent change.

Constructivism is one of those ideas we throw around in educational circles without stopping to think about what we mean by it. They are the terms that have multiple meanings, are at once highly technical and common usage and are likely to cause debate and disagreements. Constructivism in particular carries a quantity of baggage with it. It is a term that is appropriated by supporters of educational approaches that are in stark contrast to the opposing view; constructivism vs didactic methods or direct instruction. The question is what are the origins of constructivism and does a belief in this as an approach to understanding learning necessitate an abandonment of direct instruction or is this a false dichotomy?