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Facebook Partners With Suicide Prevention Group for Research Project
In an interesting, but somewhat uncomfortable feeling research project, Facebook will partner with save.org to look at social data of those who committed suicide to see if there were warning signs. Of course, the question is... when they know, what do they do with it? If you see someone is likely to commit suicide - what do you do with that data? This is a question full of ethics worth debate and discussion.
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Facebook Wants to Answer Your Privacy Questions
You can ask Facebook's CPO (Chief Privacy Officer) your questions. If you discuss digital citizenship with your students, they might have good questions to ask.
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Be aware that some apps (like VINE mentioned in this article) have some adult content. This instance points out the importance of checking out apps PERSONALLY that you recommend to kids - just because apple recommends it, doesn't mean that it is safe for kids.
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Revolution Hits the Universities - NYTimes.com
Thomas Friedman pontificates on the meaning of MOOCs and the global impact they can have to lift many out of poverty. I think that one of the questions that will emerge is proving of mastery and also the potential for "microcredits" as Yong Zhao discusses. These are all questions that will need to be answered as we move forward into a very new, changing highered network. All educational organizations are bricks aND clicks and those universities who ignore the clicks may find their bricks being impacted. Whole buildings dedicated to broadcasting video and connecting online will be emerging on campuses that provide excellent learning around the world.
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Can You Boost Your Child's Intelligence? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
A set of studies of more than 70 research studies has yielded some interesting results. here is just a glimpse of some of the findings "When it comes to nutrition, there's not much evidence that multivitamins do any good, but having pregnant and lactating moms and young kids take Omega-3 fatty acid supplements (particularly DHA) likely does. Just having books in the home might not help, but interactive reading with children under 4 could boost IQ by around 6 points." I think if this is your area of research, you'll want to drill down into this meta analysis.
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PaperTab: A Flexible Location-Aware E-Ink Screen Of The Future
This Edudemic article gives an overview of PaperTab technology - epaper that is location aware. It could do fascinating things for our kindles, etc. If you watch new technology, read this article.
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MOOC-Covered Towers? Online Education's Coming Impact on Traditional College
Fascinating discussion about how MOOC's are being sold and how outsourcing will likely hit education. Personally, I do think that a well educated, fascinating prof is worth it... of course, what happens when that prof is at a school that is underrated or underappreciated - some amazing people live all over the world. Professors may be the next rock stars. ;-)
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Technology In Schools: Who Does It Best, China Or The U.S.?
The biggest issue about looking at China to compare with the US is that not everyone in China goes to schools and often when schools are reviewed, they are the premier schools in urban areas. This is a good point, however, that they are using technology in all curriculum areas, not just one or two and one that we should note, particularly for college prep, as I think that it is comparing apples and oranges. Having been to China, often things that filter out aren't what they seem-- they tightly control the stories that emerge from their borders.
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Orange County library offers Common Core literacy book bags | The Herald-Sun
Interesting approach. These "Common Core" bags have selecting things on a particular topic and only count as one thing when checked out. If well selected, this would be interesting. I'd love to know more. I also wonder how librarians are creating "packages" of ebooks and materials with the proliferation of BYOD - it seems that free books, etc. could be somehow packaged and distributed. "Each bag contains 10 books on a subject, “carefully chosen by grade level,” Shaver said. “We selected books that present the topic in a variety of formats, making it accessible to many different learners. For instance, many of the new bags include graphic novels and hands-on science guides, in addition to traditional research resources. For the younger grades, there is an equal mix of fiction and non-fiction; for older grades, the bags contain mainly non-fiction materials.” The bags can be checked out from the library for three weeks at a time. Although they contain multiple books, they count only as one checked-out item. One check-out renewal can be requested unless someone else has expressed interest in getting the same bag.
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/29/2013
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/26/2013
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""The use of Facebook by students around the world to communicate with one another does more harm than good."" This is our topic for the Eracism 2013 project. You may wonder - why did we limit it to Facebook - well, after much-- yes, --- debate-- on our end, every good debate topic should have compelling topics on both sides - we wanted to have compelling discussions around social media and keep with the original spirit of the 4 students who envisioned this project. They wanted to debate topics of importance to promote cultural understanding. If you want to sign up, this is linked to the 2013 press release that will tell you how to enter a team from middle up to high school (there are 2 brackets). We debate asynchronously in a method we call "simulated synchronous" until the finals, when we have a synchronous live debate in blackboard collaborate.
