Welcome to the Frontpage The (Coming) Social Media Revolution in the Academy - Daniels and Feagin - Fast Capitalism 8.2 Jessie Daniels and Joe R. Feagin A revolution in academia is coming. New social media and other web technologies are transforming the way we, as academics, do our job. Scholarship: Knowledge Production and Use in a Networked Society Scholars now completing PhD’s have likely never known a world without the Internet and social media. Ultimately, this technological transformation is going to have major implications on expert knowledge. Online Research in the Academy Now, academics do so much research online that it is difficult to remember a time when this wasn’t the case. Most information once available only in hard copy is now accessible for academics working away from their campus or college library. Academic Blogging and Microblogging Academics are increasingly bloggers. My initial blog entries were a form of pre-writing for my book chapters. Virtual Conferences and Backchannels and Curating the Ideal Academic Department Open Peer-Review & Crowd-Sourced Edited Volumes Conclusion
What will the new Google search mean for teachers? | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional As plans for Google's Knowledge Graph and new search emerge, Ben Morse explores the impact these developments will have on education and people working in schools In an observer interview this weekend, Tim Adams met with Google search bigwig Amit Singhal. During the recap of Google's potted history, and it's ambition for the new Knowledge Graph, a question occurred to me, that should be bothering a lot of us - what does this mean for teachers? Currently, Google search works reflexively - which is to say, it learns from you as you learn from it. But let's follow this line of thought through logically - if internet searching becomes more nuanced - if it can anticipate, associate and extrapolate meaning so that no matter how ham fisted the original question, an answer is derived with little effort, what does this mean for teaching? I don't think it will. It's not all bad news though. Knowledge is worthless without the tools with which to interpret it.
Digital literacies: What are they and why should we care? Digital literacies: What are they and why should we care? Submitted by nickyhockly on 21 February, 2013 - 15:12 In most UK schools new media literacy skills now supplement the more traditional 3 Rs (reading, writing and 'rithmatic). In Australia schools teach 'digital literacy skills', and in the USA there is a growing awareness of the importance of 'new media literacies'. In Spain and Norway there is talk of 'digital competences' being a necessary part of the curriculum. What are digital literacies? An umbrella term for the media literacy skills and digital competences which appear in national curricula, digital literacies refer to our ability to effectively make use of the technologies at our disposal. Why digital literacies in the language classroom? What has this got to do with language teaching, you may be asking yourself. Digital literacies So, what exactly is digital literacy? Focus on language: print and texting literacies Focus on information: search and information literacies
Story of an Idea In 2006, I completed my PhD dissertation titled “Examining the Open Movement: Possibilities & Implications for Education“. The study focused on the development of the open movement amongst educators. More specifically, it described the practice of teachers who were influenced by the ideals of the Open Source Software movement and the progression towards other forms of openness (e.g., open content, open access). When I completed and defended my work, it was an obvious choice to publish the dissertation under a copyleft license such as the Creative Commons NC/ATT/SA license. I uploaded my work to Scribd, and as of November 2009, it has had over 28,000 views. On page 175 of the document, I included a simple diagram titled “The Networked Teacher”. Original: Remixed – English: Silvia Tolisano Remixed – German: Silvia Tolisano Remixed – Spanish: Silvia Tolisano Remixed – Greek: Stylianos Mystikidas Remixed – Portugese: Veja Magazine Remixed – South African: Michael Paskevicius
Collection of eLearning Tools | A&H: Technology Enhanced Learning Learning is becoming: dynamic, real-time, social, mobile, local, fluid, peer to peer, gamified. The future will require more resilience. “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler. Teachers are filters for the current information tsunami. “The problem is not really information overload, but filter failure.” – Clay Shirky. Tools like the ones below are redefining the relationships between us and data/information, teachers and learners, work and play and enabling the re-imagination of education as interactive / online / accessible / ubiquitous. Over 2,000 tools for learning and working in education and the workplace LINK20 Must-Have Educational Resources For All Teachers LINKScreenr web-based screen recorder LINKSculptris is a 3D sculpting software LINK12 Tech Tools That Will Transform The Way You Teach!
What Teens Get About the Internet That Parents Don't - Mimi Ito Parents more often than not have a negative view of the role of the Internet in learning, and young people almost always have a positive one. GuitarLessons365Song/YouTube My 15-year-old daughter has been playing the viola since the fourth grade at school and she's been encouraged by her teachers to keep at it since, among other things, it's marketable for college. She has been contemplating a new instrument, guitar, more in line with her interests and what she listens to with her peers. This is how the conversation goes about the guitar. My daughter's comment is ironic: She knows I've spent the past decade researching how young people are learning differently because of the abundance of knowledge and social connections in today's networked world. Today's young people are more stressed than ever. Consequently, kids feel pressure to not only do well on tests and in school, but in their out-of-school activities as well.
