Why Teachers Need Social Media Training, Not Just Rules 6.2.12 | Under a new set of social media guidelines (pdf) issued by the New York City Department of Education, teachers are required to obtain a supervisor’s approval before creating a “professional social media presence,” which is broadly defined as “any form of online publication or presence that allows interactive communication, including, but not limited to, social networks, blogs, internet websites, internet forums, and wikis.” The guidelines also call for notifying parents about the social media activities their children will be invited to participate in, and they prohibit online teacher/student communication, including “‘friending,’ ‘following,’ ‘commenting,’ and posting messages” on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google+, and YouTube. Teachers will likely have to stop playing interactive games such as Draw Something with their students. “[Conversations] occur at church, in neighborhoods, scouting groups, volunteers,” he said.
Alex Barthel: are tertiary students competent in English? - Lingua Franca Alex Barthel: Australian universities have had to adapt, often with great difficulties to two major and closely related changes. The first of these changes is the type of student enrolling at Australian universities today, in comparison with, say 30 or 40 years ago. A range of federal, state and institutional legislative changes has led universities to implement equity and access as well as multicultural policies. This can be seen as a positive change, in that it has resulted in universities opening their doors to students from a far wider range of educational and socio-economic backgrounds than would have been the case in the more elitist times of the 60s and 70s. The second major change universities are struggling to adjust to is the undeniable failure by the federal government to adequately plan and fund tertiary education to meet Australia's skills needs. These days, only about a third of university funding comes from the federal government. What about local students?
Schools are still killing creativity. Several posts this week noted how we are failing with the nurturing, facilitating, and direct teaching of creativity within school environments. Adobe posted Universal Concern that Creativity is Suffering at Work and School New research reveals a global creativity gap in five of the world’s largest economies, according to the Adobe® State of Create global benchmark study. One of the myths of creativity is that very few people are really creative,” said Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. David Brooks in his New York Times op-ed piece The Creative Monopoly notes the following: Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. But none of this is new. But the culture of schools is driven by standardization – common core standards, standardized curriculum, standardized tests. May Your Sky Always Be Yellow He always wanted to explain things. Like this: Like Loading...
The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture Due to Khan Academy’s popularity, the idea of the flipped classroom has gained press and credibility within education circles. Briefly, the Flipped Classroom as described by Jonathan Martin is: Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. A compiled resource page of the Flipped Classroom (with videos and links) can be found at The advantage of the flipped classroom is that the content, often the theoretical/lecture-based component of the lesson, becomes more easily accessed and controlled by the learner. It is important, though, not to be seduced by the messenger. The problem is that educators, as a group, know how to do and use the lecture. The Flipped Classroom Model Experiential Engagement: The Activity Summary
How Higher Education Uses Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC] Schools are on a short list of organizations that have been notoriously slow to adopt emerging tech. But within the last few years, as social media becomes more integral to students' lives, educational institutions are finally catching on, and catching up. When it comes to higher ed, there are not only opportunities for digital learning, but digital marketing too. Some schools have taken the reigns on both sides, with mixed results. SEE ALSO: 5 Free Homework Management Tools for the Digital Student The infographic below takes a look at how schools have fared with social media over the last few years — what platforms are best, where they've succeeded, and the challenges that lay ahead. Does your alma mater use social media effectively in the classroom and in the recruitment office? Infographic by onlineuniversities.com. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang
Instructional Scaffolding: A Definitive Guide : Revisiting Teacher Learning:Brain-Friendly Learning for Teachers David A. Sousa Think of those times you've left a professional development workshop saying to yourself, "Wow, that really made me think!" Now think of those grimmer occasions when you said, "What a waste of time! I'd have preferred a root canal." During my four decades as an educator and educational consultant, I have seen professional development delivered in many formats, everything from "Choose three sessions from column A and two from column B" to programs individually designed for educators. Motivation and Learning Recent brain research using imaging technologies suggests how both children and adults learn. The brain's biological mechanisms responsible for learning and remembering are roughly the same for learners of different ages. Imaging studies show that regions in the brain's emotional and cognitive processing areas are activated when an individual is motivated to perform learning behaviors. The Role of Emotions Adults may also come to a learning activity with strong emotions.
The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Tinkering and Maker Education If you have been following my blog series on The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture, you know that I am using this opportunity, given all the press on flipped classroom, to discuss a model of teaching and learning based on experiential education. It is a model in which authentic, often hands-on, experiences and student interests drive the learning process, and the videos, as they are being proposed in the flipped classroom discourse, support the learning rather than being central or at the core of learning. The idea of experience being core to learning has been discussed by Dale Dougherty, the publisher of Make Magazine, in the context of Maker Education: I see the power of engaging kids in science and technology through the practices of making and hands-on experiences, through tinkering and taking things apart. Schools seem to have forgotten that students learn best when they are engaged; in fact, the biggest problem in schools is boredom. Experiential Engagement: The Activity
Preventing social media fatigue: live chat | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional Looking at social media activity in US universities, tech news site Mashable, published an inforgraphic that stated that "100% of colleges and universities are using some form of social media." It would seem, from the proliferation of university Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and academic bloggers, that social media in higher education, in the UK also, has reached fever pitch. And with good reason. As Matt Silverman writes for Mashable: "When it comes to higher ed, there are not only opportunities for digital learning, but digital marketing too." PhD student and blogger Anthony Ridge-Newman says of social media: "the once fiercely guarded academic traditions and conventions are loosening to embrace new ways of disseminating ideas to all." But has all this enthusiasm for social media led to a certain amount of fatigue, where HE professionals, academics and administation alike, feel saturated, unable to absorb and practice all they hear about? Panel