tags: news eracism eracism_resources eracismproject debate facebook social media connection
Friday, 25 January 2013
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/25/2013
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Taming the Elephant: Awesome Evernote Tips and Tricks | Mactuts+
This post has some excellent tutorials on advanced features in evernote. I use saved searches all of the time in evernote. Some great tips here if you use evernote.
tags: news productivity evernote
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Europe opens its online education to the world | Ghanamma.com
Colleges and universities are entering an era of global competition with k12 schools not far behind. While I think it is likely that lower grade levels that require face to face contact will require more in person schools, it is likely that online elearning platforms, particularly for students who are disciplined and can learn in this format, will increase. Language learning, history, and more will be transformed as classrooms flatten and merge in ways we cannot begin to understand. Schools that take steps to globalize and understand this new world of education are positioning themselves long term. With some districts spending more than 10,000 per student and running out of money, it could be understandable that buying a computer and internet access and paying an organization (one even out of country) would make sense -- if they only look at it from a cost perspective. This is, of course, not understanding the economic impact of having local schools and local teachers. There are more reasons than ever to support your local school, but also, for parents and school board members to insist that schools aren't just bricks but are clicks - how are they connecting online? How are they connecting with the world? The walled garden may not only be a mistake for kids, it may be a death sentence for schools unprepared for the global tidal wave of education that is rapidly moving online. No one knows what this is going to look like, only that online education is changing. "A new portal has been launched make the quickly growing European study options even more accessible for learners around the world: www.DistanceLearningPortal.eu. Funded by the European Union and developed by the European study choice platform Studyportals and EADTU, this central information source will support orienting learners worldwide to study abroad from home. On 27 September 2012 the portal was officially launched by Commissioner Vasiliou
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Forty public universities, including Arizona State, Cleveland State, and the University of Arkansas, are planning to offer free online courses that carry full credit in an effort to entice potential students to sign up for a full degree program. The new initiative, know as MOOC2Degree (MOOC stands for massive open online course), is being run in a partnership between the universities and Academic Partnerships, a commercial company that helps universities move their courses online. As part of this initiative, Academic Partnerships will work with the universities to recruit for these courses and will receive a cut of any tuition from students who sign on for further study.
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Macmillan to Launch Library eBook Pilot This Spring
"Macmillan will begin their first ebook library lending program by the end of the Q1 2013. They plan to initially test the idea with 1,200 backlist titles from their Minotaur Books imprint. The ebooks will be available via Axis 360, OverDrive, and 3M Cloud Library. Once purchased by a library, the titles can be lent for either 2 years or 52 lends, whichever comes first. All of the books in the program will have the same digital list price."
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Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in a Digital Age: Full Document plus Back Story | HASTAC
HASTAC has this draft up for comment on their website. HASTAC has the draft up on their website for comment.
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Boundless, the free alternative to textbooks, releases its content under Creative Commons
New textbooks from Boundless are being released under the same license as Wikipedia. Read more on Stephen Downes website, but realize that textbooks -- free textbooks- are going to be proliferating and some may end up meeting needs quite nicely. Textbook companies are going to have to sell more than words on a page, but experiences, projects, connections, and apps to be worth the price and even then, educators will be able to cobble together their own in ways that may become very powerful. We talk about the evolution of the textbook some in Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds.
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Five Reasons I Love Using QR Codes in My Classroom | Edutopia
QR codes are very convenient and this article from Edutopia does a nice job of outlining some of the benefits of using QR codes in the classroom. If you get into this, I have a blog post on my blog called "QR Code Classroom Guide" to help you get started.
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Married to the MOOC (Part 1) | HASTAC
Sebastian Thrun's wife, Petra Dierkes-Thrun writes an article on HASTAC about what it is like being "married to the MOOC" including glimpses into how they filmed lectures in their basements. This MOOC made news when, after a New York Times article was written, over 160,000 people signed up for this MOOC about Artificial Intelligence run by two experts. It became the largest class taught up until that point with students from around the world. I found this a fascinating read about what happens when LEARNING -- yes, I said LEARNING goes viral. This is only the beginning - the first "viral course" of many to come. Wake up and be aware,
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Sweet! Now You Can Use Google Slides Offline
You can use Google Presentations offline now, a major reason many of us wouldn't consider using Google Presentations over Keynote or PowerPoint. It still doesn't have a lot of the flexibility of those two or even Prezi but for those heavily using Google Apps for Domains, it is a big plus. Hat tip to Richard Byrne at Free Tech for Teachers for this nice article.
tags: news google apps presentations
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Collaborative Writing with Etherpad-Lite on Mac OS X
While Google docs is great, when we had our conference in Beijing, China, we used etherpad installed on some servers out of Hong Kong. The original collaborative writing tool, Etherpad is very powerful. This in depth article teaches you how to set up etherpad on your own server and some of the benefits of using the tool. If Google Docs is blocked for you, this is a great alternative, although it does require a bit of tweaking or a lack of fear and ability to follow directions.
