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A Fistful of Challenges for Ed Tech -- THE Journal - 0 views

  • But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
    • anonymous
       
      How accuarte do you think this statement is? What is your reaction to it?
    • Stacy Kreitzer
       
      Not by choice. Lack of professional development and planning time.
    • DC Wilson
       
      I don't work in K-12 schools, but from what I've heard and read, it sounds accurate. This is something that college programs should be addressing to prepare future teachers as well as offering continuing ed courses for current teachers. Districts should be able to allocate resources to support this effort.
    • Gail Rebuck
       
      When a person has a drive to do something, they generally find a way. Although there may be other obstacles, there is truth to this statement.
    • anonymous
       
      Time for training and planning is the most important factor.
    • Lou Sheehan
       
      How many hours a day do they suggest a teacher prepare and be trained?
  • "The challenge is due to the fact that despite the widespread agreement on its importance, training in digital literacy skills and techniques is rare in teacher education and school district professional development programs," the report said.
    • anonymous
       
      And, I would add, that the training is designed to teach the skills and not the pedagogy for using those skills in class. Teachers still see this as an aside to their job of teaching the content for the purpose of scoring high on the tests.
  • The third critical challenge cited by the authors was the failure of both technology and teaching practices to meet demands for differentiated, personalized learning.
    • anonymous
       
      And shouldn't that be an easy thing to do?
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    But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
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    But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
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    But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
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    But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
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    But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
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    But the No. 1 challenge in ed tech, according to the report, is with teachers themselves and the inadequacy of their preparation and ongoing training.
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Digitally Immersed in the Challenges of Learning : Teacher Reboot Camp - 0 views

  • At some point in that journey we will feel frustrated, but eventually we will have that “Aha” moment where we think, “Yes! I accomplished this!” We can feel proud of ourselves for employing our higher order thinking skills and other tools like technology to solve a problem that challenged us and others.
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    Great motivation to start of the school year.
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Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenge... - 0 views

    • anonymous
       
      This will come as a shck to a lot of folks, eh? Not new?
  • But in fact, the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.
    • anonymous
       
      Not new, eh? Then what's all the fuss? Read on.
  • What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills.
    • anonymous
       
      Ah! So THAT's the difference. Yes, I would agree. You?
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  • This distinction between "skills that are novel" and "skills that must be taught more intentionally and effectively" ought to lead policymakers to different education reforms than those they are now considering. If these skills were indeed new, then perhaps we would need a radical overhaul of how we think about content and curriculum. But if the issue is, instead, that schools must be more deliberate about teaching critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving to all students, then the remedies are more obvious, although still intensely challenging.
    • anonymous
       
      I like this paragraph. We need only be more deliberate with our intent to focus on these skils. It's not a complete overhaul, then. I think schools would be more likely to accept this perspective, don't you?
  • To complicate the challenge, some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself. Such notions contradict what we know about teaching and learning and raise concerns that the 21st century skills movement will end up being a weak intervention for the very students—low-income students and students of color—who most need powerful schools as a matter of social equity.
    • anonymous
       
      Some folks even go so far as to say that we don't have to teach the times tables any more. I cringe when I hear that.
  • What will it take to ensure that the idea of "21st century skills"—or more precisely, the effort to ensure that all students, rather than just a privileged few, have access to a rich education that intentionally helps them learn these skills—is successful in improving schools? That effort requires three primary components. First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills. Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education—in particular how teachers are trained. Finally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks.
    • anonymous
       
      Do you agree with his three points? Is his missing any?
  • Why would misunderstanding the relationship of skills and knowledge lead to trouble? If you believe that skills and knowledge are separate, you are likely to draw two incorrect conclusions. First, because content is readily available in many locations but thinking skills reside in the learner's brain, it would seem clear that if we must choose between them, skills are essential, whereas content is merely desirable. Second, if skills are independent of content, we could reasonably conclude that we can develop these skills through the use of any content. For example, if students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any scientific material, a teacher should select content that will engage students (for instance, the chemistry of candy), even if that content is not central to the field. But all content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.
    • anonymous
       
      I like this, too. Having a firm grip on basic knowledge (times tables, for example) is a MUST for the higher order ideas we're after.
  • Because of these challenges, devising a 21st century skills curriculum requires more than paying lip service to content knowledge.
    • anonymous
       
