notes that mobile devices have been listed before, but it says that resistance by many schools continues to slow the full integration of mobile devices into higher education.
Learning analytics
Challenges to adoption include incorporating information coming from a variety of sources and in different formats and concerns about privacy and profiling.
Augmented reality, the layering of virtual information over actual locations, such as an interactive, mobile-based museum map, is another up-and-coming trend. It is two to three years away from adoption in education.
Perhaps more important than the content we teach are the life skills we model by embracing these concepts. Using social media in the classroom allows teachers to remind students of the power their words can have online. This understanding will be crucial as they head to college, start a career and become adults in a digital world.
Anyone can look up Benjamin Franklin on Wikipedia and create a PowerPoint presentation of the information found there. Creating a fake Facebook wall for Benjamin Franklin that delivers the same information, but from the perceived perspective of Benjamin Franklin himself, adds a level of higher-order thinking to the activity that students will long remember.
"This a prototype activity mapping tool designed to link higher order thinking skills to how the content and context of the topic, unit, course or courses are approached and learnt. "
36 percent of students demonstrated no significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication over four years of college. After only two years of college, that percentage -- 45 -- is even higher.
students aren't studying enough; faculty members aren't demanding enough of students; administrators aren't paying attention to student learning outcomes;
instructors have blasted Facebook (and rightfully so) for its poor privacy protections.
Google+ allows a person to place all of their contacts into Circles, allowing a user to control with great precision who among their contacts will have access to which bits of shared content.