education & tech

Sarah Perez from ReadWriteWeb has written an excellent post on what is the future of blogging. Before, she says, "the main way to publish your own personal thoughts and opinions for the rest of the web to read," was blogging, and continues "blogging started a movement that democratized the web. Everyone could be a publisher. But now, blogging as everyone's preferred method of communication may be over. What's taking its place? Lifestreaming."

We do agree with some of her commenters, Blogging it's not the same as Lifestreaming. The process of Lifestreaming will probably appeal to people who are less concerned about writing as their primary output and who do more with audio, video, and images. It may also be more suited to people who share freely and easily as opposed to saving up bits and ideas and then posting. And we don't think either, blogging will be replaced by this new tendency, not in a short period of time.

There are many people who write not because they want to be on top of Google searching of the even care about Technorati rankings, these people will sustain blogging as it begun; no matter that lifestreaming develop and some look for some voyeurism, blogging will persist a long while. All experienced bloggers, making or not profit of blogging are using different channels of distribution but, it doesn't mean they are moving ( as Sarah tries to show you), they promote their contents. That's all.

Now, we do agree with Sarah on this paragraph, it's becoming hard for bloggers to attract readers, because they are getting used to Friendfeed on the sort, so blogging need to be reinvented, not as a mere democratization of the www but as a disruptive process to communicate. Here's the paragraph:

The simplicity of a lifestream is ideal for our information overloaded age. Lifestreams are short and sweet, yet still provide the same insight into a person's life as yesterday's casual personal blog did. A video here, a photo there, and today's web citizens can voyeuristically peer into anyone's life and get a sense of who they are. Long-form bloggers, on the other hand (myself included) require time and attention to read, but with so many publishers out there, people just aren't reading content like they used to - they're just scanning text and moving on. For new bloggers, this means getting readers is harder than ever - your words are getting lost in a sea of noise. So to stand out, several are turning to the lifestream instead in order to get noticed.

Do you think Blogging will be replaced by Lifestreaming at the Friendfeed style?

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This is an interesting post that needs to be featured, the rule doesn't apply to school or education only, but it's valid to our daily activities, as well. Normally, when you have an issue, a difficult situation, a problem, most of the times you start looking to the other side. However, there are occasions when your social role doesn't allow you to do that, let's say you are a parent and find yourself in the middle of a conflict with your teenage, can you you look around and pretend there is not a problem?

Here is the moment that requires to you, "being part of the solution" because it "is the only viable option."

Teaching in the Middle, is a new source of educational matters to us and this post written on Are the Obstacle or the Answer make us subscribe to it, immediately. Patrick Woessner, is heading this page and we would like to reproduce his questions about the topic but applied to schools. What will it be your answers:

"When websites are blocked, are students more likely to ask the school to consider opening them and state their rationale or simply use the Tor network to bypass the filter? When an application doesn’t work properly and a lesson fails, are teachers more likely to pursue an after-the-fact solution with the IT department or simply forgo using that program again and opt for the low-tech “Plan B”? When updated equipment is required to provide an optimal learning environment but the budget request is declined, does the technology staff demonstrate the undeniable need or prepare to make do with what is available?"

As for me, many times I've felt compelled to stay as part of the problem, to be honest, but we have to move on and accept we are being lazy in this side and wish to give out the best of ourselves to help in the solution. I cannot let down, my son just because I feel like looking to the other side...

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TechWhimsy says that overload of information on the www sounds like a First World problem and refers to it on these terms, "a bunch of hyper-connected individuals who have found that 'Life 2.0' has left their brains crammed with more information than they can process, leaving them anxious, jaded, or worn out (or all of the above)."

