education & tech

It's being a way long since I wasn't able to read a post like Chris Lehmann's wrote last week. He's been reading Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody and looks at how some of those principles can be applied to facilitating change in schools; Lehmann is sure that some of the frustration about change shows up when you compare it to the blinding speed of change in so many other facets of our evolving society right now.

A continuation we reproduce a paragraph we think, calls everyone to take action, because as Lehmann says, 'hard' shouldn't be the reason we don't do it!


"We could use the tools we have to start a call for change. We could look to set up a core set of principles for school reform that harnesses the best pedagogies and the new tools. We could look to build a coalition of administrators, teachers, parents and students to take action in the upcoming campaign. What might it look like? Shirky points out that for collective action to work, the action must require enough effort on the part of those taking action that decision-makers take notice. We could all go to used bookstores and look for old, beat-up textbooks and send them to our Congressmen with a flyer saying, "Is this how students should learn in 2008?" and a list of our core principles and goals. We could coordinate it all with Web 2.0 tools. We could follow up with an online petition to the McCain and Obama campaigns asking for a presidental debate on educational issues."

That's not a secret, the rapid pace of technological innovation has affected virtually every sector of the American marketplace – except education. Today’s schools look largely the same as they did a century ago. There may be more Internet access and more computers in classrooms, but the traditional public educational model – one teacher guiding a large group of students through a lesson – has not changed, at all.

What are you waiting for?

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I came across to a website dedicated to promote the celebration of Internet good use. All bloggers are invited, and there is a contest about writing a story on how the web has transformed your life or the lives of a community you belong to, or the city you live in or your country, which means it goes worldwide. The story needs to be factual but you have the choice to be businesslike, narrative or even poetic. The stories can be reflections of how the web has transformed people’s lives, in the individual, political, economic, cultural and spiritual sphere.

OneWebDay.org is calling on this contest and has published the experiences from a student from a locally popular Institute of Engineering in India, currently in his third year of Information Technology. What it wonders me is his conclusions that he hasn’t learned anything from the Internet! Well, here in the States we have a great respect for students and professionals coming from India. Will Sivasubramanian Muthusamy be asserted on his appreciations? He explains the reasons why this student has learned anything from the Internet. "While we have institutions in India such as the Indian Institute of Technology where the facilities and quality of education match if not surpass the standards of some of the most renowned institutions in the world, this story truly reflects on the Internet access facilities and the attitude of the authorities in several schools / colleges across India."

One of the reasons developed countries enjoy a great advancement and their social networks work perfectly is the access to the Internet. David Sasaki has reason when he says there are three obstacles to a truly global conversation, he writes that censorship, lack of digital inclusion and language are the causes not all people are and feel included in mega networks as the Internet is. This is precisely what could be happening in India with Prabhu (the student who shared the story).

Those are good reasons not only to the hear when the world is talking but to join One Web Day 2008. Are you listening? The world is talking.

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We've already posted on Edublogs but, this weekend while we set aside some time to read our subscriptions, we've found Edublogs joins in to the big leagues in provinding video hosting (TeacherTube, YouTube, Blip.tv). This is really useful beacuse teachers need their very own channel.

The next screenshot, shows the progress of Edublogs.tv from Wednesday night to Saturday after noon:

The ideant of 'transforming teaching, learning and leadership through the strategic application of technology", Miguel Guhlin shares his experiences using the brand new service and he still looks for some answers: a) How many video/audio files can be stored in an account? How much space? I'm looking for a replacement for Podomatic.com, on which I'm about to reach the 500 meg limit for my podcasts; b) When will Creative Commons integration -great question Derekeb tweeted- be added to this? c)Can we change "My Music" to "My Podcasts?" d) Could you make the description box a bit bigger? It would be nice to paste in URLs to the text that goes with it; e) Is it possible to embed images in the podcast description? and, f) How about adding recently uploaded audio/podcasts to the front page, in addition to the list of videos there?

James Farmer was paying attention to Edublogs.tv buzz and he already aswered some of Mike questions in a comment posted in Around the Corner, administrated by Guhlin.

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Doug Belshaw has envisioned a unique project which has been aired only once but, as he put it, 'few problems which delayed getting the the first EdTechRoundup Weekly show out until today.'

You read it. They’ve decided as a group that their weekly Sunday meetings contain enough ideas and useful discussion to start getting it out there as podcasts.

Conversations about using tecnology in education are being presented this Sunday at 8pm BST (July 6th, your local time) and the invitations are for everyone in the blogosphere.. Belshaw has promised the rounding up will be about what they’ve found useful in the world of educational technology now, but they also have a special guest, Mike Jones!

