New Service From Harvard Aims to Replace Classroom Lectures

In the workshop I conducted for the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education this week, we discussed flipping classrooms and the use of  Facebook Questions in the classroom to measure the effectiveness of what is being taught, and then, on the ReadWriteWeb, up pops an article that covers both of these topics.  It seems one professor at Harvard is embracing both of these techniques:


http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/learning_catalytics_classroom_mobile.php

Flipped classes:

"Lectures made sense before the invention of the printing press, argues Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur, but at this point in history they are far from the best way to transmit large amounts of information or to make use of face-to-face time in the classroom.
Over nearly 20 years, Mazur has developed an innovative teaching methodology and is now testing software to support its application in any classroom. The basic idea is that the bulk of information consumption should be done outside the classroom and in-class time should be spent doing guided, measured, optimized peer-to-peer discussion in order to maximize retention of knowledge. Mazur's National Science Foundation-backed startup Learning Catalytics looks like a very cool way to facilitate that class time using web and mobile devices."

The technique discussed here could be employed easily using Facebook Questions:

Pierce described how Mazur demonstrated his methodology with attendees of an education conference last week in Boston. Mazur asked a physics question of people in the room.

Pierce :

"After briefly explaining why metal expands when it's heated--the atoms move more vigorously, and so they spread out because need more space in which to move--he asked attendees to imagine a rectangular piece of metal with a circular hole in the middle: Would the diameter of the hole increase, decrease, or stay the same if the metal were heated uniformly?

"Participants logged their responses, and then they huddled to confer with their colleagues. Those who thought the hole would shrink explained that the atoms in the metal around the edge of the hole would want to move away from the atoms in the rectangle's interior, thereby contracting the hole.

"But others correctly argued that the atoms around the hole's edge would not move toward the hole's center, because that would create even more crowding among themselves; instead, those atoms would move away from the hole's center in an attempt to create more space for themselves, thereby expanding the circle's diameter.

"When Mazur posed the question a second time, the number of correct responses nearly doubled as a result of this discussion. And when he shared the correct answer, many attendees affirmed they'll remember this concept much more vividly for having participated in the discussion."

Mazur's method aims to come up with questions that between 30% and 70% of students in a classroom answer correctly. If fewer than 30% get it right, then he revisits the concepts behind the question. Once more than 70% get it right, then he moves on to the next question."

Straight from the DOE: Dispelling Myths About Blocked Sites

When I presented a workshop for Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education this week, the teachers and I discusses social media and blocking. This article  should help them make decisions and influence decisions in their institutions.    You can find the entire article at http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/04/straight-from-the-doe-facts-about-blocking-sites-in-schools/, but I've included an excerpt here"

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been hearing from frustrated teachers about surprising websites their schools block — everything from National Geographic to Skype. One even wrote in to say that CommonCore.org was blocked.

A few readers questioned the judgment of teachers who use their own mobile devices to allow their students access to blocked sites. One reader, identified as Cwells67, goes so far as to claim: “If we do not block inappropriate sites ‘to the extent practicable,’ meaning ‘if you can block inappropriate sites, you are legally bound to block them,’ we will lose ALL FEDERAL FUNDING.”

To clear up some of the confusion around these comments and assertions, I went straight to the top: the Department of Education’s Director of Education Technology, Karen Cator.

Cator parsed the rules of the Childrens Internet Protection Act, and provided guidance for teachers on how to proceed when it comes to interpreting the rules. To that end, here are six surprising rules that educators, administrators, parents and students might not know about website filtering in schools.

1. Accessing YouTube is not violating CIPA rules. “Absolutely it’s not circumventing the rules,” Cator says. “The rule is to block inappropriate sites. All sorts of YouTube videos are helpful in explaining complex concepts or telling a story, or for hearing an expert or an authentic voice — they present learning opportunities that are really helpful.”
2. Websites don’t have to be blocked for teachers. “Some of the comments I saw online had to do with teachers wondering why they can’t access these sites,” she says. “They absolutely can. There’s nothing that says that sites have to be blocked for adults.”
3. Broad filters are not helpful. “What we have had is what I consider brute force technologies that shut down wide swaths of the Internet, like all of YouTube, for example. Or they may shut down anything that has anything to do with social media, or anything that is a game,” she said. “These broad filters aren’t actually very helpful, because we need much more nuanced filtering.”
4. Schools will not lose E-rate funding by unblocking appropriate sites. Cator said she’s never heard of a school losing E-rate funding due to allowing appropriate sites blocked by filters. See the excerpt below from the National Education Technology Plan, approved by officials who dictate E-rate rules.
5. Kids need to be taught how to be responsible digital citizens. “[We need to] address the topic at school or home in the form of education,” Cator says. “How do we educate this generation of young people to be safe online, to be secure online, to protect their personal information, to understand privacy, and how that all plays out when they’re in an online space?”
6. Teachers should be trusted. “If the technology fails us and filters something appropriate and useful, and if teachers in their professional judgment think it’s appropriate, they should be able to show it,” she said. “Teachers need to impose their professional judgment on materials that are available to their students.”

Facebook Adds Link Previews to Comments

I've been waiting for this feature.  Now when you add a link to a comment in Facebook, you see the same preview you see when you add a link AS a comment. I likey!



http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2011/07/21/facebook-adds-link-previews-to-facebook-comments/

How to Be a Social Media Research Ninja for your Blog

Just found a very interesting article about tools you can use to help you better use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media,

Social media enthusiast like you and me love to find new tools to increase engagement on our favorite social networks. Keeping on top of current events and trends on sites like Twitter and Facebook is also a great way to conduct research for our blog posts. Here are a few of my favorite tools to help curate content, sort through the noise, and focus our attention on the information and the users that are critical to the success of our blogs.

Click here to read about Twylah, Pluggio, Summify, Social Mention, StumbleUpon, EdgeRankChecker.com, Klout, PeerIndex, TwentyFeet, Paper.li, Twilerts, and Google Alerts enhanced with YoLink