Some people also think that the internet will collapse into a few years, will it be a problem generated by the overload of information? The editor of TechWimsy wants to give you a clue on where the real problem is:

"Where does the problem lie? Consuming large amounts of media is actually pretty easy. You can see a video from 2007 by 4 hour work week guru Tim Ferriss of Robert Scoble outlining how he reads 600+ news feeds every day as just one example of how to do it (although I don’t know if Scoble still consumes media in quite this way). The difficulty is in absorbing the information, filtering it and synthesising and sharing it. Normal people don’t have this problem. I’m sure that most people who consume massive amounts of data do it for fun and personal interest and don’t have the inner need to process it to a level that writers and other web professionals do.

The people experiencing the most difficulty are the amateurs writing, digging, twittering, friending, stumbling and otherwise staying connected for the fun of it. These are people who have a full time job and often families of their own where reading and processing information is done in their spare time, time that could be spent de-compressing, socialising, unwinding and experiencing. Be aware that I’m not passing judgement on how people choose to spend their spare time (I’m one of these people described above after all), but it explains to me why this malaise seems to have become the echo-meme du jour."

Wonder what is the solution?

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Mike anticipated this document before I have. He not only cited to the Downes's Speech in Spain (Internet in the Classroom), but has also translated part of his speech. Job we were pending with gabinetedeinformatica.net However, to fill Fernando Santamaría's expectations, here we present our work based on Esperanza Román's blog [es], she writes:


I agree with all those who praise Downes' figure, because of his genuine and indisputable commitment to the education world (although some prefer to concentrate solely on the most folkloric of his so evocative edupunk speech, also too eduhippie atrezzo and his digital shop much edupop ). Also, like Diego [es] said, I don't think Downes simply took neither a good nor a bad impression of the audience by the questions that were done to him. Nor do I believe that Downes is aware of how strange some of his answers sounded, in interpreter's mouth (I haven't had time able to hear the original audio) or how difficult it can be for many teachers and professionals to follow his advice on how to steal time to the clock.

That is why I applaud from here that we talk and write about what it's been really thought of the affirmations, both, of Downes(certainly not to radical at this time) and any other person of the stature of this educator. As many have said, some of the ideas presented by Downes are anything but innovation (which does not mean that they are not valid). Others may be debatable and others, improved after some restatement. But the most important ideas, in my personal opinion, are:

- Think about all of them.
- Look for the applicability it has in our immediate surroundings.
- Try to answer all by ourselves, those questions that provoked certain strange in Downes, like the assuption that in the conference room where he pronounced his speech, there weren't more laptops among the audience.
- Recognize with no shame that our standard of "connectivity" is lower than the U.S. but even so, we have many ideas on how we work and collaborate in the web, even facing immense technological limitations from our countries in general and our work environments in particular.
- Follow up the conversations, so that all the voices are listened, not only those in agreement with the majority or with the state-of-the-art fashions.

These are the reasons why I've committed, voluntarily and in a altruistic way, to the Conectivistas [es] group (Connectivism). We sincerely believe that the most appropriate way of advancing knowledge in this field is collaboration and dialogue among people interested in improving education, maximize technology, analyse the influence it has on society and, commit to these benefits, so they can be enjoyed by all sectors of the population.

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It was seen at deanstalk.net but since they just moved the post I have to link to the orirginal source which is teachingtips blog and written by Laura Miilligan.

'Before you can toss out the textbook and replace it with technology tools, you’ll need to understand how your students — whatever their age — respond to and work with technology', Milligan points out.

And she list 100 assessments you should watch for, of which we've included only the very first ones.

