EDUC 439/639 Social Networking - Fall 2012

"Today, computer science is absent in 95 percent of high schools in the U.S. Yep. Why? Because developing curriculum for these subjects requires time and expertise, and finding the qualified candidates to teach these subjects demands significant capital to lure talented programmers away from high-paying jobs in the private sector.  That's where CodeHS comes in. Founded by Stanford students Zach Galant and Jeremy Keeshin and incubated at StartX and Imagine K12, CodeHS is an online program built for high school students (and teachers) with no previous coding experience that intends to provide an easy and fun way to learn computer science."

"Last month in a blog post titled "Better Than a Textbook?", I noted that some faculty find it easier to think about the massive open online courses (MOOCs) provided by vendors like Coursera as "super-textbooks" than as actual courses. Earlier this month, Vanderbilt computer science professor Doug Fisher wrote a guest post for the blog ProfHacker titled "Warming up to MOOCs," in which he described his experiments in using MOOCs in this fashion."

"Here's what happened," he continues. "First, when one student has the right answer and the other doesn't, the first one is more likely to convince the second-it's hard to talk someone into the wrong answer when they have the right one. More important, a fellow student is more likely to reach them than Professor Mazur-and this is the crux of the method. You're a student and you've only recently learned this, so you still know where you got hung up, because it's not that long ago that you were hung up on that very same thing. Whereas Professor Mazur got hung up on this point when he was 17, and he no longer remembers how difficult it was back then. He has lost the ability to understand what a beginning learner faces."

"We should be justifiably proud of the remarkable and enviable triumphs of American higher education. Instead, we find most recent conversations about higher education echoing around this one tiny (and so far trivial) aspect of the complex and diverse ecosystem of higher education. This focus on technological platforms at the expense of actual threats, challenges, and successes robs us of the ability to have sober, informed debates about the proper level and style of investment in higher education. So I suggest we let MOOCs grow and do their best work, learn from successes and mistakes, and stop assuming that they are the simple answer to anything meaningful and profound in the production and distribution of knowledge. The world is just not that simple."

"Comics have also been used to address social issues as well. They have done so over the years and while having controversial story lines they have helped to raise awareness about important issues. A comic can be an easy way to put your views (or make a joke easily!) and grab readers attention. If you can make your visitor smile, all the better. An engaged, smiling visitor will crawl longer and will be more likely to remember you."

"A complete list of free online courses offered by Stanford, Coursera, MIT and Harvard led edX (MITx + Harvardx + BerkeleyX), and Udacity"

"A complete list of free online courses offered by Stanford, Coursera, MIT and Harvard led edX (MITx + Harvardx + BerkeleyX), and Udacity "

inklewriter is a free online tool that lets you create your own interactive story. Rather than creating a contrived example, click here to try a real story! In this case, "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle"

The real opportunity, I think, is in trying to build longer arcs. Now that the cycle of new is eating itself in a race to ever-faster, there's a bigger chance to make long term change by consistently focusing on what works (and what's important), not what's new and merely shiny.

Social Media...people for sale

"Vision. Spaces. Devices. Access everything, anywhere, on anything. Do you have that? If not, you're behind."

This is a great article - This perspective sums it up - I am looking at my EPP from this angle...Digital Space that supports student learning.

"Drawing on her experience as a consultant for VoiceThread in which she hosts monthly Google+ Hangouts, she created the very first "Teach & Share" Google+ Hangout, an online gathering of educators who, for this installment, shared their experiences using the learning management system Canvas. "I started thinking about how much faculty learn from simply talking to one another. These are always the most powerful professional development experiences," Pacansky-Brock said of her decision to host the event. "Faculty need to connect with each other to keep innovation moving forward. [...] That's the premise of the Teach & Shares.""

"It's sad that the Times' lawyers should have gone after what is clearly fair comment - and perhaps sadder that Twitter caved in"

Games and Learning

Most of us recognize that schools should be helping students learn how to do deep, rich, technology-infused knowledge work that prepares them for future citizenship, college, work, and other life needs. Many principals and superintendents, however, are struggling to balance the need to technologically empower students with countervailing organizational concerns regarding safety, respectful behavior, and the law. In my conversations with school administrators about Internet safety and student technology usage, I use many of the talking points below. Use some of them to spark a conversation with your local educators and community.

If wanted to take a mooc - do you have any recommendations on what to avoid? I am interested in digital storytelling and all things video game (and gamification).

MentorCloud is trusted by entrepreneurs, career professionals and students around the world as a secure platform for connecting with suitable mentors and mentees, and sharing practical insights to drive mutual professional growth.

"Last week we started a series of webinars featuring our Social Fresh WEST speakers, as we lead up to the conference on September 27-28. One of those webinars was titled Stop the Social Media Shiny Object Syndrome (recorded and on demand). In an industry that moves so quickly, it is important to stay educated, to be informed about the tools available to us. During the webinar, we outlined an 8 step process for reviewing social media shiny objects."

Like a superhero, the U.S. Library of Congress has just swooped in and unveiled an enormous new (and free!) resource that's all about the Common Core. It's located at http://www.loc.gov/teachers and worth checking out.