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CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards correlated with the Common Core
We should teach Computer Science because it is important to our future, but if you really need justification, Alfred Thompson shares the new alignments of Computer Science topics with all kinds of standards including Common Core.
tags: news commoncore
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We suck on international education tests, but not for the reasons you think
Very interesting read about affluence gaps (less in the US) and how the US is really suffering on PISA international tests because to students are dropping,
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I've been reading up on the "Drafts" app because of the useful new features I've been reading about. This article at the cult of mac on Drafts' new automation options, is the best article I've read on drafts and some of the more advanced features. If you don't understand it, it is worth trying. I'm just barely understanding the incredible things I can do with it, but many are just starting to use it for writing just about anything. Cool.
tags: news productivity ios apps
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There's an interesting discussion going on over at lifehacker about the best ifttt "recipes." Ifttt is "if this then that" and is an automation program that does amazing, very cool things. I've integrated it with my wemo, for example, and have it turning off and on my lights in the den and logging when there is action or motion in the kitchen. This is one of those posts you'll want to look at the comments.
tags: productivity ifttt automation news
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Drafts Updates with More Dropbox Actions, URL Actions, and Workflow Automation
Drafts is a handy app for those who who use a variety of tools like Evernote and dropbox. For example, you can jot a note and click a button to send it to Twitter, Dropbox, Evernote and more -- (like if you want to save copies of certain tweets, etc. since it is so hard to get things out of Twitter.) I'm not entirely clear on the workflow automation piece of Drafts after watching this video on lifehacker but am going to learn more about this handy app.
tags: news productivity iphone automation.
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Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: A faster image search
Google image search is being redesigned. I hope that one of the big changes that the quote below means is that we'll have more transparency with copyright. So many times, when I ask a source, students say "Google Images." No. No. No. Google images isn't a source, it is a search engine. You must quote the original source!! Hopefully this will make it easier. From Google Webmaster central... "We now display detailed information about the image (the metadata) right underneath the image in the search results, instead of redirecting users to a separate landing page. We’re featuring some key information much more prominently next to the image: the title of the page hosting the image, the domain name it comes from, and the image size."
tags: news google images copyright tumblr education literacy citizenship
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Teacher Tom: Teachers, Parents, Students
A school in seattle has parents, students, teachers refusing to administer the MAP test. Teacher Tom clearly shares why this is happening and why it is a good idea (the margin of error in the test is broad and it is being used to unfairly evaluate teachers.) When tests are used to evaluate teachers, those tests should be accurate. Testing, also, should be the exception, not the rule, and overtesting is causing problems. At my school, while individual teachers have tests - everyone has just one standardized testing period a year - that is it. The students do very well and we move on. We have no pep rallies, we just let parents know to make sure their kids get rest and that's it.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 01/24/2013
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Project-Based Learning: Integrating Technology
I had a great conversation led by Rae Pica and with Dr. William Bender, Suzie Boss, Anthony Cody as we briefly discussed project based learning. It was an enjoyable conversation (but a fast one). If you want to pick up some quick conversations about important topics.BAM radio is a great one to add to your podcast lists for the ride to school. I'm finding a lot of gems there.
tags: pbl teaching best practices differentiation
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Mrs. Obach's Grade 1 Blog: Evernote: assessment, e-portfolio, notebook, organizer & more!
Twitter conversations lead the most interesting places. Leah Obach is a first grade teacher who uses evernote to keep an efolio for each student. She creates templates and each child has a stack including photos and pictures of the child's work. She uses this during parent conferences to show what each child has done. Wow! This blog post is a must read for anyone looking at evernote or at streamlining assessment at the elementary level. I'm quite intrigued and want to know more. She's also shared her templates for assessing a variety of things for first grade - counting, etc. Applause for what she is doing, but also for taking the time to write the blog post when having a conversation with another teacher on Twitter. This is how we teach and encourage each other to know more. I'm debating about what would be appropriate to do with my students.
tags: teaching evernote assessment elemchat
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Do we debate? Eracism 2013 is around the corner
So, I copied an email that Julie Lindsay just sent out to our mailing list and am inviting any of you who would like to do this. It doesn't take a lot of time, but you do need to help students prepare to field a team. My classroom actually won the first competition back three or four years a go, and I had the whole class prepare and debate one another to select the team and then supported the team as they went through the competition. It was a great project. I'm not fielding teams now, just because it is the right thing to do for the projects and because the timing doesn't fit with my keyboarding class.
