Education Technology

Summer is almost upon us and many students (and teachers) are looking forward to some rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Most teachers will be working a second job and taking classes or attending professional development, and working on their lesson for next year. Many students will be working part time jobs and seniors will be getting ready for college.

Here are some ideas for students on how to spend their summer. I think these are great ideas. I'd add two more: read a good book and recharge your batteries.



Presented By: BachelorsDegreeOnline.com

Powerful Learning Practice is a site that provides professional development and resources for teachers to implement new technologies and pedagogy to create "21st Century Classrooms." There are some good resources on the site.

They have an article entitled "A Day in the Life of a Connected Educator – Using social media in 21st century classrooms" that looks at how teachers use social media and other Web 2.0 tools to improve teaching and learning.

The infographic is interesting and has ideas for using social media in the classroom. It follows a teacher through her day as she uses social media sites and Web 2.0 resources throughout her day as an educator. Teachers can get some great ideas from this for their own use.

It can be found at their site:
http://plpnetwork.com/2012/05/07/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-connected-educator-using-social-media-throughout-your-day/



Related:

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more
Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook - a nice comparison
Which Social Network should you use? Infographic on which to use when.

CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act) recently passed in congress in the House. It is a bill that allows the US Government and businesses to work together and share information on cyberthreats. It has been said that this bill is too vague and will allow too much information to be shared to the government. Others say it is a needed law.

In either case, it's something that we should learn more about and discuss with our students.

Here are some links:

CISPA Wikipedia article

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act: CISPA explained

US House passes controversial CISPA cybersecurity bill, now on to the Senate

ASCD (Association for Curriculum and Development) has taken statistics from a variety of sources and coalates it into a nice infographic about students, mobile learning, learning methods and what high school students want in mobile learning.

The research shows that banning mobile devices in school does not work and that schools should be embracing these devices and helping students use them for learning. Some of the stats:

63 percent of students attending schools carry their mobile devices despite the rules (probably conservative)
63 percent of students want online textbooks with communication facilities;
40 percent want online texts with collaboration tools.
43 percent stated social media is one of the main ways they communicate with friends online.
62 percent of student use the Internet as a new source; whereas 17 percent use it to gain knowledge concerning topics generally difficult to talk about — such as drug use.

I am one of those teachers who hastes the rule banning these devices. I've allowed my students to use them in class before and, along with some other faculty, is pushing to change the rules. Android for Education resources and apps

Encyclopedia Britannica announced that it was cancelling future publication of it's print edition due to falling sales. I'm not sure too many people were surprised considering the internet has become a free, on-demand resource for most people. The Encyclopedia Britannica was 32 volumes, $1,395, and outdated before you got it in your house.

Wikipedia is one of the reasons print, and even online subscription based, encyclopedias are failing. There are also millions of web sites that have information and resources that are interactive and free.

I remember my parents getting us an encyclopedia and being so happy I didn't have to bike to the library as much any more. Now, I can get more information than that in my smartphone. Online resources are constantly updated, link to other resources, and can be interactive with video, audio, and activities. It seems like textbooks are, or should be, going the way of the Dodo along with the encyclopedia.

The infographic below is a comparison of some data about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.


Infographic courtesy of Statista.


Related:

What I use with Physics classes instead of textbookAndroid Smartphone and Apps I use as an educator