Group items tagged

Follow news feeds If your students are working on a project involving anything from current affairs to piracy, Facebook news feeds can be an alternative to Twitter in order to enrich a project with real-time opinion and commentary. Not only this, but you can sign up and join groups focusing on certain areas; such as student education, U.S. healthcare, or politics.

Practice foreign languages As a traveler and advocate of language learning, I found Facebook to be one of best resources in which to find ‘language buddies’ to practice your writing skills in a secondary language. There are groups that are dedicated to this — and you can get feedback on your attempts. It is also possible to find events and links to language-based resources.

Follow figures of interest This can be done on both Twitter and Facebook, especially since the Timeline roll-out and subscription service began. You do not have to be friends with the person you wish to follow — as long as they allow subscriptions to their profile, any public updates

Use the Facebook Timeline for class projects The Facebook Timeline feature may not be the site’s most popular update, but it can be used to create a project more interesting than a traditional Power Point presentation.

Use Facebook Questions and polls Why not upload a photo to your class Facebook group and ask your students to comment? There are cases of this feature being used as a way to ask questions or set a class task — such as identifying a species of animal or important figure. Polls can be also used for research, opinion, or to generate a later classroom discussion.

Motivation comes from within, not external threats or bribes

-"People to contribute rather then just show up and grind out their days." (100) -What teacher has not wanted this?

-"Control leads to compliance: autonomy leads to engagement...only engagement can produce mastery" (110-111) When was the last time you had true engagement and what caused this engagement?

-"Do the workers refer to the company (school) as "they"? Or do they describe it in terms of "we"?" (129)  Do your students see school on their team?

First, Student's need to gain autonomy, not empowerment (we love this word, it gives the impression that students have power in the system).  Autonomy is self direction. Second, Mastery of the topic (big word in education ten years ago).  And third, purpose (education likes to use meaning or relevance).

the system right now makes this very, very hard to do

I find it very difficult sometimes to convince students that I am not grading a project, or that they can take a quiz whenever they are ready.  Students have learned that they will be told and shown how to survive in education. 

We need to encourage students to be independent thinkers that formulate their own methods to their own answers.  The data collection systems of education need to change to meet the new education system of the 21st century; we need to stop attempting to make new methodology fit into old data collection routines.