      Hear Hear!
  • Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods—for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning—that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community. These approaches are widely acclaimed and can be found in any pedagogical methods textbook; teachers know about them and believe they're effective. And yet, teachers don't use them. Recent data show that most instructional time is composed of seatwork and whole-class instruction led by the teacher (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these student-centered methods (Shapson, Wright, Eason, & Fitzgerald, 1980). Again, these are not new issues. John Goodlad (1984) reported the same finding in his landmark study published more than 20 years ago.
    • anonymous
       
      This is important, I believe, if we're to promote these ideas.
  • Why don't teachers use the methods that they believe are most effective? Even advocates of student-centered methods acknowledge that these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers. When students collaborate, one expects a certain amount of hubbub in the room, which could devolve into chaos in less-than-expert hands. These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses. Anyone who has watched a highly effective teacher lead a class by simultaneously engaging with content, classroom management, and the ongoing monitoring of student progress knows how intense and demanding this work is. It's a constant juggling act that involves keeping many balls in the air.
  • Most teachers don't need to be persuaded that project-based learning is a good idea—they already believe that. What teachers need is much more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.
    • anonymous
       
      TIME! And RE-training. Where is this truly modeled? It's VERY difficult to teach in a model that yo've never experienced either as a teacher or a student.
  • Without better curriculum, better teaching, and better tests, the emphasis on "21st century skills" will be a superficial one that will sacrifice long-term gains for the appearance of short-term progress.
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Blogging helps encourage teen writing | Top News | eSchoolNews.com - 9 views

  • Blogging is helping many teens become more prolific writers.
    • Michelle Krill
       
      Wow! What a statement!
    • janae kauffman
       
      I know!
  • it and revise their writing on a computer, the report says. Nearly six in 10 students (57 percent) say they edit and revise more frequently when they write using a computer. Teens who use a computer in their non-school writing believe computers have a greater impact on the amount of writing they produce than on the overall quality of their writing. Yet, there is a great deal of ambiguity with respect to the impact of computers in each of these areas. Among teens who use computers in their non-school writing, four in 10 say computers help them do more writing, and a similar number believe they would write the same amount whether they used computers or not. In comparison, only three in 10 teens who write on computers for non-school purposes at least occasionally believe computers help them do better writing–and twice as many (63 percent) say computers make no difference in the quality of their writing. Parents are more likely than teens to believe that internet-based writing (such as eMail and instant messaging) affects writing skills overall, though both groups are split on whether electronic communications help or hurt. Nonetheless, 73 percent of teens and 40 percent of parents believe internet writing makes no difference either way. Most students (82 percent) believe that additional instruction and focus on writing in school would help improve their writing even further–and more than three-quarters of those surveyed (78 percent) think it would help their writing if their teachers used computer-based writing tools such as games, multimedia, or writing software programs or web sites during class. The telephone-based survey of 700 U.S. residents ages 12 to 17 and their parents was conducted last year from Sept. 19 to Nov. 16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. Link: "Writing, Technology, and Teens" survey var a2a_config = a2a_config || {}; a2a_config.linkname="Blogging helps encourage teen writing"; a2a_config.linkurl="http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/04/30/blogging-helps-encourage-teen-writing/"; Comments are closed <script language=JavaScript src="http://rotator.adjuggler.com/servlet/ajrotator/173768/0/vj?z=eschool&dim=173789&pos=6&abr=$scriptiniframe"></script><noscript><a href="http://rotator.adjuggler.com/servlet/ajrotator/173768/0/cc?z=eschool&pos=6"><img src="http://rotator.adjuggler.com/servlet/ajrotator/173768/0/vc?z=eschool&dim=173789&pos=6&abr=$imginiframe" width="300" height="250" border="0"></a></noscript> Recent Stories with Comments Kentucky offers cloud-based software to 700,000 school usersNo access for bad guysU.S. court weighs school discipline for lewd web postsParent video protesting state budget cuts goes viralEditorial: Threats to innovation <SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N5621.125531.9553987353421/B3794502.5;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;click=;ord=996778?"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N5621.125531.9553987353421/B3794502.5;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;ord=996778?"> <IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N5621.125531.9553987353421/B3794502.5;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;ord=996778?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 ALT="Click Here"></A> </NOSCRIPT> Educator Resource Centers Computing in the Cloud How technology can help with language instruction Communication and Collaboration for More Effective School Management Expert Blog: Security Insights Boost Student Achievement with Connected Teaching Private: Testing ERC Page Solving key IT challenges with virtualization Online Learning: One Pathway to Success Re-imagining Education One-to-one computing: The last piece of the puzzle Recent Entries Customers question tech industry’s takeover spree New rules bring online piracy fight to U.S. campuses Judge orders school newspaper to delete stories Ed-tech grant program aims to boost college readiness Lawmakers tra
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    "Survey reveals that student bloggers are more prolific and appreciate the value of writing more than their peers"
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    I am trying to get rid of this but cannot delete because it has been annotated by others....that's what I get for playing around ...
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Buck Institute for Education | Project Based Learning - 0 views