1. Assessing What Students Learn in Technology-Based Learning Environments: Read this report to understand what students gain from technology tools in the classroom.
2. GT Prof: Students Learn Better Via iPod Versus Lecture: This article from Campus Technology cites a Georgia Tech professor who believes that iPods are more effective teaching tools for some students.
3. Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement: Chapters in this report include "Technology and Youth: Wired Schools and Wired Lives," and "Inclusion: Reaching All Students."
4. Effects of Technology on Classrooms and Students: From change in student and teacher roles to more collaboration with peers, this report argues for using technology in the classroom.
5. Students’ Evolving Use of Technology: This article considers a study of how college students use and benefit from information technology systems.
6. Kids Outsmart Web Filters: Sometimes, teachers are faced with students who know way more about technology than they do. Learn how to prepare yourself by reading this article.
7. In Class, I Have to Power Down: This article questions "why are schools lagging so far behind" their students when it comes to using and understanding technology.
8. Better Students Through Technology!: This guide helps teachers in their plan to implement technology-rich lesson plans and environments.
9. College Students Score Higher in Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than in Traditional Classes: ScienceDaily reports that technology in higher education classes is very beneficial to older students.
10. Regular Computer Use for Work, But Not Play, Aids Student Test Performance: Find out how computer practice helps students perform on standardized tests.

Global Voices is working hard in Budapest and if you are not being able to assist, please follow the the reunion on all channels available, here.

Fields turn green and flowers bloom, birds return from their long winter migration. The sounds of summer soon begin, with children laughing and enjoying the most popular pastimes. Are they? Unless your kids count on organized football leagues, pee wee baseball, swimming, kids just don't seem to play 'pickup' games or get involved in elderly family conversations like before. The reasons can be as different as families we have, but taking away the enjoyment of summer and the freedom that allow kids to create, invent and discover new games and sports, we as teachers and parents, are preventing our children from discovering themselves and acquiring life skills that can ultimately improve their chances of future success.

It has often said that television is the modern day babysitter, and more and more heads of households are relying on the 'boob tube' to entertain youngsters and keep them safely indoors. As if the hundreds of channels available on cable TV aren't enough, most children now have access to computers, entertainment consoles and handheld video games.

Many (even ourselves) are choosing to play virtual sports rather than get together in the park, school playgrounds or visit your family or friend('s) for a quick game of ball. Before it gets completely out of hand and after we lose more obese children or have shootings and killings in the educational world, parents and teachers as well, should limit and encourage kids to use less time spend on using the most current technology and if necessary, encourage them to go out and play. Kids just don't do it anymore.

But once they find the computer or TV are off limits and the Playstation is put away, they will quickly realize that the best way to enjoy this summer is to play outside and have old fashioned fun. What do you think?

Technorati: kids, sports, summer, school, health

No more taboos in the web 2.0 era even when consequences could make fall down people that in other times where example for Americans but no more here in New York. Wired brigs a interesting report about Brian Alexander's book America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction .

Alexander observed and interviewed people countrywide and he holds skeptical about critics who suggest personal experience may be necessary to present a really balanced chronicle of contemporary sexuality, and he backs up his skepticism: "If I'm going to cover a war, I have to kill people? " The author creates a powerful and entertaining look at what is really going on in the American bedroom, sex club and adult store and even church, and demands we should think about how to move ahead to create a sexually healthier society. Hope you read in the net an article it said teens in a very high percentage were infected by chlamydia, herpes and other related stuff.

Internet had changed not only that way we perceive life and human activities but it also had an impact in our dorms, not matter your young, adult or not living in a social recognized group. As Regina Lynn writes, "Over and over again, Alexander's subjects told him that the internet had opened their eyes, dispelled their fears, given them new avenues for pleasure, and provided support as they figured out what they really wanted from sex."

How we as parents or teachers are supposed to teach this intricated pathways to our kids or students? If they're learn not from us anymore, not even from their friends, they just have to sing in to a forum or type in the question in Google and they have they very own way! Can we still control what they are to learn in about sexual education and sex?

I will gladly read your answers.

Technorati: books, brian+alexander, sex, sexual+education, society

Is customary at the beginnig of each new year to make wishes, perdictions and promises. In Education and Technology, first of all we want you to have a prosperous New Year and that all your wishes come through.