If you are able to attend please do it so, If not, at least hear the podcasts.

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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.

A Difference is a blog written by Mr. Kuropatwa and he uses a template we used to have for Education & Tech (B.P.L.E., before) which is nice and really, really bring us back when we started to blog and we're building our first steps into blogging life.

Mr. Kuropatwa reports on the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference that sadly we missed and offers a podcast of what Arnold Wasserman had said about his conceptions on Education Innovative. The enclosure of podcast belongs to his author and we reproduced it here under Creative Commons deed.

(Download File 14.8Mb, 61 min. 30 sec.)

Sue Walters, The Edublogger, wants ho hear from you about all your experiences on how to use blogs with your students, and how to bring into a meaningful conversation all topics discussed in your classroom.

Here the topics you might want to comment on or post about:

"Why you blog? How does it benefit you or your work?
How you use blogging with your students and how it has helped them (if applicable)
Examples of class and/or student blogs for them to check out
What are your 3 most important tips for educators, new to blogging, who would like to blog with their students?"

Contribute and help her/us to carry out a great conversation on these topics.

During this weekend where they also congregated for the II CREAD Andes Congress and Virtual EDUCA Summit, the Loja Technical University (UTPL - Ecuador), dozens of doctors and candidates to PhD attended the First Summit on Collaboartive Doctorate Programs and Research Incubators and the event was patronized by the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (OUI)


Claude Olivier, ETS PhD attending the meeting. Watch the proposals I, II & III [es]

I wanted to write about what's happening on applications, and what I ended is thinking of best ways to help students getting to college or universities.   Sometimes inexperienced young people commits to study but they don't realize of all their chances to change  life while concluding  professional careers.

Change the way your take your notes in class.

It's not the best way to handle documents but for students works perfectly. Google Docs is a good tool not to take notes only, but to share them and enrich them when you have to work on projects.  Remember too, Google Docs allows you to embed Power Point files.

Of course, Google Docs isn’t perfect. When using it with 4 or more collaborators, Paul Stamatiou [Google Docs: Changing the Way I Work]  have found that merge conflicts  occur quite often and it becomes rather annoying.  Other than those issues, Docs falls short of being a complete word processing solution for students. Many of them still end up fine-tuning their documents in Microsoft Word before printing and turning them in.

Brand yourself writing on a blog.

"I haven’t yet taken much consideration’s for “branding” of my blog, but I think in someway our sites take on branding naturally ... so I guess in a way without trying, we do end up branding ourselves" says Stephanie from jusanotherblogger.com

And she's right. It doesn't matter if you are a technical or social student, having a blog helps you lots. One of the first steps in creating a brand for yourself is to make your blog visible. Post meaningful entries, comment on your niche’s top blogs, or simply gain a regular readership. Visibility creates opportunities, it's  believed that when you brand yourself, the competition becomes irrelevant. So, the goal of personal branding is to be recruited based on your brand, not applying for jobs.

Pick courses that will help you make bucks.

If you're in college, about to start the university, or looking to take some classes,  the list below for college courses will help make you rich.  It's well known that school doesn't prepare you  for life, even when educators, administrators or government shout it out loud.   Schools (though) help to identify which classes are the most relevant and helpful for those of you looking to become rich entrepreneurs.

Robert, head of flimjo.com lists eight courses that, if used correctly, will put you on your path to amaze money (no particular order):

1. Accounting - People does not comprehend the difference between an asset and a liability.

2.  Marketing  - Products fail because you need to find the market first, and then develop a product.

3. Economics - Identify which direction your business is going in, then take advantage of specific trends,

4. Finance - Learn time value of money and why you lose money while waiting for your refund check!

5. American History Course - Turn around terrible decision-making learning from history.

6. Writing and Composition - Open doors, figure it out how many blogs are paying money to good writers.

7. Literature Courses - Books provide timeless principles of personal development and wealth creation.

8. Management - Understanding of management concepts and learning different techniques and skills will not only make you likable,  they will  help you make more money!

I thought education was running ok even on war times and in the presence of a globalization not only of the economies but inflation, as well. The dollar it's not the heavy currency that used to be and it seems is affecting not only the pockets of suv's drivers but schools and parents.

No matter if we have just a web we need education for everyone and at all levels (hem, does any of the presidential candidates has spoken about it). We cannot keep up with chart schools or even worst Schools for Poor. Definitely, the intentions of The loose-knit group, called the New Schools Collaborative, Piton Foundation, Donnell-Kay Foundation and the Daniels Fund, are well received for their work in urban education in Denver.

