Group items tagged

Good article on teaching students how to be decent digital citizens. Emphasis on parental involvement too. I found this interesting as we struggle with the admin's decision to ban mobile devices in the middle school. This article gives helpful advice on communicating with students on how to monitor and use the devices appropriately and safely.

This article is about using Skype in the classroom for global education. I am categorizing it as media literacy because of the use of skype. Thousands of teachers are involved in a large variety of global educational projects. One of the partners in this program is NASA's Digital Learning center. Projects there are live so that students can learn how to prepare a space vehicle for take off or for them to design something for the spacesuit. There are many other partners to this program.

digital natives- can we keep up?

Great intro video clip to explain media literacy.  Covers lots of info and concerns.  The idea of "digital citizenship" and the believe that this must be taught at an early age.

Because today's students use so many digital devices that use up bandwidth that colleges have had to block students from using online services like Naptser, Netflix and Youtube during severe storms when students are forced to stay indoors for days at a time.

This is a topic that creates a similar feel as the value of neat handwriting on paper for students at school. Is it worth debating and reaching a decision about? Or do we just proceed to use paper as the need arises in the classroom? Students are exposed to the use of paper and digital media and resources on different levels. Where do we start saying less or more paper OR digital devices are the way forward?

One of a series of posts on different types of internet based tools and their use in education; backchannels engage students who otherwise might not contribute, evens the playing field; students ask questions on the fly without interrupting; gives teacher feedback on the level of understanding or confusion in the class; does not recommend twitter for classroom alternative backchannels teacher can manage ; It will improve writing and a student's ability to articulate themselves quickly using text. Students must have Effective Digital Communication Skills in order to be successful in the 21st century. One digital communication skill that is needed is to have the ability to articulate quickly and succinctly using text.

"Students were involved in creating their online textbook using a wiki that involved collaboration with students in 2 other schools where they peer reviewed the work posted by other students on the course". I think students would get a lot out of this!

Throughout the ages of educational ideas and philosophies teachers have been big fans of having their students keep a journal. Journals are kept in language arts, foreign language classes, and I have seen them in science classes. Students don't particularly like doing them unless they enjoy writing. If given a choice between keeping a journal in their spiral notebook and keeping it online, I would wager that a majority of students in this digital age will prefer to keep it online. So why not give them the choice and tool of Penzu.

A look at how technology use in formative assessments improves feedback and how this formative feedback directly helps students improve their performance.

This is a How-To guide for using Acrobat to create, edit, and interact with assessments. This includes adding and commenting on video and audio elements in the document. We have this program on our school computers so it may be worth giving this a shot!

Ensure quality of information by teaching retrieval practices that include alternative sources as well as Google. Using workshops and presentations is important, as it takes time for students to recognize the most valuable and up-to-date content.

This blog article has provided a wide range of tools for students from the elementary to the graduate research level. I think it's worth some time exploring the materials & tools suggested and find the ones that meet your purpose.

The days of the traditional cover letters and resumes sent through the mail are over. Today, people/students find jobs through social media sites -- Linkedin, FB, even Twitter. As we talk about digital communication, this is a "real world" application in how students need to know these tools as well as how to present themselves in a digital forum. This is the type of situation where all the writing skills and presentation skills taught in high school count, and we need to be sure our students can do this in a virtual environment.

This is a useful article! Gone are the hard copy resumes printed on nice, heavy weight paper with matching envelopes. Thanks, Christine.

This link is to the NY Times series about technology and neuroscience. Perhaps it might interest some of you as per our discussions (particularly the Growing Up Digital article).

What a good series of articles, Julie. I am going to pass these along to colleagues.

The Dublin City University of Ireland site popped out at me. As I got into exploring the site, it reminded me of all the things we have discussed on "communication" and online education. The President of the university, Professor Brian MacCraith said of the learning experience at DCU "Online platforms are changing the traditional teaching and learning paradigms. Technology is providing an enhancement of choices and flexibility. Learning happens any time, any place." The website also displayed specific and detailed regulations for students to be good digital citizens! Along with lots of other great stuff!