You're invited to join in Eracism! Here's information.
About the Eracism Project: A Message from Julie Lindsay.
You are receiving this email because of your interest in the Eracism Project. In fact you may have already completed a project in the past, you may have been a judge, or you may have filled in a form asking for more details, or you may be involved in another Flat Classroom Project. You may also be a classroom teacher who has already signed up for the Eracism 13-1 project!
I am writing to you all to help us spread the word about the NEW project starting in February, Eracism 13-1. We are madly working in the background to bring you the BEST asynchronous global debate we can. Thank you to those who provided feedback via our survey from the last project, and we are acting NOW to make even more improvements:
- We have tidied up the Eracism wiki - most details are there now for the new semester!
- We are reviewing all protocols and procedures, including the judges rubric, to ensure all language is clear and provides a 'flattened' learning environment for all global participants
- We are joined in partnership with ObaWorld from the University of Oregon's College of Education to offer, for this semester, a free online platform (ObaWorld) for teachers, judges and students to form a community around this project. Many comments we have received in the past were about the challenges of communication between teachers and the need to get students connecting across classrooms before, during and after the debates. ObaWorld will help us solve this, and be a lot of fun as well!
- We have reviewed the project Timeline and have the current Calendar dates on the wiki - we are giving MORE TIME for each asynchronous debate so that schools can work more efficiently around holidays and interruptions and judges can provide feedback in a more timely manner
- We are carefully considering the Eracism 13-1 Debate Topic, and will provide a Topic and Resource page on the wiki to help clarify and share resources - the topic should be finalised this coming week! Watch this space!
- Hearing how the other teams debated was fascinating because we learned about how/what other people think about key global issues.
- Working with the students in my school in a different context was a spectacular opportunity to know them better.
- Loved the whole thing. Despite the amount of work and sacrifice it entailed, it was a ton of fun and our team learned a lot about debating. Next time, we will be more prepared.
- The final live debate was a highlight!
- This makes learning applicable and real for the students. They no longer care about a grade, but instead want to do well as the world listens in.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/22/2013
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http://eagleeyecamera.wikispaces.com/
Aaron Maurer, a Flat Classroom Certified teacher, has started the Bald Eagle project that we are incubating. At Flat Classroom, our goal is to help foster and create powerful online learning projects. While our premier projects are run by teachers and require a small fee, the incubation projects are being incubated and supported by our other projects and efforts,so you can apply and join in. Here's information on the project. Aaron is top notch.
tags: education history_teacher edtech elemchat news flatclass
Monday, 21 January 2013
Learn more about Flat Classroom! Connect your students globally.
After the first project won ISTE's Online Learning Award, and Friedman included us in the update to his book, teachers from around the world started joining in. It has grown into projects from Kindergarten through 12th grade and now we're working with preservice teachers as we look to see what that will look like. Teachers discuss how to connect globally on our Flat Classrooms Ning, open to any educator.
Join us tonight!
Tonight, Julie Lindsay, and I will be presenting Meet the Flat Classroom® Monday (tonight) January 21, 8pm EST (January 22, 1am GMT) to talk about how you can connect globally by creating your own projects as well as the pedagogy behind it. We will also discuss our projects and give you updates on the Eracism debate project.Below are some links and information you may find helpful including information on the conference and a new virtual book club about Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds, in case you missed the last one. You may be overwhelmed when you see all the things going. Julie is a masterful administrator, and Lisa Durff does so many great things to keep us going, but it is our teachers - the many teachers around the world who have taken this viral. It has spread through Twitter, Facebook, blogs and conferences as teachers, students, and preservice teachers imagine and facilitate what we used to only dream about.
You CAN do this. Please join in. Buy the book, follow the links. We want you to join us.
Hot Links and Information
1. Flat Classroom Projects - We are launching all of our projects again in February 2013. Our goal is to facilitate the best global collaborative projects in the world where students co-create. Make sure you get your applications in! Download a brochure to share.- Flat Classroom Project - Deadline for next project is January 23, 2013 APPLY NOW!
- Digiteen and Digitween Project - Deadline for next project is February 15, 2013 APPLY NOW!
