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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.

ROI on social media. I find it interesting that when measuring a social market there are no social indicators that are valued. Does it make sense to slice social media into dollars and sense? I understand why you would need to justify it, but I am not sure that the greatest value of social media is driving traffic.

In response to Chris's last side this morning about a mobile "6th sense", I wanted to bring up Apple's "knowledge navigator" vision of an intelligent "personal agent from the late 1980's.  Tuesday morning, it's highly anticipated that Apple will introduce an "Assistant" derived from it's 2010 purchase of Siri Personal Assistant Software.  Some form of Chris '6th sense" agent may become reality tomorrow morning!

A NPO called Common Sense Media is working with HGSE. They have launched a new web-based interactive tool for 3-5h grade to encourage responsible online behavior

Compelling for educational uses, particularly science and health (but the price has to come down some first).

Afghanistan has launched a new literacy program that enables Afghan women deprived of a basic education during decades of war to learn to read and write using a mobile phone.

This is really deep, Janet. I sense that sometimes there's a double standard between our expectations of what children's education should be versus adult education. There's always push-back when we consider using mobile devices as a primary teaching tool for kids. But I sense there's less push-back when we offer it in adult education. Is this because we think adults can learn better on their own? Or perhaps teachers are important in children's socialization process? Or that education is a basic right for all children, but not necessarily for adults? At the core, these women were once children deprived of an education during their most formative years.

I really appreciate your comments on this topic, Pearl. And, like you, I wonder at the effectiveness of a mobile literacy program. But I also find it interesting that there is even an attempt to reach women who were deprived of an education earlier in their lives.

This website has digital citizenship lessons for teachers.

Looks like we're not the only ones questioning the virtues of technological advances

Here is a highly populated list of open course offerings at various universities on the internet. This is certainly going to be disruptive to the pay-for-learning model of higher education. Some issues: does it make sense to attach some sort of certification of completion? Is it feasible or desirable to offer complete open courses, or would it be better to make the offerings more granular in nature? Should users be able to remix offerings from various courses to create custom courses?

This is fantastic! Thank, Steve.

Really? Social Analytics to discover whether you're gay. Their methodology seems like common sense. but I still question the conclusions. Especially since it wasn't tested.

Why is overhearing a "half-alogue" more annoying than overhearing a dialog? Study shows that it's not a question of volume: hearing a half-alogue causes the brain to work harder to make sense of it, hurting our performance other cognitive tasks. Could this phenomenon be exploited in a positive way in a learning environment? (e.g. make use of the brain's natural tendency to work on filling gaps?)

Meeting Hope In the next few decades, hundreds of millions of young, poor families will migrate to cities in the developing world in search of work and opportunity. Education provides them with a shared sense of hope. Many will be the first generation in their families to go to school. It is vital that the hopes they invest are not disappointed.

Makes sense

tutoring software senses emotions

This article is not directly related to education, but it gives you a sense of how much information youth today might be consuming. An average American consumed 34 gigabytes per day in 2008. From the executive summary: 'In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.'

"When and where does it make sense to institute a longer school day, and how should it be designed?"

I think a case can be made for structuring school hours flexibly, to accommodate those who engage in sports and other extra currlicular activities and also those who desire or need additional academic learning time.

From my own experience, using technology was an effective way to maintain student engagement during a longer day. As a sped teacher, I offered students the opportunity to do an extra online-based reading intervention if they came to school early. I had a surprising number of students come - almost every single day. Additionally, using technology during afternoon tutoring sessions helped my students stay on-task. I think if the standard school day was to be extended, putting a substantial focus on technology would be both an effective learning tool and a good way to help prevent students from burning out by the last bell.

"..enabling and empowering others to solve their own problems is the best way to ensure successful projects, whether for a new product, a marketing campaign, training program or any other kind of project. Creating this sense of ownership and empowerment is also the best way to keep people (yourself included) engaged and growing." Good advice for product design and task design...

Portal is a fun, innovative 3D first-person game known for its unique physics gameplay and sense of humor. It's over 4 years old now, but still enjoyable and clever. It's been used in education as a way for students to explore physics, and also as a gameworld ripe for student content creation. The game is available as a free download for PC/Mac through 9/20.

"Thanks to the simple addition of thumbs up and thumbs down buttons on many websites, advertisers are finally getting a sense of how enjoyable (or annoying) their ads are."

The future of smartphones, including "an electroactive polymer that vibrates beneath the glass, and gives your fingers the sense of touching individual keys." NYTimes article, may require login