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by Ron Tanner, November 6, 2011 This article echoes some of what Geoff ? said several years ago. When I began teaching a course called "Writing for the Web," three years ago, I pictured myself scrambling to keep up with my plugged-in, tech-savvy students. I was sure I was in over my head. So I was stunned to discover that most of the 20-year-olds I meet know very little about the Internet, and even less about how to communicate effectively online. The media present young people as the audacious pilots of a technological juggernaut. Think Napster, Twitter, Facebook. Given that the average 18-year-old spends hours each day immersed in electronic media, we oldsters tend to assume that every other teenager is the next Mark Zuckerberg. Aren't kids crazy about downloading music, swapping files, sharing links, texting, and playing video games? But video games do not create savvy users of the Internet. Video games predate the Internet and have little to do with online culture. When games are played online, the computer is no longer an open portal to the world. It is an insular system, related only to other gaming machines, like Nintendo and Xbox. The only communication that games afford is within the closed world of the game itself-who is on my team? At their worst, games divert children from other, more enriching experiences. The Internet's chief similarity to video games is that both siphon off audiences from television, which will soon reside exclusively on the Internet. As a delivery system for television, film, and games, the Internet has proved itself a premier source of entertainment. And that's all that most young people know about it. Why wouldn't we educate students in sophisticated uses of the Internet, which is commanding an increasing amount of the world's time and attention? I'm not talking about a course on "How to Understand the Internet" or an introduction to searching for legitimate research-paper sources online (although that is useful, obviously

Interview with MIT's provost L. Rafael Reif and Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Jeffrey R. Young, Wired Campus, Chronicle of HE, February 6, 2012. Like the idea of "karma points" mentioned below because it suggests something less than a formalized badges system (easy to implement), and gives high school students an understanding of altruistic behaviors that get some light and fun recognition, and new terminology. Excerpt: "Q. You refer to what's being given by MITx as a certificate. But there's also this trend of educational badges, such as an effort by Mozilla, the people who make the Firefox Web browser, to build a framework to issue such badges. Is MIT planning to use that badge platform to offer these certificates? Mr. Agarwal: There are a lot of experiments around the Web as far as various ways of badging and various ways of giving points. Some sites call them "karma points." Khan Academy has a way of giving badges to students who offer various levels of answering questions and things like that. Clearly this is a movement that is happening in our whole business. And we clearly want to leverage some of these ideas. But fundamentally at the end of the day we have to give a certificate with a grade that says the student took this course and here's how they did-here's their grade and we will give it to them. … But there are many, many ways the Internet is evolving to include some kind of badging and point systems, so we will certainly try to leverage these things. And that's a work in progress."

Twitter feed of Lucian Duma, teacher, researcher and social media curator based in Caransebes, Romania . website: http://luciandumateachweb20.eu/

By Cecelia Cunningham & Susan Restler. Published in Education Week, Nov 2008. The full article is available by subscription, only. Details are available on this web page. The article may also be available through your local library.

Incredible mindmap with links to all the major web 2.0 social media possibilities.

Educator Madeline Hunter developed the Instructional Theory into Practice, or ITIP model for teaching. This web page, from the education department of Hope College (MI) outlines the model.

Researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman, there are numerous versions of this video on the web. This is the version used for the MCNC principals and directors meeting, Feb 2010.

"A comprehensive introduction to using technology in all K-12 classrooms."

"The relationship between innovation and learning is about finding a relationship between what is familiar and what is strange. Creativity and imagination are both maps that allow us to do that. Imagination is a quality we all have, and it is an unlimited resource. The goal of education, training, and innovation spaces is to create and structure an environment where imagination can flourish. Those environments need to possess three qualities: A Space to Ask "What If" In order for imagination to flourish, there must be an opportunity to see things as other than they currently are or appear to be. This begins with a simple question: What if? It is a process of introducing something strange and perhaps even demonstrably untrue into our current situation or perspective. The imagination has to reconcile what is imagined within the boundaries of what is actual and therefore must understand how the world would have to change in order to make what is imagined a reality. Tools and Technique to Re-Imagine Context The work of imagination only has a payoff if it can be put into practice. That means that the context needs to be shaped and articulated in a meaningful way. In the 21st century we are surrounded by tools that allow us to reshape and re-imagine context all the time. From social network sites, to video and music distribution, to web design and production, we are surrounded by opportunities not just to create new content, but literally to transform the context in which that content has meaning. A Network of Imagination Imagination can only flourish when there is a networked collection of people to share that imaginative vision, embellish it, and develop it. What we have elsewhere called "networks of imagination" are shared tools of communication and in some cases co-presence that allow groups of people to construct those imagined realities in practical and concrete ways. Today's networked technology is more than just a conduit to communicate info

Great curation tools to find and organize online resources

Home page of the popular print- and web-based journal. There are some interesting RSS feeds, including Wired Campus and a community college e-newsletter.

Blog on the Teacher Leaders Network (TLN). The blogger, Bill Ferriter, teaches 6th grade language arts in Wake County, NC. He has designed professional development courses for educators nationwide on the use of web2.0 technologies in the classroom.

Organization website offers a rich set of resources for educators, administrators and students. The Illumnations section, under Lessons and Resources, provides Activities, Lessons, Standards and Web Links. Subscribers to NCTM Journals can access them on the site.

This web page provides a list of National Parks with curriculum based educational programs; programs aligned with local, state or national standards of learning. Other links to related educational materials as well.

Pearson SuccessNet is a subscriber based web-based application with activities for teachers, administrators, and students.

Video on wikis in plain English by Common Craft at YouTube

professional development 30 day challenge to engage students through blogs

W.R. Drexler video (5 minutes) on 21st century students--3 days a week in class, two days online. Teacher is a facilitator of students building their personal learning network to learn and assess information, gather ideas, organize them, make meaning of them, and share with others.

Article about how Colleges United to Drive Down Cost of "Cloud Computing" published October 22, 2011. One issue is that the preponderance of 'free' cloud tools such as WordPress, DropBox, etc. are being used in great abundance by college professors. But these tools are not supported by the university, scatter the work across all kinds of platforms, and may cause violations of student privacy. So what are the implications for high school students and their teachers when a national organization uses the same tools in their online work?