- 'A Week in the Life...' - Deadline for next project is February 15, 2013 APPLY NOW!
- NetGenEd - Project based on the Horizon Report published in January each year - Deadline February 1, 2013 - APPLY NOW!
- K-2 'Building Bridges to Tomorrow' Project - Deadline for next project is February 15, 2013 - APPLY NOW!
- Eracism - A Global Debate, A Global Community - Deadline for next project is February 7, 2013. There will be 2 brackets - Middle School (10-13) and High School (13+). This semester a global community will be built using the OBA platform created by the University of Oregon led by Yong Zhao. - Apply Now
2. Flat Classroom School Subscription Co-founders of Flat Classroom, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, have a solution for schools who want to 'go flat' and include more classrooms and teachers in Flat Classroom Projects each year AND provide professional development opportunities for teachers. Become a Flat Classroom School!
Prices for 2012-2013
- Bronze Level - $195 for up to 100 students
- Silver Level - $495 for 1 certified teacher and up to 200 students
- Gold Level - $995 for 2 certified teachers and up to 500 students
- Platinum Level - $1795 for 3 certified teachers and up to 800 students
View our current Flat Classroom® Schools on the website!
3. Flat Classroom Certified Teacher course. The next cohort will kick off in February! Come and join us or a PD experience that will not only build your PLN but transform your teaching and learning.
ANNOUNCING! Flat Classroom Certified Teacher - Group discount for schools and organizations (2012-13)
$2000 - 5 certified teachers
$3500 - 10 certified teachers
Contact Flat Classroom now to tailor your professional development needs. fcp@flatclassroom.org
4. Flat Classroom Conference Come and join us at the Yokohama International School, March 8-10 2013 in Yokohama, Japan for this unique, challenge-based event that brings student and teachers together from across the world. We invite you to browse our updated website and consider bringing students to this life-changing opportunity. Teachers looking for course credit for attending this conference watch this space for important updates coming very soon. Virtual participants invited to attend also - watch this space for application form coming by the end of January! REGISTRATION is OPEN!
5. Projects Databank - This is a place for Flat Classroom Certified Teachers, and others, to post their projects and attract classrooms from all over the world to participate.
We invite global project designers to join our Project Databank because:
- This wiki will be the face of each project but the real power will be in the searchable database currently being built
- Flat Classroom style projects are about community and networking - and we will provide this for our Flat Classroom community to thrive
- Congratulations to Aaron Maurer, Flat Classroom Certified teacher cohort 11-1.
6. Future Learning Action Talks (F.L.A.T.s) - We invite you to consider presenting in Blackboard Collaborate and share your global adventures and successes. An archive of past FLATS are on the website. Upcoming F.L.A.T.s with Australian Chris Betcher, the FCP 12-2 keynoter, on January 29, 10pm AEST / 6am EST USA. Topic: The Flat Classroom Project - Taking the Long View.
7. Announcing: The World Wide Think Tank is a joint initiative by THINK Global School and Flat Classroom. It is a student initiated and student driven global student leadership forum. It was launched by students, Hannah, Yada and Paul, during a presentation at the Global Education Conference, 2012.
AIMS
- To foster leadership skills.
- To encourage global conversations.
- To generate change.
- Join the SPOTX online community
- Like the Facebook page
- Complete the online form to be sent further updates.
- Browse the website to learn more and sign up:WWTT website.
Join in for the next online meeting (week starting January 28), volunteer to be a student leader!
8. Global Events - We invite you to use the Flat Classroom Educators network to advertise your global events. Make sure you keep an eye out for what is coming up!
What’s coming up?
- Meet the Flat Classroom - The next opportunity to meet Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis in an online information session will be Monday January 21, 8pm EST (January 22, 1am GMT). Check your location for date and time.
- Join a virtual book club - A new virtual book club is being led by Kyle Dunbar @edtechdunny based on our book, ‘Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds’. If you want to join, there is still time! Julie and Vicki will be coming to some of the sessions. The meetings are about discussing the concepts found in the book for flattened learning, making connections and learning from one another.
- Projects, F.L.A.T.s and more!
Questions about Flat Classroom®? Please email us: fcp@flatclassroom.org
Julie Lindsay (Australia) and Vicki Davis (USA)
Directors and Co-founders, Flat Classroom®
julie@flatclassroom.org, vicki@flatclassroom.org
Lisa Durff: Flat Classroom Coordinator - lisa@flatclassroom.org
http://flatclassroomproject.net
http://twitter.com/flatclassroom
Hashtag: #flatclass
