Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Trend Watch: Missouri Outlaws Student-Teacher Facebook & Twitter Friendships [PODCAST]

When the tornado devastated the town of Joplin Missouri, teachers turned to Facebook to help locate students. A new measure could make that a bit more complicated.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon recently signed a bill into law that would ban exclusive contact on social networking sites between teachers and students. Senate Bill 54 passed with unanimous support.

A small part of the wide-ranging SB54, makes it illegal for teachers to be "friends" with students on any social networking site that allows private communication.

That means teachers and students can't be friends on Facebook or can't follow each other on Twitter for example.

It was meant to prevent teachers from developing inappropriate relationships with their students. But to use Facebook parlance, not everyone is clicking the like button.

NPR's All Things Considered's Michele Norris spoke to an eighth grade teacher from Joplin, Mo., who opposes the new law. Randy Turner, who teaches English, said as teachers your job is to reach out to students and that means going where they are and now a days students have shunned e-mail and are using social networking sites to communicate.

But Turner argues instead of protecting children, this new law may be hurting them. "We may be preventing them from talking to the very people who may be able to help," he said.

Missouri Outlaws Student-Teacher Facebook Friendship by barkingrobot

via www.npr.org

Related Links

• Facebook for Educators Guide [EN]
• Facebook Para Educadores [ES]
• Facebook fur Padagogen [DE]
• Facebook para Educadores [PT]

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.

 

 

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

Blackawton Bees: Eight-Year-Olds Publish Bee Study in Respected UK Science Journal

Royal Society Publishing science journal Biology Letters is releasing a paper about the way bees use color and space to navigate between flowers. It was written by 25 co-authors, all of whom are between the ages of 8 and 10.

Really: The 25 kids, all from the Blackawton Primary School in Devon, England, designed the experiment from the ground up, and wrote every word in the paper.

The students who published the paper were participants in "i, scientist," a project set up to engage kids with science in a hands-on way. A very hands-on way.

I Scientist film from Storymakers TV on Vimeo.

With help from neuroscientist Beau Lotto (whose son is in the class), the 25-person team began by thinking about the way animals—in particular, bees—perceive the world. You can read more about the Blackawton Bees study and other projects by Lotto by clicking here. The Blackawton Bee paper is available here.

This is a briliant and hands on way to teach kids science. Instead of sitting in classroom and listening to a teacher, these kids are getting a hands on experience that makes science move from theory into actual practice and proves that anyone can do science.

via gawker.com

Infographic: Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

 A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.

His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.

 

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

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.

Infographic: Professors’ Use of Technology in Teaching

The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement surveyed approximately 4,600 faculty members at 50 U.S. colleges and universities in the spring of 2009 to see how they are using new media and social technology in their classroom.

Based on these findings, it doesn't seem like too many professors' are integrating technology into their classroom. What do you think? Do these results surprise you?

Thanks to Dale for the heads up!

Related: In Google We Trust: Young Adults' Evaluation of Web Content

The Myth of the Digital Native

“If we over-estimate their skills we underestimate the support they need and misunderstand their practices.” – Dr. Sonia Livingstone

Over the last decade there has been lots of talk, in both the press and educational circles, about the technological prowess of "digital natives." We've heard a lot about what's exciting in educational technology, but the reality is that teachers still see a lot of kids struggling to use technology.

Sonia Livingstone 2010 Digital Media and Learning Conference Keynote

During her keynote at DML 2010, Dr. Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics) shared the following examples from her research and interviews with both parents and kids on the difficulties "digital natives" face using technology:

• Example: Going to a Web site–can take a half hour, involve parents & most give up.

• Example: Parents thought their child was very savvy, but something about the style of her use didn't reveal her struggles. "Megan" is confident, but one can observe her many struggles while she uses technology.

• Example: 17-year-old, quoted: "With books it's a lot easier to research. I can't really use the internet for studying." Another, "Every time I try to look for something, I can never find it. It keeps coming up with things that are completely irrelevant."

• Example: Teens often didn't know how to change their privacy settings, unsure about what to click to manage this task. (Nervousness about unintended consequences: stranger danger, parental anxiety, viruses, crashed computers, unwanted advertising, etc.)

When it comes to youth and digital media we tend to be conservative in the type of content we give young people and far more aggressive when approaching them with digital media tools.

It’s important to remember that just because we include digital media doesn’t mean youth know how to make meaning or engage with these technologies.

One iPad Per Child: Seton Hill to Give All Students iPads

Remember textbooks? Yeah. Forget about textbooks. Students at Seton Hill University are all getting iPads and access to all their textbooks on the iBook store. I’d say it’s one of the biggest changes in pedagogy since the move from the one-room schoolhouse.

