Technology Megatrends

One hundred “global thought leaders” working with the Horizon Project met in January 2012 to talk about research relating to technology and education. They came up with 28 megatrends of which 10 were considered the most important. These megatrends are bringing about significant changes in our world, our interactions, and the way we learn. Although you can read more about the top ten in the New Media Consortium’s Communique´on the Horizon Project, some of the trends include the following:

• People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want....
• The Internet is becoming a global mobile network....
• The technologies we use today are increasingly cloud-based....
• Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices....
• The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while redefining our notion of literacy.
• There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools....

Techedge offers information on the megatrends as they relate to young learners and asks, “After Megatrends...What Next?” Some of the solutions suggested to help teachers with tech expectations of their students are: using LiveMinutes for online discussion, Audicity for interviews, ShowMe for “re-imagining the learning process”, UStream for video capture, and Dropbox for file sharing. For additional information, check out the very useful article by Pat LeMay Burr, “What Young Learners Expect and How Technology Delivers”.

Cool Cat Blog

Vicki Davis’ Cool Cat Teacher Blog is designed to inspire teachers and to introduce  tools and techniques that can be used in teaching. Cool Cat is packed with ideas from a teacher who enjoys learning about new tech tools and using helpful sites.  Among her recommendations are: Got 2BSafe! Think Smart. Take Charge, Lenovo Dream to Do, Innovate My School, Time for Mail: Services That Improve GMail Productivity, OpenStax College, and When Teachers Demand to be Co-Creators not Consumers. You might also want to take a look at her “11 Essential Tools for Global Collaboration.”

Sign Up for Resource Shelf

The Resource Shelf combs the Web for useful resources you might miss. Not all of them will work with your courses, but there are many resources that you’ll find of interest. You can sign up for the Resource Shelf Newsletter, which offers a weekly selection of content and links from the ResourceBlog or look for the Resource Shelf on Facebook. One of the links in the 11/17/11 Newsletter was to a report on Computer and Internet Use at Home and another was about librarians voting to make an alliance with the Internet Archives Open Library.    

PBS Presents “Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century”

Digital Media: New Learners of the 21^st Century will be presented as a one-hour documentary featuring cutting-edge education and cognitive research related to use of digital media and interactive practices in schools and how these practices and “ignite...students’ curiosity and ingenuity” while helping them learn to work collaboratively with other students all over the world. The premiere will air on February 13,^, 2011, but the  documentary will be available on-demand at http://video.pbs.org/video/1767314964/ for a limited time after the premiere. For addition information about on demand, go to National Productions and Mobile Digital Arts, the organization that produced the video for PBS.

Your Vision of Students Today

Professor Michael Wesch’s YouTube Channel is asking teachers to document, through video, special moments in teaching and learning. If you would like to participate in his new video, which will probably be titled, The Vision of Students Today, do your filming and upload a two-minute clip to his channel before February 15, 2011. Your students will enjoy helping you find that critical learning moment to share.

Free Online Professional Development

If you’d like to learn more about technology and teaching with technologies, all you have to do is to check out the opportunities online. The January issue of THE Journal provides a nice list of professional development links for you.  To upgrade your skills, why not try ASCD Webinars, OK2Ask, Educator’s Professional Development, Classroom 2.0, and Teachers’ Domain? Of course, there are other places to investigate for professional development. Think podcasts, blogs, and for-pay online Webinars and courses. In today’s world you can learn on your own, what you want, when you want.

Where Are Teens Getting Health Info?

