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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.

A word or phrase preceded by a "#." How do hashtags work? Twitter can be a busy place with lots of tweets-and thus lots of "noise." A #hashtag is a way to aggregate tweets that are appended with a hashtag. Picture it like a magnet that attracts all messages categorized by that topical word or phrase.

Really useful! I'm still, however, not convinced that Twitter can be useful for much else than brainstorming.. Thanks though!

If you haven't seen this, it is a safer place to post educational videos you make for class. It is also a great place to search for related media to use in class. You can set up an account so that only certain people can see your videos if you want.

A free community for sharing instructional videos and content for teachers and students. We are an education focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners.

This is the first of a four-part colloquy of articles . Each piece has been contributed by authors who have intimate experience with the struggles, failures, and successes of online learning programs.

This is a great reminder that tech tools need to be accessible to everyone. The bonus advantage to accessibility is that students with mobile devices have a better chance of taking part, now, too. -- Tom Educational innovations like the flipped classroom, clickers, and online discussions can present difficulties for students with disabilities. The issue was highlighted this month, when Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were sued for allegedly failing to provide such students with closed captioning for online lectures and course

I saw a presentation from NEIU librarians who discussed an Edit-A-Thon they held. It can be a good way to each students about the way information is generated online, and also can be used to teach research practices (such as correct use of citations), among other things.

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.

Really outstanding but lengthy session on how to use a wiki in teaching. Within the first 20 minutes he talks about using a wiki for his own course notes--he can access from any computer when he has a thought; an example, he says, of "cloud computing." He also explains how he started using a wiki for student note-taking. None of his students were taking notes because his lecture was "making sense." Instructor's (Richard Buckland) worry was that maybe later it WOULDN'T make sense. He tried handing out notes to studetns, each student taking turns keeping notes, and others. One student suggested a wiki and he says it's worked fantastically! COLLABORATIVE LECTURE NOTES. Now when he lectures he displays a brief outline of his notes which students then mark-up for themselves. Students now own their notes! He reviews at night and sees where students have trouble. He does NOT change the notes. He waits because often students will comes back to fix. But if he sees the error persists by the next lecture, then he knows he needs to correct a misconception.

Whether you're a local student taking occasional online courses or a distant student studying completely online, Parkland's offerings can help you meet your educational goals.

this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education provides suggestions as to how professors can grade student blogs.

More discussion on the need for safety/ caution / education in the use of social media

I've been looking for ways that my Writing Center can offer synchronous online tutoring. Etherpad is a free, open source tool that I looked at, and Pirate Pad is one free site that uses it. It's neat and easy to use. Open a Pirate Pad, give the person a link, and you're off!

This link provides the reader with a brief description on Poll Everything and how use it. You can see how the polls are written and the various way one might use this site for business, personal or educational purposes on a cell phone, twitter or the web.

I faced an internet connection issue, and this article shows how Twitter can be a reliable tool even when there is no connection, as students can receive messages to their phone. I thought it would be interesting to see how Twitter is being used in the Arab world academia

This website provides a large list of games typically used in face to face training rooms. Some are quite adaptable for the online environment. At the very least they can spark some creativity.

This is a free online whiteboard where students can collaborate on chemistry and math problems without worrying about typing symbols. Also students can work on group projects together.

very cool. that's neat that's it's free. I need to play around with it a bit to get used to the interface, but I might try it out.

This is a wonderful, cutting edge tool on the web for using the power of Mathematica to computer along with the endless databases of facts and figures that can be found on the internet at large. It can be a great resource for students, but it could also be something they use to cheat in certain situations so be aware. "Wolfram|Alpha is more than a search engine. It gives you access to the world's facts and data and calculates answers across a range of topics, including science, nutrition, history, geography, engineering, mathematics, linguistics, sports, finance, music..."

I really like all the good information that can be found on YouTube

for >20/mont an organization like Fanshawe can access information pertaining to the development of online pedagogy.