Check out Seton Hill’s website. It states, in no uncertain terms, that “Beginning in the fall of 2010, all first year undergraduate students at Seton Hill will receive a 13″ MacBook laptop and an iPad.”

Can you imagine? I remember I was about to go to Clarkson University in New York back in 1993 because they were giving out laptops. But a MacBook and an iPad? That’s like getting a pony and a unicorn.

via www.crunchgear.com

Related: Announcing The 2010 Totally Wired Teacher Award Sponsored By Dell

Call for Nominations: 2010 Ypulse Mashup Totally Wired Teacher Award

2010 Ypulse Mashup Totally Wired Teacher Award on Prezi

Ypulse is teaming up once again with Dell's Edu4U community The 2010 Totally Wired Teacher Award to be presented at this year's Mashup event. The application is now LIVE so help us spread the word to teachers you think should apply. 

The Totally Wired Teacher Award is inspired by Ypulse.com founder Anastasia Goodstein’s book, Totally Wired: What Teens & Tweens Are Really Doing Online, and the challenges she observed when teachers tried to integrate technology into their public school classrooms.

The goal of the award is to recognize a teacher who has overcome these challenges and is inspiring to both students and other educators. This year Ypulse is asking applicants to upload a 60-second video tip or advice they would like to share with other educators related to integrating technology into the classroom.

Learn more about The Totally Wired Teacher Award and get all the details over on the Ypulse Mashup site!

DML 2010: Four Things Youth Marketers Can Learn About Youth & Digital Media

Today I've published a guest post over on Ypulse and shared some of my thoughts on the 2010 Digital Media & Learning Conference (DML) which was held last week at the University of California at San Diego.

The post, Four Insights for Youth Marketers from DML 2010, highlights some of the key things I think marketers can learn from the academic community when working with youth and digital media. The post also highlights some of the most current youth media research going on around the world.

Thanks to Meredith and the rest of Team Ypulse for the opportunity to share my insights from DML with the rest of the Ypulse youth marketing community.

A Kindle in Every Backpack: A Proposal for eTextbooks in American Schools

A concept paper published in July by former members of the Obama-Biden transition team, titled A Kindle in Every Backpack: A Proposal for eTextbooks in American Schools, suggests we consider an innovative plan to spread eTextbooks around the country, rapidly scaling up employment of the technology so that we can learn, adapt, and perfect its use quickly. It describes the case for an eTextbook system in three parts.

In Part One, the report discusses the multiple reasons why eTextbooks like Amazon's Kindle are a much better approach for our nation’s students. The reasons they are superior include the ability to update eBooks relatively cheaply and easily, environmental and health benefits (such as reducing loads on young backs and shoulders), and the enormous opportunity to make texts more exciting and interactive—like the other tools children use today and that compete for their attention.

In Part Two, this paper discusses the economics of this approach. Cost estimates in the education world are notoriously sketchy and often self-serving, but it seems clear that over time an investment in these tools would produce big savings.

Finally, in Part Three, this paper outlines how we could implement such a plan, and why there could be broad-based support for it.

Also of interest is an article in the September/October 2009 issue of Scholastic Administrator Magazine titled, "Will the Kindle Change Education?" The article does a really good job of weighing in on both the pros and cons of using the Kindle in the classroom.

A lot of education folks have focused on using the mobile phone as the primary device to usher in the age of mlearning (mobile learning).

But perhaps we should be paying more attention to e-book devices like the Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook or the (rumoured) Apple tablet as the more viable mlearning option to delivering media rich and digital content to kids at school.

A lot the current research shows that when kids go to school they are disconnected from how they live outside the classroom. Either way, what's important is that we take a look at and try using any resource or tool--including e-books--that gets kids' more engaged and invested in their education.

Related: Amazon's Jeff Bezos Gives Away Kindles To His Alma Mater, Asks For Feedback

Weekly Wrap: Coca-Cola's Teen Mobile Marketing Strategy, Social Media Statute of Limitations, Facebook Privacy, Youth in Revolt & More!!

Coca-Cola Targeting Teens with Mobile Marketing Strategy: Millennial's are using their handsets to communicate, consume media and befriend brands more than at any point in the past and as a result Coca-Cola is increasingly turning towards mobile marketing to reach the teenage and young-adult generations. [mViews]

At-Risk Students Make Multimedia: A team of college professors and K-12 teachers discovers how building video games can elevate student performance. [Edutopia]

Games lessons: Since the beginning of mass education, schools have relied on what is known in educational circles as “chalk and talk”. Abandoning it, though, is what Katie Salen hopes to do. It sounds like a cop-out, but the future of schooling may lie with video games. [Economist]

Blog, poke, twitter and be damned: We need a 'statute of limitations on stupidity' for our youthful online indiscretions – otherwise only the drones will thrive. (AMEN!) [Guardian]

(List) What the Internet is Killing: The article is hardly surprising given the massive shifts the Internet brings to society, but it does raise a debate about what will be missed from a bygone era and what will be rightly forgotten. [PSFK]

U.S. Universities Plan Course to Navigate the Mobile Learning Curve: It is imperative that colleges and universities around the country include mobile as part of their marketing communications strategy if they want to continue to attract, retain and satisfy students and school supporters.

