Monthly Archives: July 2011
Social media find place in classroom – USATODAY.com
The principal of New Milford N.J. High School has nearly 12,300 Twitter followers his handle: @NMHS_Principal. He and his teachers use Facebook to communicate with students and parents, and students use it to plan events. In class, teachers routinely ask kids to power up their cellphones to respond to classroom polls and quizzes. Rather than ban cellphones, Sheninger calls them “mobile learning devices.”He replaced the schools “static, boring” website with what has become a heavily used Facebook page, and his teachers encourage students to research, write, edit, perform and publish their work online.
My opening remarks at the Iowa Education Summit | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think
Technology is allowing everyone to do more powerful and also more complex work, but that creative power is accompanied by significant disruptive impacts. For example, the same technologies that allow us to have a voice, find each other, and work together also are destroying geographic boundaries. Were seeing to our dismay that offshoring and outsourcing allow everyone, everywhere to compete with each other and with us. In addition to replacing jobs here with folks overseas, jobs also are being destroyed by software. If the Industrial Revolution was about replacing humans’ physical labor with machines, the Information Revolution often is about replacing humans’ cognitive labor with computers. In short, these new tools are radically transforming every single other information-oriented segment of our economy.Does the workforce preparation that most Iowa schools do reflect our new hyperconnected, hypercompetitive global economy and the impacts of these new technologies? Nope.
via My opening remarks at the Iowa Education Summit | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think.
A Principals Reflections: Turning the Tide
Over the past two years I have seen some dramatic shifts in an effort to transform New Milford High School into a 21st Century institution of teaching and learning. With a change in mindset and a great deal of support, I have been able to successfully empower my staff to integrate a variety of digital tools, including social media, to engage learners. The other day USA Today writer Greg Toppo highlighted some of the advances we have made in his article entitled “Social Media Find Place in Classroom.” Im not going to lie, I was a very proud principal reading this article as it clearly showed me how far we have come in terms of creating a vision for learning and communicating that is more in line with societal shifts. This vision has now become our reality. Photo credit: blogs.oxfam.orgThe problem though is that a large majority of stakeholders throughout the world think that the integration of technology is not essential in the classroom. Furthermore, the perception out there is that educators and schools who are utilizing 21st Century tools for teaching and learning are doing a disservice to learners.
In Digital Age, Schools That Succeed are Schools That Connect | MindShift
The trickiest of the cracks to get our heads around is the “connected divide,” separating those who are proficient in collaborative, creative and connected social networks and those who are not. It is growing exponentially wider on a daily basis. From students connecting with authors and scientists via Skype, to kids engaging in STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics curricula via MIT OpenCourseWare, to students tweeting and conversing with people half a world away in the midst of a revolution as students at my own school did during the events in Egypt, to teachers participating in daily worldwide discussions on professional development via the #edchat Twitter feed, connectedness will define the value of education over the next generation.
via In Digital Age, Schools That Succeed are Schools That Connect | MindShift.
InDesign’s 10+ New Tools To Make A Professional and Interactive eBook – Edudemic
Ever wanted to try your hand at publishing but never wanted to splash out on some pricey subscription-based publishing platform? If you can get your hands on a new copy of Adobe InDesign 5.5 if you’re a teacher, student, or school staffmember, use an education discount and you can save a bundle then you’ll be using some the most advanced and easy-to-use software out there with no recurring costs.
10 REASONS TO USE INDESIGN 5.5
Here’s the skinny: get a copy of InDesign 5.5 download a free trial here and start playing around with it. If you’re familiar with InDesign or even if you’re not, create a new document and start adding in text boxes, images, dropcaps, and other fun stuff. Now that you have some stuff to mess around with, here’s the fun new stuff that’s going to turn your document into a slick eBook that’ll be the envy of all your friends and family. Or not. Either way, these features are pretty cool:
via InDesign’s 10+ New Tools To Make A Professional and Interactive eBook – Edudemic.
Learning with es: The natives are revolting
The message is clear: teachers should not assume that because many children are adept at using new and emerging technology, that they are able to apply them freely in formalised learning contexts such as school. Nor as a result, should they shy away from using technology in the classroom with the fear that the children will know more about it than me – children may have skills in the use of technology, but teachers have the skills and the knowledge to create engaging and exciting learning opportunities and environments. Technology is simply a part of that equation.
The World Is My Textbook: Participatory Learning and New Media for Connecting, Creating, and Collaborating with Students | DMLcentral
