Group items tagged

Here is an article that might be good for Faye

This paper discusses the significant impact of digital technology in teacher education, and the necessity of having teacher educators model effective strategies for integration of digital technology. The author describes an initiative started in the California education system, called The Digital Flexbook, "The term flexbook refers to the free, nonlinear, highly customizable and easy-to-use nature of open source textbooks (Fletcher, 2010)." Benefits such as collaboration among school districts, interactive classrooms, and increased teacher creativity were observed. Barriers such as lack of funds, lack of student access to technology at home, and lack of PD for teachers were also observed. Further benefits such as the ability to accurately reflect a community, the presence of a collaborative space to construct knowledge in innovative ways, showing multiple perspectives, promoting higher order thinking, and democratising knowledge. The author lists Web2.0 tools such as "...video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites like Twitter (Richardson, 2006a), all of which move students from consumers of information to editors of information. Research and experience show the need to infuse the TPCK model into teacher education, thus allowing students to become generators of knowledge and contributors to the Internet. One more big benefit of such constructivist pedagogy is allows for teachers and students to become more critical of the … intersection of race, gender, and socio-economic status on the writing of history, and integrated a model for how technology can and should be used in the classroom.

This article proposes an evolution in teaching and learning that will facilitate the needs of the 21st century learner. Successful examples are highlighted to introduce the various pieces needed to create the picture of a new learningscape, a hybrid model of learning. First, the atlier form of learning, modeled after the architecture studio is described where student work is public within the studio and is critiqued by fellow students and directed by the instructor or master architect. He then describes an apprenticeship model in which students "learn to be" and practice productive inquiry in which they actively seek what they need in order to do what they want to do. Next, Seely-Brown explored the use of backchanneling, and bringing it to the forefront, which transforms a class into a collaborative team. Finally he describes the passion based learning exhibited by the "pro-amatuer". These are niche communities forming on the web, sharing ideas and information. The example provided was amateur astronomers who share tips, post images, and interact with each other and with professionals in the field. Seely-Brown combines these various thoughts, into what he calls the Grand Transition in our educational approach from supply-push mode to demand-pull mode. The hybrid model of learning is a culture of peer-based learning and building in which students participate in passion-based niche communities of co-creation complemented by a core curriculum.

"The way our stories work is simple: the reader is given the text of a story in a small chunks, and after each, they get to make a decision about what happens next. That could be what a character says, or does - but it could also be a deeper choice, like why a character has done what they've done, or how they feel about something else in the story. Every decision the reader makes is remembered and has the potential to influence things later on - depending on how the author wants to tell their tale."

Choose your own adventure story creator ;-)

Let's see if this works...this should be a IWB article.

OK, this looks great!  I'm a bit overloaded right now, so going to save it for later...

video editing software