Platogo: user-generated content comes to browser gaming: It's a fascinating endeavour, and there seems to be a real emphasis on quality rather than quantity - the UGC stuff is also nicely implemented in the games I've played. [Guardian]

Tweet O' the Week: "I really have become addicted to Klondike bars for breakfast... they're like square frozen bowls of cereal --- they're practically vitamins." (via @DougCoupland)

Youth in Revolt: The plot of this teen film feels episodic, but not in a bad way, with Arteta squeezing an impressive number of set pieces into 90 minutes. Well-placed animated sequences -- a mix of stop-motion and CGI -- keep things moving along at a perky clip. [Variety]

10 Tips to Safeguard Your Privacy on Facebook: Facebook statistics show that it has 250 million active users each with an average 120 friends. More than 1 billion photos are uploaded every month by its users, over 70% of whom use applications like games and quizzes in Facebook. This guide will show what you can (and cannot) do to safeguard your Facebook privacy. [MakeUseOf.com]

Speed Round: Ypulse posted this hillarious list of 'Random Thoughts of People Our Age', TechFlash wonders if New Google is the Old Microsoft, Mike Schmid--one of the talented musician's who backs up  Miley Cyrus on her tour has a List of Rules for all you tweens and finally....in the UK Boy Scouts have been forbidden to Carry Pen Knives! [BangItOut.com] [TechFlash] [It's All True] [Free Range Kids]

Weekly Wrap: Twitter & Social Media in Education, Television 2.0, Social Gaming, Boomers & Social Media, Virtual Worlds Growth Spurt, BackTweets & TwitterCal

Higher Education is Stuck in the Middle Ages: In this article Don Tapscott, youth guru and author of Growing Up Digital, outlines the clash between the model of learning offered by big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital learn. The entire U.S. education system is woefully behind when it comes to using social media (and mobile devices) in the classroom. [AlterNet]

The Hidden Problem with Twitter: Speaking of the Middle Ages, this article stirs the pot by asking if the texting and Twitter habits are "hurting" the English language. Perhaps we need to take a cue from our Aussie friends and look for a way to use social and mobile media to help educate the Net Generation.  [HigherEdMorning.com] [University of Melbourne]

More on Television 2.0: Is the TV business dying or does it have a second act? Television networks are actively looking for ways to hold onto Gen Y by interjecting more social media and even 3D television features into their programming.

In an attempt to hold on to younger viewers, MTV is launching It's On with Alexa Chung, while the BBC is placing its bets on a new interactive TV studio. Or will 'traditional' TV networks be replaced by young upstarts like Halogen TV which is featuring both webisodes and traditional distribution outlets for its content?

Virtual Worlds Booming: Market research firm Strategy Analytics released its forecast for growth within the virtual worlds sector and said it sees the global population of virtual world users growing from 186 million today to almost 640 million by 2015 -- that's almost one hundred million new players a year, a nearly 25 percent compounded annual growth rate. [Virtual Worlds News]

Boomers Crashing the Social Media Party: According to iStrategy Labs, Facebook's seen its 35-54 demo membership blow up by 276.4 percent between June 2008 and January 2009. The 55-and over contingent grew 194.3 percent in the same amount of time. In comparison, that ever-so-sought 18-24 group bounced just 20.6 percent.

The total number of Facebook users aged 35-plus in October 2007 totaled just fewer than 845,000, while as of this past January, their combined might totals just less than 8 million - 18.9 percent of the total Facebook pie. [MediaPost]

Young Obama Official Helped Keep Twitter on in Iran: According to The New York Times, there's a steady flow of information on Twitter largely thanks to the efforts of a 27-year-old State Department official named Jared Cohen, whose job is to advise the department on how to use social media to promote U.S. interests in the Middle East. [MTV News]

One More Thing: According to experts social gaming is the next big thing, use Backtweets to see which tweets link to your site, mobileYouth has a list of youth marketing & trend Twits on Twitter (thanks Graham!), get a sneak peak of Josh Shipp's new tv show--"Jump Shipp", tweet to add appointments to your Google Calendar, more on Millennials and Twitter and an Iranian Gen Y writes about Revolution 2.0!

Also, thanks to all of you who took part in Operation 55 Zebra! Go David Go!