  •  
    "n Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student "voice and choice," rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and..."
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Let's solve our math and science challenges | ExxonMobil's Perspectives Blog - 1 views

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    This site highlights an initiative from Exxon Mobil to raise awareness of our plummeting math/science ranking in terms of global competitiveness of US students.
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Copyright Alliance Education Foundation - 2 views

  • Educators' Workshop The material in this guide will help librarians and media specialists in their efforts to inform other educators about copyright. It includes a quiz, tips on designing a workshop, and a chart of available classroom materials. Educators' Guide This comprehensive 13-page guide is designed for teachers of all grades and subject areas and includes: an overview of copyright, FAQ section, glossary and standards charts for all the classroom curricula available on this web site.
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    "The issues surrounding copyright have never been more visible. But the classroom presents its own copyright-related challenges, for students and teachers alike. How is an educator to know what the rules are? How do those rules apply in the classroom? And how can we make sure that students know the rules as well?"
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The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Cyber Summit 2010 - 1 views

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    The challenge of fusing the three Rs and the four Cs of education is more urgent than ever. From September 20-October 5, 2010, thousands will gather online for the Cyber Summit on 21st Century Readiness where we will learn about, discuss and advance 21st century readiness in the United States.
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    I signed up for this and am going to share with those at school
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A Fistful of Challenges for Ed Tech -- THE Journal - 2 views

  • In the fourth slot was nothing short of the "fundamental structure of the K-12 education establishment," specifically, as the authors described it, "resistance to any profound change in practice."
    • anonymous
       
      What do you think of that statement?
  • The lack of congruence between what students are learning outside of school and what they're being taught in the classroom is causing a disconnect in educational practices.
    • anonymous
       
      Hasn't this ALWAYS been the case? What makes it different now?
  • The existence of a wealth of online tools and communications tools is allowing teachers to "to revisit our roles as educators."
    • anonymous
       
      Yes, it makes it easy to revisit their roles, but DO they?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "As IT support becomes more and more decentralized, the technologies we use are increasingly based not on school servers, but in the cloud,
    • anonymous
       
      But what if they can't afford or choose not to ensure adequate bandwidth?
  • "The digital divide, once seen as a factor of wealth, is now seen as a factor of education
    • anonymous
       
      Powerful statement, no?
  • Digital literacy will also play an increasing role in career advancement, according to the report.
    • anonymous
       
      But wait - I thought the kids were supposed to be Digital Natives and come to us digitally literate. No?
  • The ways we design learning experiences must reflect the growing importance of innovation and creativity as professional skills."
    • anonymous
       
      I think it's interesting that the students themselves resist this kind of learning. Care to guess why?
  • "It has become clear that one-size-fits-all teaching methods are neither effective nor acceptable for today’s diverse students," according to the report. "Technology can and should support individual choices about access to materials and expertise, amount and type of educational content, and methods of teaching."
  •  
    In the fourth slot was nothing short of the "fundamental structure of the K-12 education establishment," specifically, as the authors described it, "resistance to any profound change in practice."
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Digitally Speaking / Voicethread - 0 views

  • School is one of the few times when they can get together with their friends and they use every unscheduled moment to socialize - passing time, when the teacher's back is turned, lunch, bathroom breaks, etc. They are desperately craving an opportunity to connect with their friends; not surprisingly, their use of anything that enables socialization while at school is deeply desired.
  • informal social learning
  • This drive to connect provides a unique opportunity for school teachers:  Incredibly high levels of student motivation paired with a predefined fluency with electronic communication tools.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • One tool that can help educators to do just that is Voicethread.
  • Known as a “group audio blog,” Voicethread allows users to record text and audio comments about uploaded images.
  • Voicethread is Asynchronous:
  • Voicethread is Engaging:
  • Begin by carefully selecting a topic that will promote conversation and debate between students—and that can be conveyed through images currently available to you.
  • don’t be afraid to disagree with something
  • Initial comments should be somewhere between 1 and 3 sentences long. 
    • L Butler
       
