When I declared my elementary education major, I pestered my friends with questions about their schooling experience (even asking them to give me their favorite children’s book if they were going to give me a birthday present) because I was desperate to know what their teachers had done to create a lasting impact. Personally, I …
The plethora of digital media is impacting many different avenues and professions including newspapers: The market values analog readers more highly than digital ones because the market is right. Seeing this, several people have started looking for ways to exit that market. One of the most widely circulated of these ideas is David Swenson and …
There are many middle schoolers who are being told to be quiet in class, to sit still in class and to not be distracted by all their technology. For 6 hours a day, they are often unengaged and disconnected. Then they go home. They pull out their iPods, turn their phone off of vibrate, check …
Content curation is going to continue to be a part of conversations in the classroom and out of the classroom because of the availability of so many different resources. In the classroom, many teachers are lamenting the fact that students are going first to the web for information rather than perusing the library and using …
Unfortunately, this type of story is not uncommon: Josh Pickett had a problem: his teacher couldn’t mark his homework. The cause of the problem: his teacher, who had set his Information and Communication Technology (ICT) class the challenge of “design and create a multimedia product”, had expected people to come up with a PowerPoint presentation. …
After visiting a conference that like Affiliate Summit, it is easy to think that you need to rest and recoup; however, if you take too long to start acting on what you have learned it may not get done at all. It’s not unlike teachers’ argument for homework: if students don’t practice what they have …
If you have been in the classroom for a number of years, odds are that integrating technology into the classroom was not a part of your teacher education program. But Digital Is. So rather than fighting it, why not take the opportunity to teach yourself how students are learning. Students are using the internet to …
With NCLB’s 10 year anniversary, the Obama administration is looking for a way out. Reauthorization would cause an outcry from teachers and administrators, so instead the federal government has offered a waiver program: The waiver plan has drawn a critical response from California state schools chief Tom Torlakson, whose office estimates that complying with the …
Many districts and principals are actively fighting against teachers facebooking with students. Is this restriction impeding student success and disconnecting the classroom from the interactive world that students engage on a daily basis? Yes. Yes, I Facebook with students. In fact, I accept every request they send my way, because it is an incredible way …
There is a countermovement of teachers who are encouraging digital literacy development in their classroom rather than falling prey to the standardization movement. What is this countermovment offering their students? Time to play. For early childhood specialist, play has always been considered an essential part of a child’s overall development, but some teachers are taking …
