Group items tagged

And don't swallow the myth of the digital native. Just because your teens Facebook, IM, and Youtube, don't assume they know the rhetoric of blogging, collective knowledge gathering techniques of taggers and social bookmarkers, collaborative norms of wiki work, how to tune and feed a Twitter network, the art of multimedia argumentation - and, by far most importantly, online crap detection.

I teach courses today on social media issues at Stanford and Berkeley.

The most important critical uncertainty today is how many of us learn to use digital media and networks effectively, reasonably, credibly, collaboratively, civilly, humanely.

If you use Microsoft Word, learn how to insert comments into Word documents. Highlight a word or phrase, go to Insert, select Comments, type your comment, and close the window. When a student moves the cursor over that word or phrase, the comment will pop up. Comments are a great editing and motivating tool for kids. Use them to guide drafting and brainstorming and to help students peer edit and work collaboratively on group projects.

Include some that say "Save your work; do not go any further until you help your neighbors reach this point."