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The future is about access, anywhere learning and collaboration, both locally and globally. Teaching and learning is going to be social. Schools of the future could have a traditional cohort of students, as well as online only students who live across the country or even the world. Things are already starting to move this way with the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

PKM Step Explanation EDC3100 Seek Find things out and keep up to date Work through the learning path. Check discussion forum posts. Check blog posts, Diigo resources etc. from people in EDC3100 and your Personal Learning Network (PLN). Sense Personalise information and use it Complete the activities in the learning path. Reflect on what you've seen and done on your blog. Doodle, and create concept maps and other artefacts that help you personalise what you've learned. Actively follow up on points that interest or confuse you. Work on assignments, prepare for Professional Experience, and build resources and processes for your teaching career. Share Exchanging resources, ideas and experiences Sharing resources and annotations via Diigo. Sharing insights and artefacts via your blog. Answering questions and making suggestions on the discussion forums. Participating in any course Facebook groups etc.

his is a helpful thought in a society that has placed more attention on the fact of digital technologies (the new iPhone!) than on what we do with them

but all technologies, to some degree or another, are enmeshed in what Langdon Winner calls ‘regimes,

Design of tools has—as Illich pointed out—been accomplished in the absence of any consideration of their effects on social, cognitive, and political regimes. Designers can be better educated. And so can the users of their tools

Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation.

until these contingencies harden into technological necessities and become nearly unchangeable in future generations. There’s an old story that is basically true: Ordinary Roman carts were constructed to match the width of Imperial Roman war chariots because it was easier to follow the ruts in the road left by the war chariots. The chariots were sized to accommodate the width of two large war horses, which translates into our English measurement as a width of 4′ 8.5″. Roads throughout the vast Roman empire were built to this spec. When the legions of Rome marched into Britain, they constructed long distance imperial roads 4′ 8.5″ wide. When the English started building tramways, they used the same width so the same horse carriages could be used. And when they started building railways with horseless carriages, naturally the rails were 4′ 8.5″ wide. Imported laborers from the British Isles built the first railways in the Americas using the same tools and jigs they were used to. Fast forward to the US Space shuttle, which is built in parts around the country and assembled in Florida. Because the two large solid fuel rocket engines on the side of the launch Shuttle were sent by railroad from Utah, and that line transversed a tunnel not much wider than the standard track, the rockets themselves could not be much wider than 4′ 8.5.”

“So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of two horses’ arse.” More or less, this is how technology constrains itself over time.

In addition to the primary drive of preordained development (force #1), and in addition to the escapable influences of technological history (force #2), there is society’s collective free will in shaping the technium (force #3).

Computer-based games and virtual worlds provide opportunities for learners to be immersed in situations in which they can experience and get close to phenomena and processes

This immersion helps them develop tacit/implicit understanding and intuitions about such phenomena and processes as they think about choices, take action, and see the impact of their decisions in a meaningful context.

It is difficult to get the integration of games and learning right.