In this blog you will find more content filtered and sumarized in some cases of the tendencies in technology and of course our core knowledge, education. You can, beging this year follow or subscribe to our Shared Items in Google Reader. We've updated the way you can subscribe to this page. Now you're going to be able to get notifications by email, Skype, AOL Messenger and Twitter, thanks to the good guys at FeedBlitz(Pinch the blue email icon at the top right corner).

We are not changing gears but this year you're going to be able to advertise in Education and Technology, on any of our other blogs, websites and Squidoo lenses. Not that were trying to get rich but we will try to bring up the number of visit per day, RSS subscribers, Technorati and Alexa ranks.

TonNet will pay more attention to the uniportant bloggers, some of them might become stars and examples I do have more than one. I will stick to the quality of contents, that's all. More attention will be paid to the edition of our posts, as others bloggers think, the ones where I thought about the post for minutes or maybe hours turned out to be great. The ones I banged out really fast without thinking too much, were not good at all.

I emulate what Scoble has written in his 'What I've learned in the 2007' particularly points 10 & 11: "The one who has the most friends on Facebook, Twitter, Upcoming, Yelp, Plaxo, Flickr, etc does NOT win the game. But, the one who FOLLOWS the most people on each of those DOES have a better life! When people were courting me to join them invariably they’d pitch me with 'do you want to make a lot of money?' I always hesitated on that question. Why? I know lots of miserable wealthy people. The right question? 'Do you want to have a ton of incredible experiences and great friends?' Now THAT I can say yes to, and do often."

I want to thank all of you dear readers, visitors, subscribers and bloggers. Without YOU, this blog won't exist and TonNet won't pursue his happiness. Let's hope economy gets better in the States and the prognosis made at Searchblog become 99% certainly true. And that before all birds fly away, Blogger works hard to bring up its positioning from the 9th to the first level.

In the meantime, have you all a great day and a Happy New Year!

I have to quote something I've found quite interesting from the closing keynote of Mark Cuban in the BlogWorldExpo:

Blogging isn't just about people getting things off their chest, it's a way for ideas and the truth to come out

Then the rest of the questions he answered from the audience transcript by Lynne d Johnson. The following are the three questions I we should all pay attention and tha's why I feel obliged to transcript:

Q: Future of blogging -- what can change it? What can take over?
A: The history of all of this is the Website. A lot of people were setting up sites in the 90s. People were putting up sites and speaking their mind. There were forums in Compuserve and Prodigy. Then it was an application that changed it all Don't think the game is gonna change all that much. I'm not a huge fan of UGC and YouTube. Whenever it is easier to create everybody does. The longer and longer the tail becomes. MSM is also adopting easy tools ... other things will come up. It's gonna be hard to have more than just the ultra long tail. Viewers or readership impact. Look at the music industry. It's so easy to create a song right now, everybody does. It's harder to stand out. It will come down to content is king, with marketing being a major part of it.

Q: What do you think about UGC now? Do you still think YouTube is not a real business?
A: If the media writes about it, then more media writes about it. YouTube is subsidizing any video you want to put on the Internet for free. Because they hide behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- Google can't get in trouble if someone puts up South Park. South Park has to find it and request it be taken down. They don't know what's there. They are hiding behind the DMCA. they can't put ads around what they don't know is there. Let Google pay. They can't sell ads around non-licensed content. If it were any other company in the world, they'd be gone. But they can subsidize a lot of things.

Q: If facebook were for sale would you buy it?
A: Yeah I'd buy it but I can't afford it. The two companies I would buy are Verizon and facebook.

However, Mark Cuban answered many other questions that you can read them all at FastCompany blog, this is something you can't ignore it:

When starting should you worry about ads?
Have you ever considered turning off comments because of haters?
How do you marry your business with blogging?
Did it work asking people to vote for you on your blog?
What about facebook's new advertising?
Do you write your own blog?
Do you find Bill O'Reilly's attacks on you to be a net plus or a net minus?
Is facebook overvalued?