When teens and preteens are looking for health information, according to the article “Technology Trend: Teens and Online Health Research” in CYFERnet, only about 3% of teens go to sites like Mayoclinic.com, Plannedparenthood.com, and Health.com for answers. Instead they do a Google or Yahoo search, use Wikipedia; check with online friends; and post questions in online discussion areas and confessionals. About half of the teens surveyed said they go online to learn about mental health, sexual issues, and general health. “Their top worries were sexually transmitted diseases, followed by drugs, unplanned pregnancy, unhealthy relationships, depression, alcohol use, eating disorders and cyberbullying.”  These interests differed from a Pew study in which adults said their main medical interests were: nutrition, fitness, specific diseases and treatments, diets, and supplements. Considering the differences in interests between teens and adults concerning health, teen-related health information needs to be readily available to young people and should be in places they are likely to frequent online. (CYFERnet is network that features practical research from leading universities.)

Bullying and Cyberbullying: Who Is to Blame?

With the wealth of information that’s been in the media about bullying and cyberbullying, it’s on just about everyone’s minds. We know that growing up isn’t exactly easy. We adults face problems with bullying, but we’ve learned how to handle it or perhaps we ignore it.  I’ve watched students let uncomplimentary remarks slide off like water on a duck, and I’ve seen children who are highly sensitive to any slight.  We know that the middle years are usually the toughest when it comes to kid nastiness, but we also find it from the elementary grades on. There are young people everywhere who are trying to find their place among their peers. Sometimes it goes beyond normal, day-to-day kid behavior and can cause lasting problems for those bullied or ignored. Teachers, parents, coaches, and others who work with children watch for bullying, but as we know, it often happens when adults aren’t around or anonymously online. Who is to blame for the bullying mentality and how might we stop it? A generation ago we confiscated the so-called Slam Books that featured inappropriate information about students in our classes.  Today we continue to watch during lunch sessions for “cool tables” for the in-crowd, try to keep up with school-related social interaction online, work with students on thoughtfulness and respect, and do our best to keep parents informed on the topic. Recently I asked a group of eighth graders who is to blame for bullying, cyber or otherwise. They agreed that the kids who do it were the problem. I asked if schools and teachers were to blame. The answer went something like this, “No, not everyone is nice. That’s the problem and kids should remember that. If a teacher sees bullying and doesn’t do anything, then the teacher is wrong, but usually teachers don’t see it. Who would do something not nice when teachers and parents are around?” When I asked what is the answer to the problem of bullying, one said, “Stay with nice kids. Don’t try to get into a group that does things that aren’t nice.”  Nice seems to be the answer, but how do we get everyone to take on that quality?

ISTE Conference In Denver 2010

The International Society for Technology in Education will hold its annual conference June 27-30 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. This year’s theme “Exploring Excellence” will include sessions on just about everything you need to know about technology in education.  On the ISTE conference site, you can use the Program Planner to select sessions that are appropriate for you. For example if you want to learn about iPhone apps for mathematics, the impact of e-book readers, LEGO Robotics, or 3D animation; just log on to the Planner. Early-Bird registration closes on 5/1 and mail-in registration on 6/11.

Keeping Up with School Online Postings

Think about all the “school-related” content that’s going online. Think about it from a school or district administrator’s point of view. How is it possible to keep track? Have we come to a point where it’s impossible to know what’s online that’s been posted by students, teachers, and administrators? With postings coming from both school and home, the amount of information that’s going online from a school or school district is massive. How do we avoid problems such as inappropriate content or links, private information accidentally posted, inaccurate information, mistakes in spelling and grammar, course areas that are not up-to-date, blogging or chats that aren’t carefully monitored, etc.? You can probably think of many other problems that might occur with online assignments, digital projects, online courses, and student blogs, chats, tweets—the list is long. Although most of what goes online through school programs doesn’t cause problems and many problems are caught quickly, that’s not always so. Parents checking areas specific to their children’s classes often call school personnel to report problems with content, and this may be the first alert school officials have to the knowledge that something may be wrong. Some solutions may be: making sure everyone has a thorough knowledge of what is appropriate for school-related online postings or communication, letting everyone know what their responsibilities are when it comes to online postings and communication, and making sure teachers and administrators check content as carefully and as often as possible. Maybe the question is: Are we jumping into all these wonderful 21^st Century resources without understanding how we can keep track of their output?”