Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Exchange 2.0: The Teacher's Guide to International Collaboration

The Teacher's Guide to International Collaboration was developed to help teachers use the Internet to "reach out" globally. 

In his address to the Council on Foreign Relations in May 2010, Secretary Arne Duncan stated:

“We must improve language learning and international education at all levels if our nation is to continue to lead in the global economy to help bring security and stability to the world and to build stronger and more productive ties with our neighbors….We have never been more aware of the value of a multiliterate, multilingual society, a society that can appreciate all that makes other cultures and nations distinctive, even as it embraces all that they have in common.”

This Guide has been prepared as part of the Department of Education's effort to expand global awareness through collaboration between students and teachers in the US with their peers around the world.  

On these pages, teachers will find many projects and suggestions to begin or expand classroom projects that reach across the globe and enable students to learn WITH the world, as well as about it.

In each section of this Guide we have also provided links to elementary, middle and high school projects and links to organizations that are involved in international education via the Internet and Web 2.0 tools.

• Learn More about Exchange 2.0 and Connect All Schools on Facebook

Facebook DC Live: Facebook for Educators

Join Linda Fogg Phillips, co-author (along with myself and BJ Fogg) of the new Facebook for Educators guide, Karen Cator, director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, and other panelists for a discussion of how teachers and administrators can connect safely and appropriately with students on Facebook and other social media sites to extend learning outside the classroom.

Facebook will also discuss some recent efforts both on and off of Facebook to thank teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week.

To watch at 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT on Tuesday, click the "FB DC Live" navigation link on http://www.facebook.com/FacebookDC or go directly to: http://www.facebook.com/FacebookDC?v=app_141125442599532.

Ask questions for our guests on the wall of this event.

North Carolina School Engages Tech Generation With Digital Learning Tools

John Tulenko of Learning Matters, which produces education stories for the NewsHour, reports on a North Carolina school district switching from textbooks to all-digital learning materials.

My favorite quote is this piece comes from Mark Edwards, Superientendent of Schools in Mooresville, North Carolina:

"For years we would tell students "We will prepare you for your future." But their experience in school didn't have much to do (with the future).

I would say it would be the same to say "We are going to prepare you for driving a car, so get on this horse." And the kids say "That doesn't make sense, i'm not going to be riding a horse."

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

 

 

Speak Up National Findings 2010: How Students Are Leveraging Technology for Learning

Earlier this month 2011 Project Tomorrow released the report “The New 3 E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged and Empowered – How Today’s Students are Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Learning” at a Congressional Briefing held in Washington, D.C..

The Speak Up 2010 project surveyed almost 300,000 students (along with 43,000 parents, 35,000 teachers, 2000 librarians and 3500 administrators) from over 6500 private and public schools last fall about how they're using - and how they want to be using - technology for learning.

Key findings:

• 67 percent of parents said they would purchase a mobile device for their child to use for schoolwork if the school allowed it, and 61 percent said they liked the idea of students using mobile devices to access online textbooks.

• 53 percent of middle and high school students reported that the inability to use cell phones, smart phones or MP3 players was the largest obstacle when using technology in school.

• Additionally, 71 percent of high school students and 62 percent of middle school students said that the number one way schools could make it easier to use technology would be to allow greater access to the digital content and resources that Internet firewalls and school filters blocked.

• Parents are increasingly supportive of online textbooks. Two-thirds of parents view online textbooks as a good investment to enhance student achievement compared to 21 percent in 2008. However, E-textbooks are still a relatively novel concept in the classroom. Slightly over one-third of high school students report they are currently using an online textbook or other online curriculum as part of their regular schoolwork.

• Nearly 30 percent of high school students have experienced some type of online learning.

Speak Up National Findings 2010

Skype In The Classroom: An International Social Network For Teachers [VIDEO]

Skype realizes full well its software is used by many school teachers and students from around the globe, and today announced that it has built a dedicated social network to help them connect, collaborate and exchange knowledge and teaching resources over the Web.

This morning, the company launched a free international community site dubbed Skype in the Classroom, an online platform designed to help teachers find each other and relevant projects according to search criteria such as the age groups they teach, location and subjects of interest.

How to create a profile and find a teacher from Skype in the classroom on Vimeo.

The platform, which has been in beta since the end of December, already has a community of more than 4,000 teachers, across 99 countries.

Teachers need only sign up with their Skype account at the website, create a profile with their interests, location and the age groups they teach and start connecting with other teachers by exploring the directory, where they can also find projects and resources that match their skills, needs or interests.