A few days a ago I've seen a post from Library Clips where he tries to explain the importance and usability of the social filtering. "When I research a social web topic, I don’t surf the web I consult the blogs on my Reading List, I search these blogs, and I get lots of useful insight and pointers to other blog posts…I check out the blogs on the blogroll and search these blogs, etc…I save so much time searching my social filter and social graph (dare I say it), and I get fresh, quality content." Library clips even is tagging other bloggers to do it so.

It might help to take advantage of Yahoo! openness and start using for example a combined feed throughout Pipes. Once you've selected your prefered sources you can have them in one shot and it will save a lot of time browsing around or jumping from one page to another.

Rubel shows you how to data mine with Google reader but do not sell yourself out. If you downloaded Google Toolbar, enabled PageRank or have Web History on, then Google is spying on you! You know, nothing comes free!

Is then a good time to filter the Internet (not as Google is doing it, thought) but in a smart way that will work only for yourself. Million and millions of sources everyday show up, content is duplicated, garbage still is collected and you have to deal with it, is time to start off with the science of blog reading.

More in Scoble's blog.

haven't time to write much these days but while browsing my Google Reader Subscription I've came across something you all bloggers might be interested, the problem of duplicate content when in search the results come from your feeds. Joost de Valk has being following the trend in Europe and gives some recommendations of how to avoid this problem with your blog articles:

...In my opinion they do lead to duplicate content problems too, so there’s really only one thing you can do, and that’s block ‘em. But I’d like to block those feeds without loosing the nice side effect of their links going into my posts

Now, the duplicate content can be also caused by spam and specially if you're not paying hosting as is the case with Blog spot blogs. In order to understand better the situation I would like to suggest check out the PhD Thesis from Pram Kolari who has plenty of information about this matter.

This post stroked me hard. The problem is that everyone agrees Technorati is on the chopping block but people that were on Technorati’s Top list are not precisely on the Techmeme Leaderboard and now word of mouth is saying that Techmeme threatens Technorati. What do you think? My own experience, I don't like the positioning of my blog from Technorati!

Maybe you didn't come for this library stuff. However, being and educated person as I am thinking you are you cannot walk away without reading what's going on with this new tip, the wikipedia's growing pain.

Finally, this is out of context definitively. This is a blog anyway. Shame on AT&T, I am a subscriber but not for Internet service. What the hell is wrong with these guys. Do they forgot they're making businesses in America? Free speech, duh!

Academic studies over the last thirty years show that young people's interest and enthusiasm in schoolwork has declined precipitously. Socialnetworks in the other hand have become so engaging. Look at today's curriculum, though, and you won't find much interactivity, seems we are still learning through reading and regurgitating!

I am not a N-Gener anymore but enjoy while join online communities such as StumbleUpon or Youlicit. I don't even belong to the generation born between 1977 and 1996 (Baby Boom), this new Net Generation (G-Gen) is bigger and stronger than the baby boom itself. This is the first generation to grow up in the digital age, and makes them a huge force of collaboration. My son I can conclude is among those majority of Americans kids who learnt how to use computers at very early age and for studies, almost 90 percent of American teenagers are using the Net!

I was having fun while browsing around StumbleUpon and what I've found is again a world teeming with great opportunities and possibilities for education, work, and entrepreneurship. What do we need? We need the skills, motivation, capacity for a lifelong learning, and a basic income level to get connected.

So, begin for acquire knowledge and develop skills in order to build up your very own social network that will pay in the future.

Now a days is hard to catch up with all technological developments and get to the level where fluency is a plus in this digital world. Karin Dalziel, starts a first draft of what all would like to call types of information literacy.

Literacy, the ability to read and write.
Information Literacy, the ability to find, evaluate and use information
Media Literacy, the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms.
Digital Literacy, the ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information.

Frank Baker has suggested to add the word 'comprehend' as part of the Primary Activity in the chart built up to characterize this typology.

