With kids in your life, certainly you've heard of tutorials and instructional videos on YouTube. But of course they're not just for kids, and it's exciting to think about all the learning, from guitar lessons to algebra to DIY plumbing, that goes on all over the Web and mobile platform – self-directed, -customized and -paced learning. Tutorials are there for people to learn just about anything … [Read more...] about From connected learning to P2P learning
Howard Rheingold
Why we mustn’t have a participation gap: 2 students’ experiences
The other day, two school librarians posted an insightful article about two students – Jessica, just starting her junior of high school, and Michael, who just graduated – who stand on opposite sides of the "participation gap," Prof. Henry Jenkins's term for the digital divide of participatory media and today's networked world. They describe what conditions in schools close the gap and what … [Read more...] about Why we mustn’t have a participation gap: 2 students’ experiences
So what good is social media?
I hadn't seen this figure: Social media use is forbidden in 52% of US classrooms, writes writes Prof. Todd Finley at East Carolina University in Edutopia. He suggests that this prohibition is working about as well as did Britain's royal decree in 1763 that North American colonists were not to settle west of the Appalachians. Professor Finley doesn't stop with why today's containment effort is … [Read more...] about So what good is social media?
Students’ PLNs: Great social media use!
This is what it's all about: young people using social media to their intellectual and professional advantage well before they're out of school – and with school helping them with that! What's the "this" I'm referring to? A USATODAY story about teachers, librarians, and media specialists helping students develop their own personal learning networks, using Twitter as the most common tool (this is … [Read more...] about Students’ PLNs: Great social media use!
Why participatory media need to be in school
Writer, tech consultant, and educator Clay Shirky just gave a talk at the State Dept. explaining the media sea change we're experiencing globally. Keeping participatory media, the most fluent though not necessarily most literate users of which are youth, out of school only solidifies the firewall between formal and informal learning and holds school back from 21st-century relevance. Isn't the idea … [Read more...] about Why participatory media need to be in school