      As a teacher, this will be a challenge. The brief intro is what makes the difference between presentation and social education dialogue.
  • The best Voicethreads are truly interactive—with users listening and responding to one another. 
  • They come to the conversation with an open mind, willing to reconsider their own positions—and willing to challenge the notions of others. 
  • To be an active Voicethreader, start by carefully working your way through a presentation.   While viewing pictures and listening to the comments that have been added by other users, you should:   Gather Facts:  Jot down things that are interesting and new to you  Make Connections:  Relate and compare things you are viewing and hearing to things that you already know.  Ask Questions:  What about the comments and presentation is confusing to you?  What don’t you understand?  How will you find the answer?  Remember that there will ALWAYS be questions in an active thinker’s mind!  Give Opinions:  Make judgments about what you are viewing and hearing.  Do you agree?  Do you disagree?  Like?  Dislike?  Do you support or oppose anything that you have heard or seen?  Why? Use the following sentence starters to shape your thoughts and comments while viewing or participating in Voicethread presentations.  Comments based on these kinds of statements make Voicethreads interactive and engaging.   This reminds me of… This is similar to… I wonder… I realized… I noticed… You can relate this to… I’d like to know… I’m surprised that… If I were ________, I would  ______________ If __________ then ___________ Although it seems… I’m not sure that…
    • L Butler
       
      These student suggestions are the missing link I was looking for to successfully incorporate into my classroom.
  • help other listeners know what it is that has caught your attention.
  • finish your comment with a question that other listeners can reply to.  Questions help to keep digital conversations going!
  • carefully script out short opening comments for each image that include a question for viewers to consider. 
  • Just be sure to disagree agreeably
  • Assessing Voicethread Participation
  • Essentially mirroring the reflective aspects of Konrad Glogowski's system for pushing reflective blogging, I've decided to ask my students the following four questions while we're working with a new Voicethread:
  • To craft careful answers, they must truly consider the comments of others---an essential skill for promoting collaborative versus competitive dialogue---and compare those comments against their own beliefs and preconceived notions. 
    • L Butler
       
      Competitive dialogue motivates the students, but collaborative dialogue is the life skill they need to learn.
  • Voicethread allows users to upload documents to their strands of conversation as well.  That means that users can create a "Works Cited" page in a word processing application and upload it at the end of their Voicethread presentations. 
    • L Butler
       
      Very useful info - I have been individually citing each picture, and its unsightly.
  • Voicethread Do's and Don'ts
  • Citing Images
  • Voicethread Handouts  
  • This one-page handout is designed to introduce students to some general tips for participating in Voicethread conversations. 
  •  
    Detailed guide to creating/using/evaluating VoiceThread in the classroom. There are great examples and guides to download. The question prompts for students to consider when replying are simple, yet perfect.
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Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:What Would Socrates Say? - 0 views

  • The noted philosopher once said, "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." My fear is that instead of knowing nothing except the fact of our own ignorance, we will know everything except the fact of our own ignorance. Google has given us the world at our fingertips, but speed and ubiquity are not the same as actually knowing something.
    • anonymous
       
      What an interesting difference this turn of phrase creates, isn't it?
  • Socrates believed that we learn best by asking essential questions and testing tentative answers against reason and fact in a continual and virtuous circle of honest debate. We need to approach the contemporary knowledge explosion and the technologies propelling this new enlightenment in just that manner. Otherwise, the great knowledge and communication tsunami of the 21st century may drown us in a sea of trivia instead of lifting us up on a rising tide of possibility and promise.
    • anonymous
       
      I'd love to hear your thoughts on this paragraph
  • A child born today could live into the 22nd century. It's difficult to imagine all that could transpire between now and then. One thing does seem apparent: Technical fixes to our outdated educational system are likely to be inadequate. We need to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
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  • Every day we are exposed to huge amounts of information, disinformation, and just plain nonsense. The ability to distinguish fact from factoid, reality from fiction, and truth from lies is not a "nice to have" but a "must have" in a world flooded with so much propaganda and spin.
    • anonymous
       
      Would we not ALL agre on this? What argument can you think of that might contradict this? If this is true, then what should change?
  • For example, for many years, the dominant U.S. culture described the settling of the American West as a natural extension of manifest destiny, in which people of European descent were "destined" to occupy the lands of the indigenous people. This idea was, and for some still is, one of our most enduring and dangerous collective fabrications because it glosses over human rights and skirts the issue of responsibility. Without critical reflection, we will continually fall victim to such notions.
    • anonymous
       
      I think schools talk about the Manifest destiny idea early on. It's too bad that it's not revisited when kids are older and can reflect on that idea more.
  • A second element of the 21st century mind that we must cultivate is the willingness to abandon supernatural explanations for naturally occurring events.
    • anonymous
       
