Social media is something that many younger teachers will have a familiarity with outside of the classroom. Ask any colleague under the age of, say, 30, and it's fairly likely that he or she will have a profile on a social network like Facebook or MySpace. Business-facing social networks like LinkedIn have also seen explosive growth from educators in the last year.
There's more to being an effective teacher than raising standardized test scores, yet test scores have gained widespread acceptance among the public as the key indicator of performance.
- By Patricia Deubel
- 06/15/11
This may be the first generation of educators whose students know more about their literacy tools than their teachers. When monks taught writing, they were also the experts on the quill, but today's teachers are more likely to be taught by their students on how to set up a blog.
- By Therese Mageau
- 03/21/11
Historic forces in higher education may have serious repercussions for K-12.
- By Therese Mageau
- 06/07/12
If we start with the premise that online education is not only inevitable but desirable, the involvement of for-profit and charter entities in the e-learning marketplace could be a symbiotic relationship that benefits all involved.
- By Therese Mageau
- 08/01/11
Today, as the planet moves headlong into the Age of Mobilism, K-12 schools ignore mobile technologies at the school’s peril. But what to do? Our mission in this blog is to provide ideas, visions, strategies, tips, and resources to help schools be mobile savvy and take advantage of the opportunities mobile technologies afford!
- By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
- 12/10/12
Electronic gaming has recently been hailed as the great new potential for transforming education. A growing body of research and practice suggests videogames can motivate as well as teach and help users learn. Fewer scientific studies, but just as much potential, exist within the area of student game development. In part 1 of this two-part article series, we look at the foundational reasons for why game development matters in the K-12 curriculum, both inside and outside of school.
Chat software (text or media-based) provides an excellent tool in supporting academic dialog (exchange), critical thinking, and knowledge building. The immediacy of the technology provides students with a direct connection with the instructor as well as other students. While chat software is usually used for "chatting," and, therefore, it has a relaxed and colloquial protocol, with a little thought and planning, it can also be used well to support instruction.
We all pay lip service to the need for educators to be learners as well as teachers, but how often do we really act on it?
- By Geoffrey H. Fletcher
- 07/27/10
In the first installment in our new monthly column, blended learning experts Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker advise schools to skip the "best practices" and instead seek innovations that work in their unique circumstances.
- By Michael Horn, Heather Staker
- 03/01/12