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I hear complaints about the poor quality of student writing today as often as I read stories about the Internet causing the end of higher education as we know it (i.e., frequently). When those complaints come in the form of actual conversations with peers, instead of in print, I feel myself immediately put on the defensive.

Thanks for this post Heather. I liked that the instructor recognized that despite some challenges with using a new technique to promote his students' writing skills the energy that was expressed by his students far outweighed the "mess" that he dealt with the first time trying something new.

The lack of learning transfer is a common mantra in higher education. It's a good article for reflection. Although I've been a proponent of service learning, at the same time, I wasn't sure how students could or if they would transfer their experiences to the academic component. Now, I need to rethink my position on service learning and its impact on connected learning

It sets the tone for academic structure and decorum in the classroom whether local campus or online. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/04/16/advice-students-so-they-dont-sound-silly-emails-essay?utm_content=buffer1f81f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=IHEbuffer I have included the link here. There may not be all bullet points you will find applicable, but I find most certainly are. Let me know what you think.

A peer reviewed article from BYU that discusses the benefits and risks to technologies such as Facebook for academic purposes.

You can lead a student to knowledge, according to an old academic saying, but you can't make him or her think. I recently wrote about the possibility of testing and certification for what I called a "college-level GED."

Free University Courses I recommend SIMS 141 - Search Engines - Fall 2005 to learn more about discovering quality open content in the deep web.

A new study argues that American academic institutions expect a level of independence that is uncomfortable for many first-generation college students, who researchers say are more likely to come from poorer backgrounds that emphasize collaboration and interdependence.

Good article on academic uses of Twitter. Also includes instructions on how to embed twitter in your blog, wiki, etc.

February 2009 | Volume 66 | Number 5 How Teachers Learn Pages 34-38 Learning with Blogs and Wikis Bill Ferriter Technology has made it easy for educators to embrace continual professional development. Few ideas about teachers' professional growth resonate with me more than those of Richard Elmore, professor of educational leadership at Harvard, who has gone as far as to argue that school structures make learning for adults unlikely at best and nothing short of impossible at worst. In a 2002 report for the Albert Shanker Institute, Elmore wrote, As expectations for increased student performance mount and the measurement and publication of evidence about performance becomes part of the public discourse about schools, there are few portals through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter schools; few structures or processes in which teachers and administrators can assimilate, adapt, and polish new ideas and practices; and few sources of assistance for those who are struggling to understand the connection between the academic performance of their students and the practices in which they engage. So the brutal irony of our present circumstance is that schools are hostile and inhospitable places for learning. They are hostile to the learning of adults and, because of this, they are necessarily hostile to the learning of students. (pp. 4-5)

Technology has made it easy for educators to embrace continual professional development. Few ideas about teachers' professional growth resonate with me more than those of Richard Elmore, professor of educational leadership at Harvard, who has gone as far as to argue that school structures make learning for adults unlikely at best and nothing short of impossible at worst.

Founded in 1943, ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner. Our 175,000 members in 119 countries are professional educators from all levels and subject areas--superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.

This was an interesting list that suggested social media tools to use as alternatives to those that dominate social interaction on the web. The idea behind the suggestions are that for many students Facebook and Twitter exist within a personal social sphere, and that offering a separate space for academic interaction can help preserve the distinction between the two. Tom addressed the benefits of that approach and reasons why it may be worth pursuing in his post this week in the Technology Tools class.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that social media has changed more than just how we pass the time, it has now infused itself into formal learning channels. Although adoption is slow (for instance, only 15% of teachers find value in Facebook, Wiki, and other social networks), time will only show that it will rise. I think that the integration of social media in higher education has its benefits and challenges... however I can say that undisputedly it is one of the better ways of increasing communication between academics and students.

There is a nice section listing some positive and negative aspects of Twitter that some may find useful along with some ideas of ways to incorporate it into educational settings.

I referenced this article in my Discussion post, but it's such a good one that I wanted it to be available here as well.

Georgia Southern University site on online course design

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/10/balancing-advantages-disadvantages-student-social-media-use/ "In " Only Disconnect," Andrew Reiner, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, lamented the state of American youth, particularly their preoccupation with social media. By the end of his article, Reiner advocated for social media Sabbaths, in which students would disconnect from their networks in order to more deeply engage with each other and their academic pursuits.

This blog entry provides us with very useful ideas of using Twitter in education.

I must admit that when I first heard about Twitter I thought it represented the apex of what concerns me about internet technology: solipsism and sound-bite communication. While I obviously spend a great deal of time online and thinking about the potential of these new networked digital communication structures, I also worry about the way that they too easily lead to increasingly short space and time for conversation, cutting off nuance and conversation, and what is often worse how these conversations often reduce to self-centered statements. When I first heard about Twitter I thought, this was the example par excellence of these fears, so for many months I did not investigate it at all.

This article describes ways to use twitter to enhance academic work. With twitter, the class goes on beyond the assigned class period because (i) the technology is appealing, (ii) students have much to say/ask, (iii) students can 'talk' without concern for "who's (physically) in class that might make fun of me", and (iv) students respond in their own time. Twitter has the dual benefits of quasi-synchronous and asynchronous communication.