      What do you think?
  • The third element of the 21st century mind must be the recognition and acceptance of our shared evolutionary collective intelligence.
    • anonymous
       
      The mere fact that you're reading this supports the idea of colective intelligence, doesn't it?
  • To solve the 21st century's challenges, we will need an education system that doesn't focus on memorization, but rather on promoting those metacognitive skills that enable us to monitor our own learning and make changes in our approach if we perceive that our learning is not going well.
    • anonymous
       
      TONS of people say this. Yet, the state and federal governments continue to push standardized tests. The world needs problem solvers but our educational system produces kids who are either good at memorizing or who aren't good at memorizing. Agree? Disagree?
  • Metacognition is a fancy word for a higher-order learning process that most of us use every day to solve thousands of problems and challenges.
  • We are at the threshold of a worldwide revolution in learning. Just as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the wall of conventional schooling is collapsing before our eyes. A new electronic learning environment is replacing the linear, text-bound culture of conventional schools. This will be the proving ground of the 21st century mind.
    • anonymous
       
      "Mr Tech Director, tear down that (filter) wall."
  • We will cease to think of technology as something that has its own identity, but rather as an extension of our minds, in much the same way that books extend our minds without a lot of fanfare. According to Huff and Saxberg, immersive technologies—such as multitouch displays; telepresence (an immersive meeting experience that offers high video and audio clarity); 3-D environments; collaborative filtering (which can produce recommendations by comparing the similarity between your preferences and those of other people); natural language processing; intelligent software; and simulations—will transform teaching and learning by 2025.
    • anonymous
       
      We're SAYING that now, but kids and teachers still lack the skills to make it a reality. Until kids have a friendly way of organizing and accessing the resoures they find (Diigo?) they cannnot be at this point. Agree? Disagree?
  • So imagine that a group of teachers and middle school students decides to tackle the question, What is justice? Young adolescents' discovery of injustice in the world is a crucial moment in their development. If adults offer only self-serving answers to this question, students can become cynical or despairing. But if adults treat the problem of injustice truthfully and openly, hope can emerge and grow strong over time. As part of their discussion, let's say that the teachers and students have cocreated a middle school earth science curriculum titled Water for the World. This curriculum would be a blend of classroom, community, and online activities. Several nongovernmental organizations—such as Waterkeeper, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Water for People—might support the curriculum, which would meet national and state standards and include lessons, activities, games, quizzes, student-created portfolios, and learning benchmarks.
  • The goal of the curriculum would be to enable students from around the world to work together to address the water crisis in a concrete way. Students might help bore a freshwater well, propose a low-cost way of preventing groundwater pollution, or develop a local water treatment technique. Students and teachers would collaborate by talking with one another through Skype and posting research findings using collaborative filtering. Students would create simulations and games and use multitouch displays to demonstrate step-by-step how their projects would proceed. A student-created Web site would include a blog; a virtual reference room; a teachers' corner; a virtual living room where learners communicate with one another in all languages through natural language processing; and 3-D images of wells being bored in Africa, Mexico, and Texas. In a classroom like this, something educationally revolutionary would happen: Students and adults would connect in a global, purposeful conversation that would make the world a better place. We would pry the Socratic dialogue from the hands of the past and lift it into the future to serve the hopes and dreams of all students everywhere.
  • There has never been a time in human history when the opportunity to create universally accessible knowledge has been more of a reality. And there has never been a time when education has meant more in terms of human survival and happiness.
    • anonymous
       
      Woud you agree?
  • To start, we must overhaul and redesign the current school system. We face this great transition with both hands tied behind our collective backs if we continue to pour money, time, and effort into an outdated system of education. Mass education belongs in the era of massive armies, massive industrial complexes, and massive attempts at social control. We have lost much talent since the 19th century by enforcing stifling education routines in the name of efficiency. Current high school dropout rates clearly indicate that our standardized testing regime and outdated curriculums are wasting the potential of our youth.
    • anonymous
       
      I like this. What do YOU think?
  • If we stop thinking of schools as buildings and start thinking of learning as occurring in many different places, we will free ourselves from the conventional education model that still dominates our thinking.
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School 2.0 - 0 views

shared by anonymous on 31 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Picture a classroom where every student has their own tablet PC, with wireless internet access and videoconferencing equipment to give them access to academics, industry experts and other schools around the world. The teacher begins the lesson by drawing students’ attention to a new discussion thread that’s appeared overnight on an online forum about a text they’re studying.
    • anonymous
       
