Clipmarks | edtechnnorris's 'interesting' clips

Facebook Never Forgets

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:33:25 GMT

The next generation of political leaders is coming of age right now -- and it's unlikely that any one of them will escape digital documentation of their college-era foibles.

Our generation -- high schoolers, college students and recent graduates -- immortalizes the interesting and banal, the innocent and incriminating, all on the Internet. We update our Facebook status as often as we change our shoes, and upload party photos before the last reveler goes home. Nonparticipation is impossible: We file our job applications online and arrange first dates via e-mail. The upshot? America's standards for personal embarrassment, political scandal and appropriate disclosure are sure to change in the years to come.

The Internet's anonymity, long memory and free-for-all gossip culture may yet prove a poisonous cocktail. But as our generation grows older and enters public life -- thankfully, we have some time

Study Suggests Math Teachers Scraps Balls and Slices

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:26:17 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: Study suggests that children learn best when math is taught abstractly, limiting the real life examples and manipulatives

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Other mathematicians called the findings interesting but warned against overgeneralizing. “One size can’t fit all,” said Douglas H. Clements, a professor of learning and instruction at the University of Buffalo. “That’s not denying what these guys have found, whatsoever.”

“The motivation behind this research was to examine a very widespread belief about the teaching of mathematics, namely that teaching students multiple concrete examples will benefit learning,” said Jennifer A. Kaminski, a research scientist at the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State. “It was really just that, a belief.”

The idea is that making math more relevant makes it easier to learn.

That idea may be wrong, if researchers at Ohio State University are correct. An experiment by the researchers suggests that it might be better to let the apples, oranges and locomotives stay in the real world and, in the classroom, to focus on abstract equations

Are Wired Kids Well Served by Schools?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:25:59 GMT

clipped by: edtechnnorris
clipper's remarks: Probably not.

Clip Source: www.news.com

"Kids associate one word with school--'boring,'" said Deborah Stipek, dean and professor of education at Stanford, who was part of a panel discussion with the group of researchers. But kids' levels of engagement with the Internet and games could give educators new ideas for upping school's status.

The Stanford event, which was sponsored by MacArthur and Common Sense Media, raised more questions than it answered. But one of the more interesting findings in the research showed that many kids are drawn to create media online because their work can be immediately recognized or judged among their peer group or a larger audience, according to Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist of technology use and a principal investigator on MacArthur's project. That, she said, can be immediately gratifying.

Among the generation of kids growing up wired, many teens are hyper-motivated to learn a special skill like how to create a podcast, direct a YouTube video, publish an anime site, or hack an iPhone.

Internet Opens Elite Colleges to All

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:32:58 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers

Clip Source: news.wired.com

An MIT initiative called "OpenCourseWare" makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free - lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang's Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone.

Strang's classroom is the world.

The world's top universities have come late to the world of online education, but they're arriving at last, creating an all-you-can eat online buffet of information.

MIT's initiative is the largest, but the trend is spreading. More than 100 universities worldwide, including Johns Hopkins, Tufts and Notre Dame, have joined MIT in a consortium of schools promoting their own open courseware. You no longer need a Princeton ID to hear the prominent guests who speak regularly on campus, just an Internet connection. This month, Yale announced it would make material from seven popular courses available online, with 30 more to follow.

Tags: optional. separate by commas., interesting, technology, teaching

Google Gets Ready to Rumble with Microsoft

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:12:33 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Google Aps a real competition for Microsoft Office

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Mr. Schmidt snared the C.E.O. spot at Google and today finds himself at the helm of one of computing’s most inventive and formidable players, the runaway leader in Internet search and online advertising. With its ample resources and eye for new markets, Google has begun offering online products that strike at the core of Microsoft’s financial might: popular computing tools like word processing applications and spreadsheets.

Google introduced a package of online software offerings, called Google Apps, that includes e-mail, instant messaging, calendars, word processing and spreadsheets. They are simpler versions of the pricey programs that make up Microsoft’s lucrative Office business, and Google is offering them free to consumers.

