Connecting 21st Century Students with 21st Century Technology – Videoconference…

This afternoon I had the opportunity to connect up with a whole bunch of schools for a video conference from all around North Carolina put on the by the North Carolina Connectivity Council.  It was really cool.  We could see all of them and they could see us. :)  There should be an archive of the video posted soon.  Here is the excerpt from the announcement.  

The challenge for North Carolina educators is to ensure that every public school student graduates from high school, globally competitive for work and postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st Century.  Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis and social networking sites, provide students the opportunity to communicate, create and collaborate in new and exciting ways.  However, some educators and parents are concerned that these “just in time”technologies create an unsafe environment for our children.

Technology specialists from four NC school districts will describe their school systems’ approach to using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning.  Panelists will present the best practices from their respective districts while discussing the challenges of implementing these new technologies. 

Ideas from around North Carolina that Teacher are currently using that IS working:

  • Teacher Created Wiki’s
  • Teacher Created Blogs for Professional Development
  • District Blog to model, share resources, and collaborate. 

Things Students are doing that is working.

  • Green County Schools have a 1 to 1 laptop program.  (Wow)
  • Student created Wiki’s – Creating based on the information that is created in class.  Do it in the class while the teacher is speaking. 
  • Kids created blogs and commenting on other blogs. 
  • Book Study through Wiki

Tools that People ARE using

Challenges

  • Time on Task… there are a ton of kids online and it is hard to monitor what they are doing.  
  • Social Networking (Teachers are no longer allowed to be friends with students in some schools… good idea.)
  • Keeping Acceptable Use Policy up to date
  • Time… there are so MANY tools… not enough time to address them all. 
  • Expanding the global learning network so that learning can be global.   Finding people to collaborate with people around the world via Skype and other technologies above. 

Trainings for Teachers

I found it interesting that in many cases the instructional technologist are working with a group of teachers to train and prepare them to use this web 2.0 technology.  It is sometimes done as a monthly meeting, a mandated technology hour requirement, training classes, an annual fall conference, or using the web 2.0 technologies themselves.

By Jeff | Posted on: January 22, 2009 at 4:13 pm | Comments (3)

Exploring the Construction Zone inside the Media Gap – Paul Jones – Founder of ibiblio.org

This afternoon a group we have here on campus, the Carolina Technology Consultants (CTC) sponsored a talk from Paul Jones here on campus.  He is a professor in the SILS department here on campus and really one of the most forward thinkers here on UNC’s campus in regard to technology.  

He titled his presentation “Exploring the Construction Zone inside the Media Gap.”  I put the important stuff here, but he did a Google presentation that can be seen here that I would highly recommend. 

Theory Background – Like any good professor, he laid out some of the history back to the early 80′s when we started thinking about media and social media and communication.  It is interesting that we have been thinking about this since then.  He also lays out three laws that guide our progression of media to social media today.  He then moves into social media. 

Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” – Categories for publishing in the Media Gap

 

  1. Sharing culture of Flickr
  2. Collaborative nature of Wikipedia
  3. Collective action of internet groupings, like the use of a Facebook group to force HSBC to reverse it’s decision on withdrawing students’ interest-free overdrafts.

 

How American Nerds Fill the Gap

This was really one of my favorite parts of the presentation.  He obviously spoke to me as a nerd, but also used traits of nerds to lay out the emergence of social media.  We as nerds have these strange weaknesses that are “engineered away’ ===> into 5 SuperPowers!

 

  1. Attention Deficit Disorder ===> Multi-Tasking
  2. Asperger inablity to get visual emotional cues ===> Text-based interactions replace human Face2Face.  Visual cues become emoticons ;->
  3. Hyper-literality; jargon of the tasks and games ===> OMG!  Mainstreaming of our jargon into slang.
  4. Friendless geeks ===> Redefining Friendship (Dunbar’s number)
  5. Idiocentric Humor ===> The power of Internet memes; our shared mindspace.

 

Future of the Nerd

Someone asked about the future of the Nerd.  This is really a great question.  ”Nerds” have become mainstream.  Everyone is now using social media.  Everyone has 4000 friends on Facebook.  So what do you think?  What is the future of the Nerd?  What is our future?

Bibliography

Paul put together an AWESOME bibliography for anyone interested in social media.  This is fantastic.  He said it as okay to share so I thought I might post it here for y’all.  Thanks Paul!!

 

By Jeff | Posted on: January 21, 2009 at 3:15 pm |

Google Friend Connect now on EduTechie!

A while ago Google came out with their own open social network that can be easily embedded on any page.  As a refresher, here is a video. 

Today I was whitelisted to use the google friend connect on my site!  I have installed it and added a members link on the right hand side, as well as a place to add general comments!  Come join!! 

So how is this useful in education?

Well, we already all know about the power of social networks in connecting students.  I like the openness of this new Google connect in that you can develop your own gadgets.  You could potentially connect this with Facebook and other social components to increase your exposure to the student population! 

In the classroom it will add a distinct social component to any webspace you are using in your class! 

How else can you see this being useful?

By Jeff | Posted on: December 1, 2008 at 2:58 pm | Tagged , , |