But society doesn't have to pool money to solve problems the government has to. The knowledge of this gropus will help jump-start the creation or replication of schools that have proved successful with students from low-income families. Please, I do agree with their work and intentions, what I disagree is the segregation of poor families, poor kids, whre is the money of No Child Left Behind?

Might be that I'm so ignorant or I'm right. We just need a single school for everyone!

Technorati: education, Denver, new+schools+collaborative

Extract from DigiActive:

"The goal of the campaign is to draw attention to the persecution of the university, a particularly difficult task since the mainstream media in Russia is all state-controlled and is ignoring the issue. For this reason, members of the university community are using alternative media to raise awareness of the situation."

If you are to support these students, please head over to this Livejournal Community!

Chances are, your children use the Internet to play online games and/or socialize with peers. While both of those activities have their time and place, you'd probably be relieved to find your child learning while they are having fun. There are many educational sites that are so entertaining they will almost trick your child into learning. Below are seven of the best:

1. Ask Dr. Universe – Does your child have a propensity for asking hard questions about the universe? Perhaps they should "Ask Dr. Universe," the world's most curious cat. This fun site allows children to write in with questions about anything and Dr. Universe answers with authority.
2. National Geographic Kids – All kids love to read about dinosaurs and the wild side of nature. This massive site is full of fun facts and educational games.
3. Discovery Kids – This is the children's online companion to the Discovery Channel. It is similar to National Geographic Kids in content, but is worth its own merit.
4. NASA Kids' Club – Space is the final frontier and is a topic that children find endlessly fascinating. From online flight simulators to amazing high-res pictures of space, this is a great place for your little science expert to visit.
5. How Stuff Works – While this site is targeted toward people of all ages, children should be interested in learning how everything we take for granted in this world really works.
6. Cool Science for Curious Kids – This site is produced by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Here, children will get up close and personal with nature under a microscope, not to mention other creepy crawly things.
7. The Atoms Family – Learn all about "mad" science with appearances by Universal Monsters. For example, "The Mummy's Tomb" covers topics about kinetic energy and energy conservation. This site was designed by the Miami Museum of Science.

Trust me when I say that your children are more interested in nature and science than their video game addiction might indicate. Once a child starts surfing around the above-mentioned sites, they won't look back. In fact, it may teach them a newfound respect for their daily school routine.

(*)Heather Johnson is a freelance writer, as well as a monthly contributor for OEDb, a site to help students select among accredited online schools. Heather invites your comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address email address.

Technorati: education, kids, 7 best, heather+johnson, freelance+writing

Once in a while mass media echoes science, applications and derived tools from its core knowledge. Wired, brought in its attention to this topic and Brandom Kein asks, why science is so poorly covered by cable television and would say all mass media?

The extract he mentions cane from The State of the News Media 2008 and a sythesis is quoted from Wired:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism just released The State of the News Media 2008, its annual analysis of cable television news. The mediascape proved barren: On average, five hours of viewing would yield 71 minutes of politics, 26 minutes of crime, 12 minutes of disasters and 10 minutes of celebrities. Science, technology, health and the environment received just six minutes of coverage (with health and health care accounting for half of that.)

Are we educators taking science to level it should be? Or are we forgetting to favor technology?

Technorati: science, wired, news+media, journalism

Now the politics are in its most hot waters we should pay attention to what McCain, Clinton and Obama are talking about Education. None. However, we shouldn't forget our compromise as citizen and educators. Please allow us to requote what D. Warlick quoted from ETAN's page, about his support on Ed Tech Funding:

Did you know that the Bush Administration is intent on eliminating education technology funding? I find it so surprising that elected officials would want to do such a thing when we’re at a critical place as a Nation in terms of how we match up with others in a global economy. I personally don’t want to see our country fall behind when it comes to technology and innovation in the classroom – America needs to stay competitive! That’s why I went to www.EdTechActionNetwork.org to send a letter to my Members of Congress. It was really easy – just one click and I made my voice heard! I encourage you to do the same and join me to spread the word!

The Washington Post selected some opinions from experts about what courses should be required for every U.S. college student. Everyone has a different idea of what students need to know to be competitive in the 21st century. But let's hear Jack D. Dale, public's school chief of Fairfax County:

I majored in math and minored in physics, but it was an astronomy course I took that has stayed with me. In that course, the theory of math and physics came together in an applied science where I learned about black holes, event horizons, expanding vs. contracting universes and parallel universes, to name a few. In short, I learned about the creative side of science and still today enjoy the creative side of my career. As many current futurists will tell us our future is in creativity, whether that be in business, science, education or the arts.

