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Using Diigo + Twitter to Deliver a Powerful One-two Punch

Learning communities set goals about student learning and focus exclusively on the day-to-day work of teachers

a PLC included several key components around which they are defined – 1). a focus on learning; 2); collaborative culture focused on learning; 3). collective inquiry; 4). action orientation and experimentation; 5). continuous improvement; and 6). results orientation.  The authors are quick and clear to also point out that a group of people simply working together on a task may not meet the definition of a PLC.

We’re going from districts fearing it and blocking it off to welcoming it and making it a major part of their technology plan. We’ll be surprised if a significant portion of districts aren’t using mobile learning inside and outside of schools soon.”

Each educator, each class, each school will have to find the best way to integrate mobile devices based on its student population. The opportunity of using mobile devices and all of its utilities allows educators to reconsider: What do we want students to know, and how do we help them? And what additional benefit does using a mobile device bring to the equation? This gets to the heart of the mobile learning issue: beyond fact-finding and game-playing – even if it’s educational — how can mobile devices add relevance and value to how kids learn?

personalized learning – students owning what they learn.

Call it the “learning paradox”: the more you struggle and even fail while you’re trying to master new information, the better you’re likely to recall and apply that information later.

second group was directed to solve the same problems by collaborating with one another, absent any prompts from their instructor.

the second group “significantly outperformed” the first.

These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.

eStudent is a content creation and sharing platform specially designed for use with the Apple iPad mobile computing device. It allows a teacher to create content for lessons and then "push out" the content to their students' iPads, as well as for students to create and share content with one another and in groups. The features eStudent offers to boost mobile collaboration include:

they are understanding a complex text and making sense of it within the context of their own lives.   No parent wants more, no teacher does, than for kids to be able to not just "read" Shakespeare but to understand why his work still speaks urgently to the present, why it is worth taking the time to read all that odd English from another time

We are not responsible as educators unless we are teaching not just with technology but through it, about it, because of it.   We need to make kids understand its power, its potential, its dangers, its use.  That isn't just an investment worth making but one that it would be irresponsible to avoid.

“Adaptive technologies presume that knowledge can be modularized and sequenced,” says Watters, the education writer. “This isn’t about the construction of knowledge. It’s still hierarchical, top-down, goal-driven.”

e latest techno-fad, destined to distract administrators and upset curricula for a few years until the next one comes along. But there are two reasons why adaptive learning might prove more durable than that. The first is that the textbook companies have invested in it so heavily that there may be no going back. The second: It might, in at least some settings, really work.

“I like to think of analogies to other places where science and technology have had an impact, like transportation. We went from walking to horse-drawn carriages to Model Ts, and now we have jet planes. So far in educational technology, we’re in the Model T stage.”

As with learning to read, swim or play good football children will be much more effective social networkers with support, guidance and help than without

We need to educate young people to understand that it is wrong to write anything on a social networking site which you wouldn’t say to someone’s face

Second, Twitter and Facebook are, as has been well publicised, a groomer’s dream.

So here are some tips and examples I’ve gathered from my classroom and my work as a one-day-a-week tech coach at my school to help teachers better understand and negotiate the digital push in schools. Give Yourself the Time to Learn

After asking good questions and doing some reconnaissance on tools and apps that your colleagues love, choose a few. Let yourself dabble with the tools. Become comfortable with their interfaces, and give yourself time to understand their purpose and fit (or lack thereof) for your classroom habits and curriculum. At the same time, allow yourself time to say "no" to other flashy new gadgets and tools while you are exploring.

Tips for Tech-Cautious Teachers

HOWEVER, none of this, for a moment, displaces the teacher. On the contrary, it amplifies teacher skills. It may also facilitate the ability for teachers to play to their strongest card:

We should not try to recreate what Salman Khan of the Khan Academy and others are doing so brilliantly, namely to meticulously build up entire curricula on video. No. TED is known for its ability to evoke curiosity, wonder, and mind-shifting insight.  That should be our prime goal here. Short lessons that spark curiosity.

Major textbook publishers have been making electronic versions of their products for years, but until recently, there hasn't been any hardware suitable to display them.

Apple also released iBooks Author, a new tool meant to lure publishers into creating new content specifically for the iPad education user.

even if an iPad were to last for five years in the hands of students, the e-books plus the iPad would cost more than the hardback textbooks.

When students were succeeding in school with no technology, we were also living in a world with little technology, and preparing students for life in a world where technology wasn't a part of their daily lives.  

Technology is no substitute for an inspiring teacher. However, on-line materials are far more available. Twenty times more.

Because the students have access to the same tools over the web, they can reinforce the ideas by experimenting with the simulations themselves, any time, any where.

starting in 1994, calculators were not only permitted, but were essentially required. The driving factors came from the level of mathematics taught and tested and the availability of graphing calculator technology. This change gave students the appropriate tool for accuracy and efficiency -- it was also the one used by most professionals who used mathematics beyond basic arithmetic

before prescribing medication, physicians often search the Medscape or Epocrates websites for the most current facts that might have significant impact on a patient's reactions to the medication. New information can be critical,

The problem is not primarily teachers or students who, in desperation, resort to cheating, but rather the conditions that drive them to such extremes

greater challenge, the researchers wrote, is in expanding teachers' knowledge of new instructional practices that will allow them to select and use the right technology, in the right way, with the right students, for the right purpose.

Google Docs. The application's power to support collaborative writing and in-depth feedback, however, was not being realized. Teachers were not encouraging group-writing assignments and their feedback focused overwhelmingly on issues such as spelling and grammar, rather than content and organization.

experts seem to agree on: so-called "job-embedded" professional development that takes place consistently during the workday

Parents and teachers must be a part of monitoring and modeling

How ever will we train all those teachers?

ake something off teachers' plates rather than put more on. We have to prioritize, and including technology is too important.

instructing students on how to write five-paragraph essays, identify parts of speech, and use punctuation. Cockrum says the videos have enabled the dynamics of his class to change in several ways: He says his students can work at their own pace on writing projects during class, and he’s available to help them individually as they have questions or ask for an edit. Cockrum says he anticipates this will let him cover a lot more curricular material over the year, as well as immerse students in the writing process.

He says if teachers want to engage kids in class, they should be thinking of activities to eliminate traditional classroom lectures altogether. Noschese also worries the model poses an “equity issue,” as not every student has the internet at home.

In talking with many colleagues about Twitter, I often hear things like: “I just don’t get it.” “I don’t have time for that.” “I have to many other things going on.” “I don’t have a smartphone.” “I don’t want people I don’t know to follow me.”