New features and improvements are made and tested on Google’s computers and constantly sprinkled into the services users tap into online.

Tags: optional. separate by commas., interesting

Don't Know Their Yahoo From Their YouTube

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:55:41 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

In Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate, Sen. John McCain let slip a fairly stunning admission. The Arizona Republican assured viewers that he wouldn't need to lean on his vice president, George W. Bush-style, for national security expertise, but might "rely on a vice president" for help on less important issues such as "information technology, which is the future of this nation's economy."

Part of the problem is simply generational. According to the Senate historian, the Senate is the oldest it has ever been, with an average age of 62 during the 110th Congress. Most of the leaders of Senate committees had already graduated from college by the time TVs became widespread in American homes in the 1950s. As the United States advances into the information age, it can't afford to have its leaders' base of knowledge be rooted in the industrial era, lest their intellectual capacities come to resemble such relics as the decaying steel mills of Pittsburgh.

Tags: interesting, technology

Substitute teacher dismissed over tatoo photos

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:24:44 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Warn everyone about what they post on Facebook or MySpace. Kids will look you up and look for pictures to get you in trouble.

Clip Source: www.pensacolanewsjournal.com

Virginia Carter, a substitute teacher at West Florida High School, has been dismissed because of photographs of her tattoos that she posted online.

When school officials investigated, they learned that West Florida students knew about the photographs, which included a photo of Carter's unclothed back,

"It's not pornography," Scott said, adding the photographs were posted either on MySpace or Facebook.

School officials felt that, because students knew about the photographs, it hurt Carter's ability to be an effective teacher, he said.

But the position of trust teachers have with children means they are held to a high standard, Scott said.

"People need to be really careful about what they post," he added.

Tags: interesting, internetsafety, parenting, teens, web2.0

MySpace Photo Costs Teacher Education Degree

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:09:22 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Two year old picture of teacher drinking out of a cup (who knows what) causes a ruin of career because of the caption.

Clip Source: blog.washingtonpost.com

Teacher in training Stacy Snyder was denied her education degree on the eve of graduation when Millersville University apparently found pictures on her MySpace page "promoting underage drinking." As a result, the 27-year-old mother of two had her teaching certificate withheld and was granted an English degree instead. In response, Snyder has filed a Federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania university asking for her education diploma and certificate along with $75,000 in damages.

The picture in question turned out to be of her at a Halloween party in 2005 dressed as a pirate and drinking an indeterminate liquid "from a plastic 'Mr. Goodbar' cup." But underneath was a caption which read "Drunken Pirate" and that caption apparently lead faculty to assume she was too "unprofessional" to educate young minds.

extreme example and there are limits and lines that must be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable

Tags: interesting, web2.0

The Truth About Homework

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:04:21 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers
clipper's remarks: Great article about how homework is unecessary.

Clip Source: www.alfiekohn.org

I discovered that decades of investigation have failed to turn up any evidence that homework is beneficial for students in elementary school. Even if you regard standardized test results as a useful measure, homework (some versus none, or more versus less) isn’t even correlated with higher scores at these ages. The only effect that does show up is more negative attitudes on the part of students who get more assignments.

In high school, some studies do find a correlation between homework and test scores (or grades), but it’s usually fairly small and it has a tendency to disappear when more sophisticated statistical controls are applied.

it’s “qualitative changes in the ways students view themselves in relation to the task, engage in the process of learning, and then respond to the learning activities and situation.”

they preferred to have students do these things during class where it was possible to observe, guide, and discuss.

superb teachers

Tags: interesting, leadership, middleschool, parenting, teaching

Why Money Doesn't Buy Happiness

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 02:27:50 GMT

clipped by: iteachcomputers

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

Why Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness

(Curiously, although money doesn't buy happiness, happiness can buy money. Young people who describe themselves as happy typically earn higher incomes, years later, than those who said they were unhappy. It seems that a sense of well-being can make you more productive and more likely to show initiative and other traits that lead to a higher income. Contented people are also more likely to marry and stay married, as well as to be healthy, both of which increase happiness.)

Tags: interesting