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This article is interesting in light of Haste's article for class. Gladwell dismisses the "Twitter revolution" in Moldova and explains that real activism--real civic participation--is not seen in low-risk online networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps new technology cannot empower individuals enough for real-life civic engagement?

I am not sure that online networks only form weak ties. I am somewhat surprised there was no mention of http://www.meetup.com/ and the soon to be released http://www.jumo.com/ as they both appear to consider themselves to be a means for social change. There is another point raised that we seem to have forgotten activism. This point, if true, may be a good explination as to why social media is not commonly used for social change.

Thanks for posting this Jessica! I've been thinking about this for sometime now and I don't think Gladwell is right in saying that Twitter and FB form weak ties just as the SM folklore claiming that twitter or FB is in the middle of real activism. Social media is a tool for organizing civic participation. Civic engagement is defined by how many participate and only later by the platform/tool they use. Couple of reactions to Gladwell's piece: http://rburnett.ecuad.ca/main/2010/10/1/the-anti-gladwell-small-change-indeed.html http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tipping_point_author_malcolm_gladwell_says_facebook_twitter_cant_change_world.php

In follow-up to previously posted video, this full article details MIT's Media Lab research on monitoring electrodermal activity (EDA), a measure of sympathetic arousal, and on advancing autism communication through 4 active research areas.

This article further details the research behind the video I previously posted relating to emerging technology related to autism emotion and communication.

Great read on cultivating active learning, including the role of technology (though not transformative technology) in the classroom. Talks about engaging the more "shy" / deeply thinking students in class via Twitter chat - "smart students like to talk, smarter students like to listen."

Ways to take advantage of wikis as a web 2 learning tool

Interesting report contradicting some previous findings about the link between technology and social isolation.

Kinesthetic activities to explain computer science concepts. Activities to teach kids computer science without a computer.

Ok... maybe the tie in to education is not immediately obvious. Mostly, I just think this is so cool that I had to post it. But think for a moment about carpool, soccer practice, and sports as a starter. No longer does a kid's participation in extracurricular activities require them to get a ride from mom. Go a little further... field trips, classes that are only offered at the charter school across town, on-site science explorations. How many more kids could venture out of their neighborhood for educational opportunities? There was a time 20 years ago I never would have believed that elementary school children would be carrying their own phone, but now will they all get their own car in 2nd grade??

This is not necessarily related to technology but think is relevant to the concern presented by Dr Turkle on 'multitasking'. Many of us and current management have fostered the bad habit of multitasking, responding to the expectation that we will respond immediately, seek to keep ourselves busy to reward our brain... This famous book by Ghoshal introduces the concept of 'active non-action'. Figure 2-1 provides 4 types of managerial behaviors (the detached, procrastinators, frenzied and the purposeful). how many of us are being 'the purposeful' today? 

Interested in researching more what we talked about in class today, I found that some universities are actively trying to promote civic engagement in youth. Illinois State University students created a documentary to help them reflect on their learning. This is not at K-12, and maybe shows that (as we talked about in class), districts have less freedom to implement things like this...

Although we read and hear a lot about smartphones and tablet PC lately, the majority of the cell phone users still have simpler phones (especially in emerging countries). Even those have SMS function. So..learning activities with these SMS still an interesting topic to me.

Getting excited about Sesame Street&AR idea that was posted earlier, went to find if Lego is doing anything as Lego Education is getting more active lately to my understanding.  I only found this. This to me is not AR although it is utilizing some level of digital technology (social network/sharing work with others).  I would be more interested to see more work from traditional game/toy players to be aggressive in the tech space. 

This is not explicitly about education, but there are juicy bits in here on scale and transfer that are worth our while. 

An conversation with Tom Vander Ark, author of "Getting Smart: How DIgital Learning is Changing the World". " It confirms what we discussed in class - technology is an amplifier, "technology amplifies parenting: good parents manage it and make the most of it, but less well supported students sit in front of screens in unsupervised and unproductive activities for far too long. "

Ipad app that teaches fractions

I tend to agree with Professor Cuban - "IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning." The real challenge is to convert the initial excitement and performance improvement into sustained progress. The key may be in leveraging the increased self-efficacy of students.

This article makes me wonder about the novelty bump you get when you try anything new. In EcoMuve, they researched the effectiveness of EcoMuve vs a new ecology classroom based activity. This tactic is measuring the effectiveness of the technology. However in these studies, if they had kids using a computer game to practice fractions, did the control group practice fractions using a classroom based activity? 15% growth is not much to get excited about.

Article about "playful learning" TV

Hybrid learning seems to be a hit in Chandler school. "The key is the teacher involvement, proponents say. Teachers still present the information, and then they monitor students' understanding through online projects, activities or testing."

Edmodo And Common Sense Media Partner (the authors of the 0-8 report some of us read for Joe Blatt's class this week) to offer free teaching tools based on Dr. Howard Gardner's work at HGSE. The partnership provides teachers with a set of student activities based on Common Sense Media's free K-12 curriculum, "Digital Literacy and Citizenship in a Connected Culture," for the Edmodo platform. The curriculum introduces the basics of using social networks and other digital technologies safely, responsibly and respectfully and is based on the work of Dr. Howard Gardner and the GoodPlay Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The further along I go, the more I am realizing that we have fully arrived in the information age. For our nation to compete globally - we must get out of the trap of growing media consumers, technology consumers, and information consumers. We must grow a generation of students who not only use technology, but understand technology so that they can become active technology producers, so that they can create, innovate, imagine, and disrupt. Possibly, understanding computer science will be as important as learning to read and write - the new literacy.