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Great way to introduce material with video and participate in learning (individual student work, group or teacher). Allows for collaboration, enhancing communication skills in portraying important information to class

This site reviews various social networking sites that allow teens to safely communicate online , avoiding the dangers of online communications.

Great article about iPads and collaboration with professional development and Google docs. Google is a perfect tool to increase the level of communication and professional development in every school.

I agree Google is a perfect set of tools for collaboration and communication.

Kae, Key points: --"reliable, valuable, and up-to-the-minute information."(web 1.0) --"content-creating process". (Web 2.0) --"the idea of K-12 education being tailored to students' own interests is becoming more commonplace."An old idea whose time may have come due to access to information through technology. --"Democratizing education." Huge implications for poorer school districts. The focus moves away from bricks and mortar to learning and access to information. The big question becomes,"As the culture of the school diminishes in the role of traditional learning, will the culture of the home be equipped to encourage the child? Will underperforming students start to perform better by providing equal access to all information? Tom

I found this article quite informative and wrote a blog entry about it. That can be located at http://alwaysjan.edublogs.org/2013/02/17/if-we-teach-today-as-we-taught-yesterday-we-rob-out-children-of-tomorrow-john-dewey/ . I hope you take the time to read my blog post.

Nice blog on how to get students to communicate more efficiently in class discussions,as well as in the classroom. Getting the students to become more active and enjoy being a part of the class activity.

Author -Dan Ponterfract proposes a new Model for education in which student collaboration is the "default behavior". Learning is done " at any point in time, through any medium, and at any location", and curriculum focuses on the "community of learning". This article presents educators with the ABCs necessary to transform our system into a 21st century learning environment.

" I know now the secret to using any piece of technology in the classroom is to begin with clear learning goals and intentions that are based on "big understandings." Once students know what they need to learn, they will often find a way to express their ideas. Providing tools such as iPads for students enables them to use the items and skills they use outside of the classroom to communicate their knowledge. Furthermore, they are building the skills and learning how to use the tools that they may be required to use in the workplace."

This article discusses collaboration on a large corporation level and allows for small businesses to conduct important daily activities and decision making using social media as well. The article states the Top 5 must have tools, how to set your goals, and how to choose an appropriate vendor.  I think the article can be viewed when working in our classrooms and we are trying to incorporate social media with collaboration tools.

This article proves that we need to prepare our students for the world of work. Companies and corporations are using social networking and social media tools for their employees to communicate and collaborate around the world. The Top 5 tools include several we are learning in our class.

Social media tools can be adapted inside of your company to share data, support employees, and facilitate the exchange of ideas. These days you can find a lot of advice about how to use public social media-such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter-for marketing your company to prospective customers, partners, and employees.

In this article, Steve Wheeler discusses the changing role of teachers from traditional classroom teachers to global educators. He discusses the top five tools he believes global educators need to connect with global communities, resources and audiences.

Author Bernard Luskin indicates that most of today's literature refers to the physical changes in technology but as we learn more about human behavior and how people learn, it will dramatically impact the way we teach globally. The author provides 'key takeaways' from the article which all relate to media literacy. He explains that this new 'exploding' environment will impact the future of learning for all levels of education as the media, learning psychology, technologies become popular tools for learning. As we learn more from research and studies about media and how it relates to human behavior, it will increase the effectiveness of the ways technology is used in education. The author states that the 'big "E" is for "exciting, energetic, engaging, extended learning". He explains that E learning has and will continue to grow as a key in media literacy and the way people learn, study, individual behavior in society, and products that are produced. This interest in technology, media, communications and how humans learn has actually developed a new field of study, Media Psychology. The author supports the need for people to enter this field and recommends that we learn what e-learning is about and go beyond the electronic gizmos and gadgets.

The exploding new media and communications environment has implications for the future of both K-12 and adult learning as media, technology, and learning psychology increasingly become tools for learning in and outside the classroom. The new research area of media studies, i.e., the study of media effects, includes media psychology because an understanding of human behavior is vital to the effective use of technology in education.

With the advent of Common Core for writing skills teachers need to better learn how to communicate the expectations to students via rubrics. A new PD tool, called FineTune supports teachers in the creating of these rubrics, which align to common core.

This articled details the efforts being made by New York's DOE to limit inappropriate online communication between teachers and students, while still allowing for constructive and appropriate use of social media in schools. It offers examples of teachers and students who had inappropriate interactions via social media such as facebook but also notes that students need to be taught to use such tools appropriately.

Interesting short article on impact of social communication devices on students. Should they be allowed and if so, should they be limited? It's good to read opinions of different people outside of your own school system and their take on social devices and how they affect students and learning. It's also nice to see that we are not alone in our struggle to find a balance in our schools concerning the boom of social devices.

This article deals specifically with how online writing through the use of either asynchronous or synchronous tools can enhance the traditional classroom. The use of a blog to discuss ideas and debate issues may not be as dynamic or interactive as some of the other Web 2.0 tools we have been discussing and using. However, this article makes the point that using blogs can make content more engaging, provide a way for students to be reflective, allow them the opportunity to practice presenting ideas and arguments and finding their voice. The author, Robert Baird from the University of Illinois, argues that these discussion tools are not used up to their potential. I resonated with this article because as a teacher of an online course that uses discussion threads extensively, I completely agree that students level of engagement and understanding of issues, as well as becoming better thinkers, finding their voice and being forced to use evidence in their answers is remarkable.

Technical.ly Philly reporters Juliana Reyes and Thomas Creedon contributed to this report. The lines between digital literacy and adult education are blurring. Today at Congreso , the well-regarded North Philadelphia nonprofit that has served its Latino community for 40 years, digital literacy is part of just about every adult education course.

I'm not sure whether Steve wanted an article on information/media literacy in the sense of evaluating news content, but I've interpreted it here as multimedia literacy, or digital literacy in the information age. This article is just another example of the reason I wanted to take this course in the first place: these days, digital literacy is essential.

"The digital tools offer students new opportunities, no doubt, but they still need to be intentional in the way that they craft their pieces of digital writing."  This quote sums this article well.  Despite the new technology, teachers and students must be intentional in the ways they approach writing.  The article discusses Troy Hick's book Crafting Digital Writing.  The book looks very interesting.  Part of the article also discusses some of the arguments against digital writing with Tony's counter arguments.  There are also some great links within the article to various writing resources.

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.

I was looking for an article that had to do with blogs, but ran across this article and while it isn't on blogs - our topic for the week, it might help answer a question that has come up in discussion. The where-when-why to use blogs in the classroom question. This post talks about building expectations for a classroom as a group, teacher and student together. Why not do this with blogs? We have all said that they have value in the classroom - maybe the students can help us figure out where they would get the most value from them in their work/assignments. She contrasts that with a syllabus that "perform[s] as a living, negotiated document." (p. 41) It begins with these four questions: What topics or areas are of greatest interest to us as a class? How can we adapt the classroom space to be conducive to cultivating enhanced communication? How can we best connect our readings and discussions to our everyday lives?

This short article (that I hope you don't have to sign in to read) outlines survey data about how students and schools are using social media to enhance collaboration and the development of a school community. Notably 96% of students surveyed say they use social networking sites and 50% of those say they discuss schoolwork on those sites. The last 5 paragraphs of the article explains ways in which teachers and schools can capitalize on this. The subtext is that schools should move away from bans on social media.