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Connecticut Education Association argues that the pervasiveness of small mobile phones that can record videos easily uploaded to the Internet is reason to update the law to specifically limit their use.

"What we're trying to do is address the problem head-on," Mark Waxenberg, the CEA's government relations director, said this week.

A Norwalk High School math teacher was suspended with pay in 2006 after a cellphone video posted on the Internet showed him calling a student a homophobic slur.

courts in the country have generally limited teachers' privacy rights in the classroom

No teachers spoke when the bill was aired at a public hearing Monday. And the lone piece of written testimony comes from Ray Rossomando, a CEA employee, who said that "surreptitious video-recordings of teachers has been an increasing concern" and cited the example of a Naugatuck Valley teacher who was recorded while instructing class this year. The clip was posted on YouTube.

People have to take the course to see the dance, he tells them.

So the clip is "a little upsetting," Smoker said, "because I do teach mostly seniors, and they know what the policy is. To do a sneaky video like this was out of line."

Still, Smoker was worried that the video would be taken out of context, and he called it a "rude awakening." He contacted the student, who has since graduated, to ask that it be taken down.

Unfortunately, graduate students interested in becoming acquainted with relevant instructional technologies have a limited number of options.

The writing students did in the first few weeks was interesting but average. In the fourth week, however, I posted a list of links to all the student blogs and mentioned the list on my own blog. I also encouraged the students to start reading one another's writing. The difference in the writing that next week was startling. Each student wrote significantly more than they had previously. Each piece was more thoughtful. Students commented on each other's writing and interlinked their pieces to show related or contradicting thoughts. Then one of the student assignments was commented on and linked to from a very prominent blogger. Many people read the student blogs and subscribed to some of them. When these outside comments showed up, indicating that the students really were plugging into the international community's discourse, the quality of the writing improved again. The power of peer review had been brought to bear on the assignments.17

for any topic that a student is passionate about, there is likely to be an online niche community of practice of others who share that passion.

Finding and joining a community that ignites a student’s passion can set the stage for the student to acquire both deep knowledge about a subject (“learning about”) and the ability to participate in the practice of a field through productive inquiry and peer-based learning (“learning to be”). These communities are harbingers of the emergence of a new form of technology-enhanced learning—Learning 2.0—which goes beyond providing free access to traditional course materials and educational tools and creates a participatory architecture for supporting communities of learners.

The demand-pull approach to learning might appear to be extremely resource-intensive. But the Internet is becoming a vast resource for supporting this style of learning. Its resources include the rapidly growing amount of open courseware, access to powerful instruments and simulation models, and scholarly websites, which already number in the hundreds, as well as thousands of niche communities based around specific areas of interest in virtually every field of endeavor.22

We now need a new approach to learning—one characterized by a demand-pull rather than the traditional supply-push mode of building up an inventory of knowledge in students’ heads. Demand-pull learning shifts the focus to enabling participation in flows of action, where the focus is both on “learning to be” through enculturation into a practice as well as on collateral learning.

This new form of learning begins with the knowledge and practices acquired in school but is equally suited for continuous, lifelong learning that extends beyond formal schooling.

So, to answer your question, the reason you notice the strange mix of reactions to wikis is due to the quite varied ways in which wikis can be employed in educational settings. At the far end of the risk continuum they might be used in place of expert knowledge. More safely, they can simply accumulate knowledge and information resources for a class. As my colleagues and I found in our first semester teaching with wikis, when interesting online resources are found, students will often say, “put it in the wiki” so it can be forever shared. And that is not a bad way to start to use them. Instructors can dip their toes into the wonderful world of wikis and remain in shallow waters testing them out before they get in too deep. Later, they might try Wikibooks or perhaps creating and editing Wikipedia pages.

We will see a lengthening of higher education during the coming decades of about 1 year for each 10. By the end of this century, it will be quite common to attend college until one is 30. Today only a small percent do. Open education will provide continued access to learning resources before, during, or after graduation. In turn, there will be less self-doubt about whether one can succeed. The increased knowledge needs of every citizen of this planet should calm the fears of those who predict fewer educators or institutions of higher learning will be needed. Just the opposite!

The type of instructors needed in higher education will dramatically vary from today. Many will remain in traditional instructor roles. Some will be course and program developers. Others will be online facilitators. Still others will be learning guides who help students make sense of their options. What is more interesting to me is the coming rise of the super e-mentor or e-coach. Such individuals will have a discipline expertise (e.g., theater, journalism, public health, finance, etc.) as well as human development or counseling skills. Third, they will understand the learning opportunities of the Web. They will know how to guide students in their online learning quests. Some will be needed daily, some monthly, and others perhaps just annually or biannually. They will be our learning gurus, in this, what I label, “the learning century.”Global and international education will be the buzz words of the coming decade. They already are. Student peers will increasingly be those from other institutions and regions of the world. One’s cohort groups will include many people that you will never physically meet. This will make affiliations with just one institution more difficult. More people will claim to be alums and be loyal to your institution but not to the same depth or degree as before.

Students will have more opportunities to create their own degree tracks and programs. There are no longer limits in terms of the time, place, and sequence of courses. The degrees offered will only be limited by one’s imagination. With the range of courses today, self-service learning will be the norm. It already is widely accepted in corporate training circles.

The only charge to students is a $15 to $50 admission fee, depending on their country of origin, and a processing fee for every test ranging from $10 to $100. For the University to sustain its operation, it needs 15,000 students and $6 million, of which Mr. Reshef has donated $1 million of his own money.

At Harvard, we're seeing fewer hires because of the economy, but when we do make hires, we're looking for cross-disciplinary scholars.

for my students I ask them to write skill-based resumes. Their job histories should be downplayed and woven into the skills they can bring to employers.

For other professors, I've seen a lot of my colleagues come and go from here. Those who have been successful (either at Harvard or at their next jobs) understand that their learning only begins when they get a Ph.D. Some of my friends from graduate school thought they had reached some "finish line" when they got their doctorates. That's crazy. That's the starting line. Scholars who have successful careers diversify their skills and interests. They keep up with journals while also trying to become more "public intellectuals." I think of it this way: even though we're not in a Ph.D. program any longer, we should imagine ourselves getting a new Ph.D. every six years. We're not just in the "teaching business," we're in the "learning business." As the world changes, we need to, too.