And Jenny, The Shifted Librarian thinks the chart should be completed with the category 'evaluating' in the first Information Literacy box (talking about the very same chart Dalziel has been working on).

So, after disclosing this interesting work I would like to ask you dear readers. What's you level of information literacy in scale 1 to 5?

If you have a kid as I do probably you'll be stunned in the way they love to play games and use all kind of consoles for this matter. I've had a hard time trying to limit his time spend in these games among playstation, gamecube, nintendo,etc. Fortunately, it seems they won't need too much science or math in order to get immerse in the labor market for next decade. Aili McConnon has published in the BusinessMeek a draft of what it means to be playing around for these kids and how the next labor force will be challenged and get benefits from these players.

The fledgling corporate games and virtual worlds are not nearly as sophisticated or visually stunning as some of the most popular consumer games involving millions of players, such as World of Warcraft, but they are precursors of what's in the pipeline. In a recent survey of nearly 1,500 people in large and small companies, the eLearning Guild—a group investigating the design and management of e-learning tools for business, government, and education—found that the number of people using games for work in the financial and banking industries alone had increased from 33% to nearly 40% in the past nine months.

So, if you're still thinking that you should hide the video game controller from your kids because they're spending too much time in front of the TV or computer, don't. What you perceive as it's slacking may just be preparing them to become productive members of the workforce when they get older. Their future office room are likely to be heavily digital—especially if they work remotely—and their work may resemble the online games that many now spend hours trying to decipher and playing.

The following is a post written by Debasmita Chanda, who trays to explain something sometimes unexplicable. What I really like about women? Have you ever ask this question? You better find and answer before you meet a woman today!

[...The women have something that attract men is that they have a different way of seeing the world. Without getting into the whole emotional/logical thing, it is true that women (or at least the ones I know) just see things differently than men. They notice different angles or aspects of a situation that most men will miss, and having women involved on projects (work, church, planning a camping trip, whatever) helps broaden men's view about life. Though women don't always present a logic but still they have a different way of proving themselves which is unique and men get so thrilled with the angle they present. Women sometimes present angles in a very simple way but it might bring a lot of meaning top men as they always search for meanings in it. So in a way men want to be dependant on them as they are sure that these women will surely take care of them and will support them in need...]

"...Depending on the field of expertise, I believe that some people's jobs could benefit from the use of social networks. Those who have to keep in contact with clients could greatly benefit from a social network such as Facebook, which provides a central place to communicate and stay organized. Did I mention that it could be a breeding ground for prospective clients and customers with a user base of 30 million active users?"

If you are interested in this history why you don't Digg it!

I am reading frecuently the Jenny's blog who proclaims to be called very soon Dr. Jenny!! She's being observing a class of rising 5th graders in a two-week math lab class in a district that struggles in terms of student achievement. The class is made of 27 fifth graders and her dean is working with them as a laboratory for learning about teaching and learning.

One of the problems to get solved is: 888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8. Where the goal is to get students to learn this in a way that lets them think flexibly about any base they work in, rather than just learning base 8. Want to try? Remember this is 5th, graders stuff.

In other period she was confronted with a number arrangements in order to arrive to concept of fractions. After 30 minutes on the train problem, students spent an hour on fractions.

Jenny points out the problem of conceptualization about what it means to be teaching, she says:

...Teaching is an active practice involving everthing from the teacher's words and physical movement in the room, to the quality of the notation on the board, to the type of homework (completed every night by math lab students)...

And this candidate finishes her report about Math Lab saying that she felt constantly amazed at the level of work it takes to be a great teacher. "For math here, it takes deep content knowledge of mathematics, as well as the knowledge of how to prompt learning, how to present new problems and encourage students to use knowledge they have to begin to solve new problems. This isn't easy."

Dear reader, do you think is an easy procedure try to explain a kid nine years old the propieties about adition or substraction?