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My first thought is "why would you want to be friends with your students on facebook?" It depends on the reasons people have a facebook page. If it is, indeed, going to be used as a tool to extend "learning" outside of the classroom, then I believe there are other platforms outside of Facebook. If teachers still want to use this for class, perhaps a better option is having a twitter account for school only where they can update students. I worked for two districts-one told us we were not allowed to be friends with our students and the other just warned against it. Most teachers I know do not add their students because it is a place for their friends where they do not see themselves as some child's teacher, but someone's friend. I know a high school chorus teacher who friends her students, and I think its inappropriate. She posts things about her personal life and they frequently chime in. However, discusses her personal life in class so it may not be that much of a difference than posting it online. I would take action as a teacher if I were disciplined for a facebook post. Ultimately people need to check their privacy settings if they can. There are even issues with friending other teachers. I refused to do this with other teachers, unless we were friends outside of school. I knew of teachers who would tell our principal what was posted on other teachers' pages.

This is a great article about the need to integrate mobile learning into mathematics learning. The article claims that right now there is a divide between personal experiences and mathematical problem solving that students learn in school. The article suggests much work and opportunity in using mobile technology to bridge the divide of formal and informal math learning, putting math learning into personal contexts. The article sheds light on how this will help students see mathematics as a discipline they will use outside of school. It is a very good, comprehensive look at the role technology can play in teaching math the "right" way.

Lessons learned from Cisco's experience indicate that business-education partnerships should: * Be set up so that all aspects of the project are transparent to outsiders, even if corporations profit from the R&D * Foster experimentation, because it is not always clear in advance which ideas and projects will work best * Establish in-depth training for every new technology, with businesspeople and educators learning from each other

Using Minecraft inside and outside the classroom to inspire and explore engineering ideas.

"Children spend five times as much time outside the classroom as they do in school, and our country has 30 million parents or caregivers who are not good readers themselves, so they pass illiteracy down to their children."

Cross-platform classroom management tools now acquired by Lenovo. Lenovo plans to push it be used also outside of the Education field. Good idea? 

Key choices are now being made about the E-Rate in terms of both amount of funding and how that money can be used. I and others are advocating that E-Rate should fund mobile devices and networking outside of schools.

This project aims to identify and document the usage, definition, and as far as possible pedagogy of serious games. That is, games where the educational goal takes precendence in training outside of the school education system.

Through optimizing the power of digital footprint in the classroom, students transform from passive to active learners. When incorporating technology within core curriculum, students' prior knowledge and experiences (PKE) with content are leveraged. They can then build learning communities, or personal learning networks, within and outside the classroom.

Badge learning in an after school program in Rhode Island.

Company in Taiwan claims to be only two years from a commercially available Folding computer touch screen. ... This was 6 months ago. The lighter weight, ultra portable nature of a folding screen increase the ability of educators to move learning outside the classroom, and allow learners of all ages to access information on demand anywhere.

a new online resource by NBC and Blackboard.com : nbclearn.com is a online video library highlighting educational technologies.

Heavy hitters (one entirely outside education; one an industry vendor) making a big time play to steer the ship. Is this what it takes?

It will be interesting to see how they cull the information, experts and stories they produce . . .

This article makes interesting references not only to our resistance to change (disruption), but also our inability to control media and not the other way around. "Human beings are creatures of habit and the introduction of anything new typically raises an eyebrow (at least) or pitchforks (more often). It's a somewhat common theme that is tiresome to me, but one that provokes debate throughout the times." And "There's a macro lesson here: If you think your kid is spending too much time on their iPad and not enough time outside getting some exercise, don't blame the iPad."

Good utility since many people will likely be sharing documents via Google Docs while working on projects for coursework.

Hey Chris. Given all the other options we have for creating and sharing documents and information, how do you see this being most useful to you?

The 1-step migration of research content to the host document is very nice, but outside of that, I think I would be inclined to stick with google docs if for no other reason than users (and any collaborators) do not need to download an application to their computer.

Milton Chen and Tina Barseghian interviewed on KQED's Forum (San Francisco public radio) about using technology and media in the classroom.

an interesting article on procrastination. Perhaps worth reading to better understand our own behavior and the behavior of future students we attempt to engage. There is a not a direct technology angle here, but it would be important to think about this topic when looking at technologies for the classroom.

"School of One uses technology to develop a unique learning path for each student and to provide a significant portion of the instruction that is both individualized and differentiated." I liked the definitions of individualized (pacing), differentiated (learning preferences/methods), and personalized (pacing, preferences, and content/objectives).

One teacher claims that "The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school." - Do you agree that this is a good solution? 

I too am intrigued by this "inverting" of time spent in the classroom and at home. My idealized model would be to introduce learners to new material at their own pace out of the classroom (allowing for pausing, note taking, reflecting and/or rewinding) and focus classroom time on face to face guiding and coaching of clusters of students or individual students engaged in applying or exploring the current material. To help facilitate this (and assist with accountability) some brief form of pre-assessment before class or at the start of class could illuminate for student and teacher alike what material has been mastered and what needs more attention. The research report from the TIE Foundations summer reading appears to support this type of hybrid approach. => Marsha Lovett, Oded Meyer, and Candace Thille (2008). The Open Learning Initiative: Measuring the effectiveness of the OLI statistics course in accelerating student learning.

An added benefit of tools such as Khan Academy is the option for reinforcement. In a traditional K-12 school environment students do not have the option to watch a video of their class or spend personalized time reviewing a concept they need more time with during class time due to the required pace of school curriculum. An online learning tool allows a student to watch a lesson as many times as needed and to learn from an expert. Often if a student needs help outside the classroom the only people they turn to is parents, who may or may not know about the content themselves.