The Web 2.0 is os differenciated that educators see it from another point of view that techies but at the end we all expect the Web 2.0 to impact the future of education and want to be appreciative of Steve Hargadon for writing a lenghty post on this new concept.(Note: Internal link quoted is ours):

You may think that you don't have anything to teach the generation of students who seem so tech-savvy, but they really, really need you. For centuries we have had to teach students how to seek out information – now we have to teach them how to sort from an overabundance of information. We've spent the last ten years teaching students how to protect themselves from inappropriate content – now we have to teach them to create appropriate content. They may be "digital natives," but their knowledge is surface level, and they desperately need training in real thinking skills. More than any other generation, they live lives that are largely separated from the adults around them, talking and texting on cell phones, and connecting online. We may be afraid to enter that world, but enter it we must, for they often swim in uncharted waters without the benefit of adult guidance. To do so we may need to change our conceptions of teaching, and better now than later

In other aspect of the so diverse field, the Education. Can you please try to answer this question? Is it pedagogically legit to separate schools for boys and girls? Scott Elliot elucubrates his answer around this gender differences who quotes Leonard Sax an advocate for single sex education:

...There is a biological reason for the similarities of those drawings within gender and the differences across it. It’s all about the way they process information in their brains. Boys and girls, Sax argues, develop at different paces when they are very young. By the time they are teenagers, those difference virtually disappear. But in elementary school, he says, they are pronounced enough that educators should be accounting for them.

So, before you go dear reader please stop for a while and keep America competitive, write your congressmen and support ed tech funding now!

Technorati: warlick, fairfax+county, web 2.0, leonard+sax, education+genders

I want to resist to believing this story run in first place by 10news.com and then replied at a good place I've found today. Kool design and a very different way of presenting news and interacting with netizens. The story I am about to comment was written by Gimundo.

He's been appointed to the National Institute for Literacy by President George Bush, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and subsequently served on the Board of the Institute under President Bush and President Clinton. He's John Corcoran, creator of a Foundation under his own name, Jonh Corcoran Foundation.

What id can be explained by me, at least, is how such a prominent person can't read while in school and how he found his way around such as the history says. Put it in this way, we'll love to have students like Mr. Corcoran. The original post deserves to be quoted:

When I was a child I was just sort of just moved along. When I got to high school I wanted to participate in athletics. At that time in high school I went underground. I decided to behave myself and do what it took. I started cheating by turning in other peoples' paper, dated the valedictorian and ran around with college prep kids

He learned to read anyway when he was 48. And after his long run of cheating he's an education advocate and has two books written, "The Teacher Who Couldn't Read" and "Bridge to Literacy."

Is this story embarrassing in any way or is it a motivator for the 'M' generation?

Technorati: education, Jonh Corcoran, stories, school

I've been reading few interesting blogs about librarians and what their work is in this field. Examples of good blogs are theshiftedlibrarian.com or libraryclips.blogsome.com and today I just 'discover' techessence.info and one of the authors wrote a post that brings our attention to something all professionals in Education need it and lack of most of the times. It's the professional development and the advantages of continuous education programs.

Meredith Farkas, share with us how hard is for him to find time and schedule a continuing education advancement. Being a Professor or a plain educator requires lot of dedication time, it's not only the time you have to 'speak' in class but the reading and research it takes for you to be updated and on top your subjects.

This is the time when reading blogs needs to be graduated and simplified; setting time for reading books is extremely hard. Could it the reason less and less young readers find pleasure in flipping the book's sheets? Continuing education is the key. As for librarians he mentions two cases of professional development: Learning 2.0 and Five Weeks to a Social Library.

Those are their cases, I wonder how can regular teachers get updated on the change of trends in technology in the classrooms, new pedagogical conceptions, efficient methodologies for each subject and comprehensive understanding of web 2.0 My take is all teachers need to create social networks that point to one single objective: Get a better educational system.

When I just finished my studies in the university I just to go to almost every seminar, course or anything that will make my career as important as I thought it should be. However, after years I can barely assist to anything that it's not online and then, again I have to say you can keep up with your professional development at your own peace even when you can catch up things as quick as many would love to do it.

Technorati: education, libraries, professional+development, continuing+education

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) jointly had produced The 2008 Horizon Report (pdf) which describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher
Education. This is:

a five-year qualitative research effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations

The 2008 report focuses on the following topics and whether you are an educator or parent you should read the pdf we just linked to:

1. Grassroots Video; today anyone can capture, edit, and share short video clips, using inexpensive equipment and free or nearly free software.