A members-only community, Skype in the Classroom lets teachers easily add each other to their Skype contact lists or message one another.

via TechCrunch

Togetherville Named One of the 10 Most Innovative Companies in Education

Fast Company just released its list of the most innovative companies in the world, and Togetherville ranked #5 on their education list! Other notable mentions on this list include LinkedIn and the Discovery Channel.

To learn more on how Togetherville, the social networking site for kids,families and teachers, is building a platform for these communities to share and express their thoughts on educational issues, click here.

Congrats to the Togetherville team!

Always Connected: The new digitial media habits of young children

Today’s parents, academics, policymakers and practitioners are scrambling to keep up with the rapid expansion of media use by children and youth for ever-larger portions of their waking hours.

This report by Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center takes a fresh look at data emerging from studies undertaken by Sesame Workshop, independent scholars, foundations, and market researchers on the media habits of young children, who are often overlooked in the public discourse that focuses on tweens.

The report reviews seven recent studies about young children and their ownership and use of media. By focusing on very young children and analyzing multiple studies over time, the report arrives at a new, balanced portrait of children’s media habits.

Always Connected was written by Aviva Lucas Gutnick, Michael Robb, Lori Takeuchi and Jennifer Kotler.

Always Connected: The new digitial media habits of young children

When snow hit, one American U class moved to Facebook

"Setting up this Facebook page was one of the first things I did after I created my spring syllabus for this class, International Public Relations. It wasn't my idea; it was something I learned from students and junior colleagues when I returned from sabbatical.

After eight months of being in research la-la land, stepping back onto a high-speed, wi-fi campus was like moving from the cave wall paintings to, well, digital walls.

I attended a one-day university-sponsored teaching symposium and zeroed in on technology sessions to get myself up to speed. The line that really stuck with me was: "If you want to fish, go where the fish are." The fish, is seems, were all on Facebook, and I wanted to cast my net."

• Read more about how this professor used Facebook in a educational setting over on The Washington Post.

via voices.washingtonpost.com

Pearson Learning Study: Social Media in Higher Education [PRESO]

General Social Media Stats From the Pearson Study

Facebook

• There are over 500 million users on Facebook with over 50% logging in at least once per day.

• In the United States alone there are, as of February 2010, 108 million users at a growth rate of around 5 million new users per month. That is a 35% penetration rate of the total US population.

• The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.

Twitter

• At the end of 2009 Twitter had approximately 75 million active users with a growth rate in Q4 of between 6-8 million new users per month.

• There are over 50 million tweets per day as of March 2010. This is up from 3 million tweets per day in March 2008.

Pearson Social Media Survey 2010

View more presentations from Pearson Learning Solutions.

YouTube

• On YouTube alone, there are over 1 billion views per day.

• There are 20 hours of video uploaded every minute. That’s the equivalent of 130,000 full-length Hollywood movie releases every single week.

• YouTube is the #2 search engine in the world.

• Approximately 82% of Internet users in the USA view videos online.

LinkedIn

• There are over 60 million registered users on LinkedIn with about 100,000 new users per week.

Blogs

• There are approximately 126 million blogs as tracked by BlogPulse.

Infographic: Books vs. E-Books

View Large | via www.newsweek.com

eBook Resources

• Google eBookstore
• OpenCulture > Free eBooks
• Project Gutenberg > Free eBooks

LG Launches Text Ed with 'Glee' Star Jane Lynch

The LG Text Ed program, which was launched in early 2010, offers parents a number of articles, tips, videos and other content so they can educate themselves on the dangers of mobile phone misuse, employ strategies to help protect their children from potential problems, and discover how they might be modeling their children’s mobile phone behavior.

In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, presented during the Federal Communication Commission’s recent Generation Mobile Forum, 40 percent of teens said they’ve been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.

LG Text Ed with Jane Lynch

Bringing her trademark intensity and flair to the LG Text Ed campaign, award-winning actress Jane Lynch is working with LG Mobile Phones to raise awareness about risky mobile phone behavior.

In a series of comedic vignettes, which can be viewed on www.LGTextEd.com, Lynch tackles issues such as sexting, texting while driving, mobile bullying, and other questionable teen behaviors. 

At the end of each video, Lynch directs parents to LGTextEd.com where they can find professional advice and guidance to help promote safe and responsible mobile usage among their text- and tech-savvy families.

In the texting while driving video, Lynch confronts a classroom of parents about their own texting and driving bad habits and urges parents to model good behavior for their children.

Using humor to get to the heart of the issue, Lynch helps parents help themselves by putting the phone away in the car and encouraging their kids to do the same.

Parents can find additional information on the LG Text Ed initiative and mobile phone misuse (mobile bullying, sexting) by visiting www.lgtexted.com. You can also connect with LG Text Ed on Facebook.

