Easy Technology for Education: Edmodo 2.0
Twitter has brought the concept of micro-blogging to the attention of much of the world. The recent Iranian election drama that played out on a world stage, certainly would not have been possible without Twitter. Facebook and Friendfeed have also jumped into the instant update arena to keep up and provide interesting options themselves. In a previous article, I outlined the idea behind micro-blogging and some of the complaints associated with it. In today’s article, I want to take a look at a great way to develop a light-weight, easy to use, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). While...
Read MoreTechEd 2009– Day Two
Day two is now finished. I think it was another productive day of presentations, interesting conversations, and networking opportunities. That being said, I have a few observations: After two days of listening to teacher conversations, questions, and input during the breakout sessions and symposiums, I realized we (educators) have a lot of work to do if we want to effectively utilize Web 2.0 technology to improve student learning. Teachers are excited about utilizing Web 2.0 technology in their classrooms, but the diversity of applications seem to present difficult problems. Implementing LMS...
Read MoreTwitter in Education? – Pt 1
One of the more interesting technologies that has been gaining attention lately is Twitter. Twitter combines IM (instant messaging) and SMS (text messaging) with the social-network concept. This can be described as a free micro-blogging service. It allows users to post updates about their activities in 140 characters or less. Hence the blogging moniker. Twitter also combines the social-networking aspect by allowing users to follow their friends or other selected updates, known as tweets. The innovative idea behind Twitter is ability of these tweets to be created or received by SMS (text...
Read MoreCritical Thinking and Social Media Technology
With the emergence of social media technology in the classroom, teachers are finding innovative ways to promote student learning. As educators become more sophisticated in terms of utilizing Internet and mobile-based technologies to share information, they are taking advantage of new and exciting opportunities to improve their teaching practice. One particular area of interest to me is the way in which this sort of technology might improve the critical thinking skills of high school students. Perhaps the most difficult task for a high school teacher is promoting critical thinking in the...
Read More