Group items tagged

"The rise of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag - along with others like #MeToo and #MAGA (Make America Great Again) - has sparked a broader discussion about the effectiveness and viability of using social media for political engagement and social activism. To that end, a new survey by the Center finds that majorities of Americans do believe these sites are very or somewhat important for accomplishing a range of political goals, such as getting politicians to pay attention to issues (69% of Americans feel these platforms are important for this purpose) or creating sustained movements for social change (67%)."

"She had, she concluded, 'changed in ways I would never have predicted. I now read on the surface and very quickly; in fact, I read too fast to comprehend deeper levels, which forced me constantly to go back and reread the same sentence over and over with increasing frustration.' She had lost the 'cognitive patience' that once sustained her in reading such books. She blamed the internet.""

"It's also one piece of evidence that changing the college trajectories of America's low-income students will require efforts more extensive than low-cost "nudges." "It's a good lesson in thinking about the limitations of these kinds of interventions," said Lindsay Page, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who has studied text messaging reminders to students. "Be cautious of the long-run benefits from $6 solutions.""

"An anthropologist who had the unenviable task of sitting through academics' meetings and reading their email chains to find out why they fail to change their teaching styles has come to a surprising conclusion: they are simply too afraid of looking stupid in front of their students to try something new."

"The echo chamber doesn't need any bad connectivity to function. Limbaugh's followers have full access to outside sources of information. According to Jamieson and Cappella's data, Limbaugh's followers regularly read - but do not accept - mainstream and liberal news sources. They are isolated, not by selective exposure, but by changes in who they accept as authorities, experts and trusted sources. They hear, but dismiss, outside voices. Their worldview can survive exposure to those outside voices because their belief system has prepared them for such intellectual onslaught."

"This squishiness in the OPM market is a sign that more and more schools are serious enough about learning to be systematically better at supporting student success that they are increasingly willing to pay for help. And that change in prioritization is potentially good for everyone."

"The MOOC providers didn't bring about the end of higher education as we knew it, but they did stumble upon a highly-effective marketing funnel with the potential to change the way universities put programs online. This niche is known in higher education as online program management (OPM), and providers who work in this space offer solutions to help universities put their programs online. Now, the MOOC providers are poised to make a dent in the highly-lucrative OPM market."

"Today we are launching a challenge, seeking the best ideas worldwide for how to align our postsecondary educational ecosystem to the future of work and life. We are looking for bold ideas that reimagine how we learn across our lifetimes, ideas that expand opportunity for all members of our society and foster equity. We hope to uncover ideas and seed the development of tools that will ensure that all learners, especially low-income students, can draw on a diverse array of educational opportunities that provide them the skills they need to find the opportunities to work and live meaningful and economically stable lives."

"To hold ourselves accountable for building upon this favorable impact, we made the Learner Outcomes Survey a permanent part of our platform experience: every learner, anywhere in the world, who completes a course now receives a survey a few months later. And since a lot has changed on Coursera since 2015 - we've gone from 90 active courses on our platform to 2,000, and more than doubled the size of our learner community - we decided it was time for another deep dive into the data."

Be prepared for a slow-lane Internet unless you can pay up...

"If you're an optimist, you're excited to use these advancements to complement your teaching style. On the other hand, you might be a little concerned that a robot will replace you in the next 3-10 years. In any case, the time to prepare for these changes is now. By practicing and sharpening our human strengths (in other words - robots' weaknesses), we can improve our chances of thriving in a world where AI is ubiquitous in every classroom, school and home. Here are 3 skills to start honing today that give educators an advantage over AI."

First of all, what is the "it" that I am referring to? "It" is a transformed reality where access to new tools, abundant content, and vast networks simultaneously provide countless new affordances and associated challenges.

"Did anyone not answer yet? Who still has a popsicle stick? Are you kidding me? Bring your classroom management into the 21 century with the Random Name Generator Tool."

I use this all of the time! I still use the popsicle sticks to change things up a bit though :)

"A better approach is positive general principles. Tell students what you want them to do. My favorite model is the four Tribes agreements that are displayed prominently in my class and discussed and practiced every day: Attentive Listening- Pay close attention to what others are saying. Check for understanding Appreciation Only- Treat each other kindly, don't use put-downs. Right to Pass- Choose when and how much you participate. It's acceptable to simply observe. Mutual Respect- Affirm the value and uniqueness of everyone."

I used TRIBES while a principal in Camden, it does change school culure. Thanks for sharing.

"Worse, the first-order barriers often become self-fulfilling prophecies. For instance, the time needed to learn about a new technology is greatly extended by an individual's sporadic use of it. Lots of time is spent just logging in or setting up or getting back in the groove with the basics, making people feel like they are starting over-again and again."

"Often times, as the principal goes, so does the culture of the school.  This is not to say that individual teachers can not be leading the way within the school themselves, but this goes back to the notion of "pockets of innovation" as opposed to a "culture of innovation".  It is unlikely for an entire school to be "pushing the edge" if the principal or administrative team is not helping to pave the way for their community as they learn alongside of them."

"Georgia Tech's Tucker Balch, an associate professor at the School of Interactive Computing, released the following information based on the survey of students who took part in his recent Coursera class, "Computational Investing." Of the 2,535 students who completed the course (or 4.8 percent of those enrolled), 34 percent were from the United States and 27 percent came from non-OECD countries. The average age of participants was 35 (ranging from 17 to 74). Seventy percent were white. Ninety-two percent were male. And more than 50 percent of the students already had a master's degree or a PhD. Clearly, this is hardly the "typical" undergraduate population (although it's worth noting that "Computational Investing" isn't really a "typical" or introductory class). Nonetheless, these figures do raise questions about who exactly is being served by today's MOOCs: Is it "learners" from around the world? Or, for lack of a better word, is it "knowers" from the U.S.?"

At one session here at Davos, the presidents of Harvard, Stanford and MIT all readily acknowledged that the experiments in new models of online learning will soon radically disrupt higher learning. One expert suggested many universities are facing the early days of bankruptcy. Another predicted there may only be 10 universities that survive this transition.

This looks like a nice change from PP. Not static.