 

Related: 'No Phone Zone' Lesson Plan: Teaching Teens the Dangers of Texting & Driving

University Faculty Twitter Usage Survey 2010

The 2010 Faculty Focus survey of nearly 1,400 higher education professionals found that more than a third (35.2 percent) of the 1,372 respondents who completed the survey in July-August 2010 use Twitter in some capacity.

That’s up from 30.7 percent in 2009.

This report represents the second annual survey on Twitter usage and trends among college faculty.

This year’s survey, like that conducted in 2009, sought answers to some of the fundamental questions regarding faculty members’ familiarity, perception, and experience with the micro-blogging technology, as well as whether they expect their Twitter use to increase or decrease in the future.

2010 Twitter Survey Report

Meanwhile, the percentage of educators who never used Twitter decreased from 56.4 percent in 2009 to 47.9 percent in 2010. The remaining 16.9 percentage consists of those who tried Twitter, but stopped using it —an increase from 12.9 percent in 2009.

Of those who currently use Twitter, the most common activities include “to share information with peers” and “as a real-time news source.” Instructional uses, such as “to communicate with students” and “as a learning tool in the classroom” are less popular, although both activities saw increases over the previous year.

Meanwhile, a number of non-users expressed concerns that Twitter creates poor writing skills and could be yet another classroom distraction. Many also noted that very few of their students use Twitter.

Finally, a new trend that emerged this year centered on the belief that many feel they already have too many places to post messages or check for student questions/comments. As one professor put it, “I have no interest in adding yet another communication tool to my overloaded life.”

In terms of future use, just over half (56.8 percent) of current Twitter users say they expect to increase their use during the coming academic year. Only 2.5 percent say their Twitter use will likely decrease, and 40.7 percent say it will stay about the same.

This 22-page report gives a breakdown of each survey question, including a sampling of the comments provided by the respondents. The comments allowed faculty to further explain how they are using Twitter, why they stopped, or why they have no interest in using it at all.

Gen Y, Social Media, and Learning in the Digital Age

I'm happy to announce that my book chapter that I co-wrote with Dr. Mercedes Fisher is now officially published!

Chapter Title: "Social Media, Gen Y and Digital Learning Styles."

Author(s): Derek E. Baird ; Mercedes Fisher

Pages: 2023-2044 pp.

Book Title: Social Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Subhasish Dasgupta (George Washington University, USA) Copyright: 2010

Abstract

In this chapter we outline how educators are creating a “mash up” of traditional pedagogy with new media to create a 21st Century pedagogy designed to support the digital learning styles of Gen Y students.

The research included in this paper is intended as a directional means to help instructors and course designers identify social and new media resources and other emerging technologies that will enhance the delivery of instruction while meeting the needs of today’s digital learning styles.

The media-centric Millennial values its ability to use the web to create self-paced, customized, on-demand learning paths that include using multiple platforms for mobile, interactive, social, and self-publishing experiences.

These can include wiki, blogs, podcasts and other social platforms like Twitter, Emodo and Facebook. New media provides these hyper-connected students with a medium for understanding, social interaction, idea negotiation, as well as an intrinsic motivation for participation.

The active nature of today’s digitally connected student culture is one that more resourcefully fosters idea generation and experience-oriented innovation than traditional schooling models.

In addition, we describe our approach to utilizing current and emerging social media to support Gen Y learners, facilitate the formation of learning communities, foster student engagement, reflection, and enhance the overall learning experience for students in synchronous and asynchronous virtual learning environments (VLE).

Related: Derek E. Baird > Publications

Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

According to a study from the Pew Internet & American Life project (Lenhardt & Madden, 2005), more than one-half of all teens have created media content, and roughly one-third of teens who use the Internet have shared content they produced.

In many cases, these teens are actively involved in what we are calling participatory cultures.

A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.

A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created). Henry Jenkins: Participatory Culture & Media Education

A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these forms of participatory culture, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, a changed attitude toward intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship.

Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace.

Trend Watch: Parents Want to use Facebook to Connect with Teachers

A recent poll conducted by YouGov found that 58% of teachers would like parents to help more with their child’s learning and more than one-third of parents want to be more involved in the youngster’s schooling.

But with half of mothers and fathers only seeing their child’s teacher once a term, parents and staff both said they wanted more opportunities to discuss feedback about pupils in less formal situations than at parents’ evenings.

The study also found that one in five parents in Glasgow wants to be able to contact their child’s teachers through social networking sites such as Facebook.

Two-thirds of mothers and fathers said email would be a good way to discuss any issues, while 22% said they would like to be able to text or swap messages over the internet.

via www.heraldscotland.com