EDUC 439/639 Social Networking - Fall 2012

"Google has launched a new extension for Chrome called "Save to Drive," enabling users to save web content to their Google Drive. After installing the extension, users will get an additional icon in Chrome, letting them save an image, an entire page or an image of the visible page to your Drive."

While many children's home lives are abuzz with the same platforms and devices as the 21st century workplace, school just hasn't kept pace, and in many classrooms pedagogies are barely more inclusive of new technology than they were in the 1980s. We desperately need to improve on this record, which is why schools need to make hiring educational technology professionals -- whether specially trained classroom teachers or dedicated staffers -- a top priority.

"Google announced that you can now add up to 15 people to a Google+ Hangout if you are business, government or school using Google Apps with Google+."

This is great I wanted to use it for the class I am teaching but we have 14 students. Now I can use it... Thanks for up-date.

"The law driving this is called the Family Education Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA states that schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information about a student. "

Creating a workable Minority Report-like screen isn't very hard but what about an entire room or building that responds to touch, voice, and movement? Now that's hard. That, however, is the goal of OpenArch, a project by designer Ion Cuervas-Mons that uses projectors, motion sensors, and light to create interactive spaces.

In the end, skeptics like me have to admit that many technological breakthroughs are actually improvements over the old ways of doing things. Even if we're not particularly savvy ourselves, we must acknowledge that some of our colleagues use technology with great success, and that their efforts do much to further our collective enterprise. We must educate ourselves about the advantages of various technologies and have the courage to adopt what seems beneficial. Who knows? We might even get ourselves a smartphone for Christmas.

Apps from Google and Apple could help third parties create profiles on children, says an FTC report that found a number of troubling practices.

A person's PLN is an organizational system that absorbs multitudinous sources to aggregate content to aid facility and expedience. Yet, considering the PLN as a container for diverse information modules makes me think of the compartmentalization requisite for the human brain to process new learning. Might this be why PLNs have proven themselves to be so useful and seemingly congruent with our learning styles?

"Professors typically don't worry about what price point an online course will sell at, or what amenities might attract a student to pick one course over another. But a new online platform, Professor Direct, lets instructors determine not only how much to charge for such courses, but also how much time they want to devote to services like office hours, online tutorials, and responding to students' e-mails."

"iCivics has just released its seventeenth educational game for students. The new game is called We The Jury. We The Jury puts students in the role of a juror for two trials"

Thanks, Mat - this is so neat!

"To nudge students toward job-friendly degrees, the governor's task force on higher education suggested recently that university tuition rates be frozen for three years for majors in "strategic areas," which would vary depending on supply and demand. An undergraduate student would pay less for a degree in engineering or biotechnology - whose classes are among the most expensive for universities - than for a degree in history or psychology."

Why is it that introducing profit as a motivator into higher education makes that endeavor suspect, while we don't seem to believe this to be true for journalism, publishing, media, technology or any other information or service industry?

To add the Galaxy Camera to a Share Everything Plan, you can even upgrade for a special price of $5. AT&T recently started carrying the device for $499 in November. The camera has a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor with 21x zoom. But when you flip that bad boy over, you won't see a little 2-inch LCD. Instead, you'll be met with the familiar Android homescreen (Jelly Bean, no less), on a 4.8-inch 720p SLCD display.

the company says it's gaining momentum: Google announced today that 500 million people have created profiles, 235 million people have used at least one of its features (like +1'ing a Web page), and 135 million visit plus.google.com monthly. (That's up from 100 million in September.)

For me, the biggest reassurance of this experience is that it's OK to have off days and low points in every course. You can't possibly be always at the top of your game, week after week, and still meet all the other demands placed on college faculty members outside of the classroom. And from the standpoint of having a lasting impact on students, maybe there's no reason to try to be.

The students in the Independent Project are remarkable but not because they are exceptionally motivated or unusually talented. They are remarkable because they demonstrate the kinds of learning and personal growth that are possible when teenagers feel ownership of their high school experience, when they learn things that matter to them and when they learn together. In such a setting, school capitalizes on rather than thwarts the intensity and engagement that teenagers usually reserve for sports, protest or friendship.

The mission of the Emerging Learning Design Conference is to showcase best practices in design and implementation by bringing together those interested in engaging in a vibrant and dynamic discourse regarding pedagogy and how technology can better enhance it.

The widely acknowledged need to improve the tech skills of teachers and other school officials, and help them understand how digital tools should be used in the classroom, should be a major area of focus among state officials and other policymakers, according to a report released today by the National Association of State Boards of Education.

The pictures you want to remember. A song you want to forget.

why did you have to go and do that.

Catchy, right? Lo-fi, Lo-fi!!! LOL