Googleability
April 11, 2008
Since I work in HR, I found this post by Will Richardson very interesting. How are students being taught about the impact of their digital footprints – or are they being taught this at all? I have started to be more conscious of my own items published to the web and interactions with others as I am just finally realizing the implications of both negative and positive items appearing when someone “looks me up” on the web. From what I have read about social networking and how to “protect” students, most of the literature I have read speaks to not posting personal information, being conscious of who they are adding as friends and the like (check out the PEW/Internet report on Teens, Privacy & Online Social Networks). The part that is being overlooked in many cases is the positive use of blogging, wikis, social networks, etc. (and it is happening). Students are enthusiastic to use the new mobile technologies and Web 2.0 tools, but from the post on Alec Couros’ blog today, it doesn’t look like this is sitting well with schools, administrators and parents. So how do we get the message across that this is important to their futures? What are your thoughts? What are you doing to make it happen?
My EC&I 831 Journey
April 8, 2008
Check out my reflection video on: My EC&I 831 Journey
How can you make Web 2.0 the future of your classroom?
March 10, 2008
I was really inspired by Steve Hargadon’s post Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education. He provides a great outline of how things are changing with Web 2.0 and then offers suggestions for how teachers can handle these changes. He also mentioned these major shifts in learning and education:
* From consuming to producing
* From authority to transparency
* From the expert to the facilitator
* From the lecture to the hallway
* From “access to information” to “access to people”
* From “learning about” to “learning to be”
* From passive to passionate learning
* From presentation to participation
* From publication to conversation
* From formal schooling to lifelong learning
* From supply-push to demand-pull
The only thing that I am still trying to digest is: “The Answer to Information Overload Is to Produce More Information.” This will take a little more deep thought to get my head around it.
Meme: Passion Quilt
February 20, 2008
Learning is a wonderful lifelong journey, not a destination. There will be highs and lows, but there is always sunshine just around the next curve.
Dean Shareski passed this my way. Here are the rules:
* Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr CreativeCommons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
* Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
* Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.
Okay, Here’s my list. (If you’re not familiar with these folks, check them out and add them to your reader)
teacher fear or teacher laziness
February 7, 2008
Okay, this is a griping blog post, so I am apologizing now. I am in a tech class on Web-CT, where we meet in a chat room once a week to discuss a chapter in the textbook(yes, the textbook). Everyone in the class is a teacher or course developer except for me (I used to teach, but now work in a law firm where training is amongst my duties). EVERY single week we have the same conversation about teachers not having time to learn about technology or use it. Why are they taking an on-line course then? I just read Liz Davis’ latest blog post about how collaboration through her social network helped her tremendously within a 10 minute span. I have tried to point them towards the amazing Web 2.0 tools we are using and learning about in Dr. Alec Couros‘ EC&I 831 class and great class blogs like Darren Kuropatwa’s. However, then they come up with other reasons for not using technology – Internet safety, money, not enough PD, curriculum(that was tonight’s new excuse). No wonder education is so far behind in this area – if the teachers aren’t willing to even try it out, how is it going to happen? Thanks to those wonderful teachers out there who are willing to spend some time to make a difference!