Stop Talking about Education; Start Doing Something Today’s world moves quickly, and it can be overwhelming to think about learning five years from now. Because of this, it is easy for schools to get caught in the trap of working one hour, one day or one week ahead instead of having a vision for the next five years. The schools in this community have made incredible strides over the past few years increasing the number of kids earning high school credit while still at the middle school, providing students opportunities to build presentation literacy skills with adult audiences, growing the passion of students to advocate for causes in their community and beyond, and supporting the work of teachers to build physically and emotionally healthy kids. Over the next five years, I hope that the schools in this community continue to build a more personalized learning environment that provides opportunities for kids to dig deeply into areas of learning in which they are passionate. The TED talk below continues to frame some of these ideas.
ng Innovation | Just in Time Teaching (JiTT) Just-in-Time Teaching focuses on improving student learning through the use of brief web-based questions (JiTT exercises) delivered before a class meeting. Students' responses to JiTT exercises are reviewed by the instructor a few hours before class and are used to develop classroom activities addressing learning gaps revealed in the JiTT responses. JiTT exercises allow instructors to quickly gather information about student understanding of course concepts immediately prior to a class meeting and tailor activities to meet students' actual learning needs.Just-in-Time Teaching focuses on improving student learning through the use of brief web-based questions (JiTT exercises) delivered before a class meeting.
Écoutez Bien – A Listening Journey | musings from the island ” I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening. Most people never listen” I don’t disagree with Ernest Hemmingway’s sentiment but when it comes to GCSE languages most students find it difficult to listen. They struggle with the speed, the accents and the vocabulary used in listening exams. I am so often greeted with ” I hate listening exercises Miss, they’re so hard” once again this January, I found myself in exactly that position. If practice is the way forward then I required my students to practise at home. We are very fortunate here on the Isle of Man as all students have a google mail account so deciding to use google sites for my website was a fairly easy choice. With my website done I was now in a position to add some listening tasks. You have the option of multiple choice, this format is also good for true,false, not mentioned type questions too. My students could now view the listening clips and view the questions on the same page on my website. Like this:
Tech Comfy NOT Tech Savvy! Without a doubt, my 13-year-old daughter can text paragraphs faster and more accurate than I can text one sentence. My 15-year-old son is my go-to person for all my TV, computer, and technology needs. He had all my apps downloaded and ready to go on my Droid phone before I knew how to turn it on. Watching my 3-year-old niece navigate her way around the screen confirms what my friend, Chris Lehman, has proclaimed for some time; technology is like oxygen for these kids. Their ease with the web is simply amazing. Being tech-comfy, however, does not guarantee their proficiencies automatically grow into new and sophisticated literacies or on line competencies as info-sumers, critical thinkers, and savvy participants in a digital space. You can read more about the study here, but the following exchange sums up the overall results: One of the researchers asked a study participant, “What is this website?” The facts are disturbing:
The 12 Must-Have Skills Of Modern Learners If you consider yourself a modern learner and take advantage of modern technology in order to improve yourself, then you probably have some or most of these characteristics. If you use technology to bolster your understanding of a particular topic, use critical thinking and problem-solving skills to tackle tough questions, or simply collaborate across networks (online and in-person), then you’ve got some of the skills of modern learners. That’s the idea behind this fabulous visualization from User-Generated Education . It details the 12 skills of modern learners that, depending on your current skill level, you should aspire to attain, already have, or at least know about. Personally, I like the focus on agility and adaptability. Another critical skill I want to point out is empathy and global stewardship. What’s your favorite skill?
7 Must-Read Books on the Future of Information and the Internet by Maria Popova From retrofuturist media prophecies to the cognitive consequences of mobile-everything. We’re deeply fascinated by the evolution of media and the sociocognitive adaptations that go along with it, but perhaps even more so by the intellectual debates surrounding this ever-swelling topic of increasing urgency and controversy. From our good friend and New York Times writer Nick Bilton comes I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted — a provocative look at how new media models are shaping the future of cross-platform storytelling. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. Even if Carr is right and the Internet is taking a toll on our brains, it doesn’t have to. During the later Middle Ages a staggering growth in the production of manuscripts, facilitated by the use of paper, accompanied a great expansion of readers outside the monastic and scholastic contexts. ~ Ann Blair Share on Tumblr
Social Collaboration… The Collaboration Pyramid by oscarberg, on Flickr The Collaboration Pyramid offers a great visual to dive deeper into the nature of authentic collaboration and optimized production. In traditional team-based collaborative models we experience the “form, storm, norm and perform” process, and it has proved to be very useful in the context of team effectiveness, but perhaps leaves a bit of a void in the area of personal responsibility, or individual motivation to make a meaningful contribution to the team. The Collaboration Pyramid displays a broader platform to support a different context for collaboration that may eventually lead to more authentic and meaningful personal investment in the team process. I think social collaboration as framed in the diagram is closely related to the concept of morphic resonance. morphic resonance [ˈmɔːfɪk] n This act of becoming visible and participating as a receiver creates possibility in teaching and learning.