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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.

Summaries the benefits of blogging: blogging is public, we are more attentive to quality of work; blogging creates a person-centered discussion; and blogging "encourages higher levels of reasoning-- at times upper levels--analyzing, evaluating, and creating--of Bloom's Taxonomy" and ways to get started.

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.

Brandt discusses how schools in the U.S. are starting to use social media as a means to communicate effectively with the families and community.  She also discusses the regulations and policies that schools are implementing as a result.

This is a news announcing that a free plug-in designed to integrate open-source learning management system Moodle with Microsoft's Live@edu services will be available for download from Moodle.org on Thursday, February 23. Window live is a mature social online tool while Moodle is famous for its education use, when these two integrated to each other, students can benefit from window live's social functions within Moodle's and log into Moodle from window live ID.

It is a smart move as Moodle has realized the necessity to integrating online social tools into e-learning environment, in order to motivate students' learning.

Socrative is an awesome tool used in Education to gain a better understanding of what our students have learned or are learning during a lesson by getting. In this post about socrative we see how it can be used assess writing in the classroom.

This article showcases a great new tool which will can be used as a creative way to teach, share, and create information. Jux allows students to briefly outline an idea or theme, connect those words with pictures, and display the words concurrently with a slideshow, photos, videos etc.It allows students the creative latitude to design their own presentation and also match up concepts with an audio and visual system.

Aviary is a suite of powerful creative applications that you can use right in your web browser. We're on a mission to make creation accessible to artists of all genres, from graphic design to audio editing. Let Aviary and Worth1000 artists perform design services for you.

"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.

In this article, teachers are urged to push students beyond simply providing personal opinions as answers. By offering better prompts and questions, students need to be pushed into "critical reflection and evaluation" of the topic at hand. Having students move beyond simply Q/A formats, they are more engaged in their learning in terms of both the process and the outcome. Teachers need to provide feedback, challenging prompts, and encourage the discovery process (among others) to improve critical thinking skills. In addition, teachers can post open-ended questions, provide models of what synthesis looks like, and refrain from being the authority on the subject. While this article was not specifically related to Web 2.0 tools, the elements of how to increase critical / higher order thinking skills apply to all of the elements of technology use in the classroom.

This is a short but sweet reminder of why and when teachers should use technology in their classrooms. Really, technology is the tool for learning, not necessarily the creation of a product. There is a great list to ways we should and should not implement technology tools. This list is actually a good reference to check as you are contemplating using tech in the classroom -- should I or should I not use it? References within the text.

A must-share with all faculty!

This article points out the significance and the approach to the digital writing in a dialogue style with Troy Hicks, an associate professor of English at Central Michigan University. He uses 'MAPS' heuristic -- mode (genre), media, audience, purpose, situation -- to help writers "intentionally" and "deliberately" think through composing digital texts. He also suggests teachers give themselves and students the opportunities and permission to play (and possibly fail) with the tools, as this can serve as a model of overcoming learning curves and digital writing process. This reminds me of the idea, 'dabble' with the tools, brought up by Jeff Utecht(2013).

Degreed is a free service that monitors and validates your lifelong educational learning from internet learning and real world degrees.

Here's how various technological tools help enhance student creativity.

'We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice.' This opening sentence is intriguing yet inspiring to me. As said in the title, this article introduces 18 apps to support students developing creativity at different thinking stages. The writer also suggests some practical strategies which could be incorporated in our daily teaching practice. Nevertheless, what strikes me more is the reminder that we, as a class, school, or community, need to build a culture of trust in the first place to cultivate culture of creativity and innovation.

What a great article about creativity.  What I loved is that the article states that schools do not need to teach creativity.  Schools need to foster it by providing students a safe place to take risks and providing them tools that make that risk taking possible.  Creativity is about finding solutions to problems using one's own ideas and thinking skills.  Students can do this when given the power and opportunities to do so.

Like Chris, the opening to this post caught my eye. "We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice." Ms. Darrow's article captures the importance of creating a school that values it's students, encourages them to take some risks, and lets them practice these skills with abandon. With support and coaching from teachers, students can work through the steps outlined in this article using technology to streamline the process, help them develop real life/career skills, and appeal to their interest in digital media. I like how Darrow labels this process; there are clear steps to increase understanding. Collaboration or group work can use this format as well, group members' jobs are easily created with the resulting structure. It also creates natural places to scaffold the process for individualizing learning in a classroom full of all kinds of learners. Each activity we do in a class may not need all these steps and some may need more, but I plan to keep this article in mind as I tweak my courses this summer.

Arjana Blazic's wiki bridges different cultures and continents by allowing educators and students to share their stories and cultures with others. Using tools like Glogster, students from around the world interact with their peers through images, videos, and text.

One way that web 2.0 helps students improve information literacy is to give them to tools to present information. An excellent way for students to present (as well as teach!) information is by building an app! More and more app building programs are popping up.

Try using Presi instead of PowerPoint the next time you need to present some information.

One of my student did his senior project presentation using Prezi and it was wonderful. He liked the tool so much he discussed it with his classmates. It was appropriate that his topic was "The Rapid Advancement of Technology: Is it Good or Bad?" His arguments were enlightening coming from an 18 year old heading off to college.

I have had a couple of students use Prezi for their presentations. They came out great. To me, their presenatations had a much better flow and were more visually pleasing than PowerPoint.

The author shares a new collaborative tool, Pen.io, which can be used by students to create a working portfolio and can be shared, published and owned. Although it is similar to google docs, the author likes it better for its simplicity, the ownership status it provides, its content-focused nature and the control it allows over who can edit it.

Great tool. And, yes it is easier to use than Google Docs. Of course "easier" means fewer features, but it also means more simplicity. Plus, with a few HTML basics there is more you can do than with G-Docs.

This is exactly what I am looking for to complement some of my online courses. Items such as safety contracts need signatures and require the tedious use of a scanner or fax machine. This Pen.io would be a great acessory to make these types of task very simple and personal. Unlike google docs it provides much more controls over many items.

Google has outdone themselves again. Google docs has just added the ability to open a research pane directly within your document. Find information, cite your sources, and add pictures without ever really leaving your document. Great tool for teachers who want to make researching easier for students.