      I think you'l find the rest of this article interesting, too. Good food for thought.
  • You no longer need to be fluent in HTML to benefit from the digital revolution. Web 2.0 tools are closing the divide between richer and poorer regions, and between the ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ of the online world. Cloud computing, where resources and software are stored online, means hardware is no longer necessary, and the growth of free programmes and services lets anyone create their own wiki, blog or podcast.
    • anonymous
       
      See any terms you recognize in this paragraph? :-)
  • The extent to which technology can transform the world, and education, is illustrated by the ‘flat classroom’ project, run by Julie Lindsay, head of information technology and e-learning at Qatar Academy in Doha, Qatar, and Vicki Davis of Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, USA. The project began in 2006 as an online collaboration between the two schools, inspired by Thomas L. Friedman’s book The World is Flat. It has now sprouted two sister projects – ‘digiteen’ and ‘horizon’, which have so far involved more than 800 students and 200 educators from across the world.
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  • “Technology isn’t magic. It doesn’t provide instant solutions. It challenges teachers to improve their practice by being more flexible and creative, and it challenges students to reflect on the limitations of technology as well as its capabilities. The best way to learn is by practising together.”
    • anonymous
       
      Right. It's not a Silver Bullet, but it DOES help to engage
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Education Update:Reading the Blueprint:Dawn of the New Literacies - 0 views

  • desultory
    • Michelle Krill
       
      lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm
  • the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology has upped the technology ante with the release of its National Education Technology Plan in Spring 2010.
    • Michelle Krill
  • The plan states, "The challenge for our education system is to leverage the learning sciences and modern technology to create engaging, relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners that mirror students' daily lives and the reality of their futures."
    • Michelle Krill
       
      Plan was updated in 2014
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  • August 2010
  • 21st century concept of authorship
    • Michelle Krill
       
      .
  • teachers need to guide students to be critical readers "who can evaluate online information for credibility, timeliness, accuracy, and even hidden agendas,"
  • The new generation, sometimes dubbed "screenagers," does much more with technology outside school. Through social networking sites and wireless gizmos, kids are reading; texting; connecting socially; and making their own digital creations, from music mashups to backyard, YouTube-ready videos.
    • peguyer
       
      I find that "screenagers" know how to use their personal devices for social media, but are unable to problem solve with educational technology.
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    "Dawn of the New Literacies"
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Schools should embrace cell phones - 0 views

    • L Butler
       
      In my district, the bigger issue is bandwidth. We are moving towards 1 to 1 - however, the connecting to the internet is what is getting in the way. But I would agree, most high schools do not have enough computers for everyone to use.
  • most high schools in the United States do not have enough computers for all students to use at once. By allowing cell phone usage, the ability to access the Internet will become much easier and will help schools save money. Since a cell phone uses a separate network to access the Internet, wireless networks will be spared the rugged strain all school wireless networks undergo. With a less stressed wireless network, fewer repairs will need to be made, thus relieving the IT staffs at schools.
    • L Butler
       
      I agree with this. My district is attempting to move towards 1 to 1 classrooms, but they have found that access to the internet is the big issue. It is easier to add computers, it is more of a challenge to increase the bandwidth. I think it could cut back on the school wireless network.
    • L Butler
       
      80% have cell phones - but many of the examples that are given for how students could benefit from having cell phones would require a cell phone and a data plan. Personally, I have been unwilling to spend $120 a month to have a data plan, and I imagine many parents would feel the same way.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Many critics argue that kids will become distracted if cell phones are allowed in class. Cell phones, however, potentially create the same distraction that comes along with sitting next to a classmate.
    • L Butler
       
      Great quote ... however if the teachers management style is not strong enough, the cell phones could be another reason students are off task. If they are not connected to a school network, there is no way to track to see if they are on task.
  • Homework alerts and project directions can be sent via text message
  • One of the many missions of the educational system in the United States is to prepare students for life as adults so they can be productive citizens in a vastly changing world. Technology has been around for decades and is only growing and advancing. So why are schools not informing students on how to use it safely and effectively?
  • 80 percent of high school students in the United States have cell phones.
3More

Google Squared - 1 views

  •  
    This is what Google thinks will challenge WOlfram Alpha. What do you think?
  •  
    Compare this to Wolfram Alpha. Which do you think has the better start for a radically new search engine?
  •  
    "takes a category and creates a starter 'square' of information, automatically fetching and organizing facts from across the web"
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