2. Collective Intelligence; emerging collective intelligence (explicit and implicit).

3. Social Operating Systems; using experimentation we'll continue the organization of the social networks around people, rather than around content.

4. Collaboration Webs; ownership of collaborative work and certification of authorship will have to solved.

5. Mobile Broadband; cell mobile distribution of content will grow.

6. Data Mashups; co-creation, mashups, remixes, and instant self-publication are being juxtaposed as regular data (Web 2.0)

Technorati: education, educause, NMC, horizon+report

Global Voices Online holds in the media by itself and it doesn't need any support because its own team, the editors, bloggers and translators worldwide are doing it. GVO aim to get information spread where normally the heavy media doesn't have access or doesn't want to get to it. Today, we were reading a post from Scobleizer where he respectfully says that Global Voices Online "is the right blog to keep up with human rights blogging from around the world". We want to say, being part of the authors of Global Voices that citizenjournalism goes beyond Human Rights. Yes, we do concern about what's going on with poor and speechless people but GVO certainly explain plain clearly what are their goals. Why you don't spent a few minutes and please read the About Page of the website.

So, why some bloggers don't have a say about Kenya incidents? Is it only the Tech blogs that are being quiet?

In the education arena, David Warlick remind us of The 2008 Education Blogosphere Survey. This is the second annual survey Scott McLeod has designed and it's online and for all those educators linked to educational matters, please head up and spent some worthy time completing such a valuable bank of information.

Hurry up! The deadline for this years participation is January 26, 11:00pm, (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) See last year results here.

What Bloghology is? According to the director of this project it is "...a collection of bloggers, their profiles, photos, and links to their best posts. It is a PDF e-book which can be easily circulated throughout the blogosphere for personal branding and marketing of selected good quality bloggers."

About one month Merr Erkal launched this project called Blogholohy and at the time I am writing this post we only have 12 hours remaining for the big event. Yes, he says in his blog, long waited Bloghology is almost ready including a few surprises for you. I am quite sure you will like it. As i said before, if i succeed in the first edition, i will keep on creating Bloghology every quarter. Will it be suscesfully created, you bet!

But why you blogger should join in to this Bloghology thingy? Let's ask again Mr Erkal to list some of the practical benefits:

1. One quality link back from Search For Blogging blog
2. Your biography will reach to hundreds of thousands bloggers all around the world.
3. You will be represented in a fancy way with your biography, photos, and links to your best shots!
4. You will be highlighted. It is your time to show up now!
5. You will join one of the most promising social networking community; Peopleized.com
6. Your interview will be presented on the frontpage of Peopleized.com

So, wait no more and promote your blog with these big ands promising network dedicated not for A-blogger but for small bloggers who happen to stop blogging, because it seems almost impossible to overcome those rough obstacles, and succeed in the end.

Greetings Mert, sign me in!

Soicialnetworking will keep growing and advertiser are glad things are coming this way. According to Suzzane Vranica from The Wall Street Journal this year firms will be spending over the traditional 5% of their online marketing budgets, so as she mentions with the growth of online video and social networking, ad experts expect that 5-10% percentage to jump significantly this year.

Economists had already predicted a recession for the American economy around first quarter and living in New York will more expensive than before now that the gasoline is overpriced as ever before in the States. This will get thing worse when neighbor states as New Jersey are experiencing a constant demographic outflows. Not that new jerseans are coming to NY but, people are increasingly leaving the high-cost Northeast and economically-challenged Midwest regions for destinations primarily in the lower-cost South, and secondarily to the Mountain states of the West.(James W. Huges).

In the big revolution approaching around music and wireless services, its being said Jay-Z is partnering with S. Jobs to start a Record label (http://www.profy.com/2008/01/03/jay-z-and-apple-ceo-steve-jobs-to-start-record-label).
The wireless services providers need to watch what's going to happen at the Sony CES 2008 and the predicted alliance to provide calls services between Skype and Sony. Any other partnerships to get afloat the Sony blue ray?

Users trying to take advantage of Facebook need to think twice, not even authorities in the A-list bloggers can get away with the policies violations. Scoble got suspended and after clarification, reinstalled, his account because he was trying to test a Plaxo script to pull and match e-mail addresses. Is Robert Scoble a corporate spy?

It came to my attention after reading my today subscriptions a great wiki that it's being managed by someone very well know in the educational field. We are talking about the Digital Dialog (http://digitaldialog.ning.com/) which aims to be a social network created to "provide parents, educators, and other care-givers with resources, ideas and links related to encouraging regular communication between younger and older learners about safe, appropriate, and fun uses of digital technologies."

Related:
The Scoble mess and data portability.