Technology for Learning

photo credit: quinn.anya
Some time ago I read a post helping teachers determine what they should and should not post on their classroom websites. It was a very positive list from Mrs. Smoke who posts often with helpful hints.
But when Alec Couros had a bad experience with someone favouriting his daughter’s photos on flickr, I [...]

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Footprints in the sand
Originally uploaded by Welshdan

Jesse Bradley, in his recent post about the invisible audience, touched on the trail of his person that was collecting in cyberspace. He wondered what his children would come to know about him through his digital footprint online.
Gottsela touched on similar issues as she explored what should be posted [...]

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photo credit: in da mood
Another leg of my journey to developing a K-12 Parent Portal is completed. The first compilation of “What would you do in a K-12 Parent Portal?” is now posted on the Parent 2.0 wiki. It is a work in progress, as I continue to receive feedback from the blog postings [...]

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The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) has just published new quantitative and qualitative research on social networking in the report Social Networking
A quantitative and qualitative research report into attitudes, behaviours and use.
The report categorizes users and non-users:

Users:

Alpha Socialisers (a minority) – people who used sites in intense short bursts to flirt, meet new people, and [...]

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Identity management is a very important part of supporting our Web 2.0 experience. Thanks to a tweet from Matt I just watched Dick Hardt from Sxip Identity, a Canadian company, talk about Identity 2.0. Just as we describe learning with the learner at the centre, Identity 2.0 puts the user at the [...]

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Under the umbrella of “do we worry too much about safety”, I’ve realized I need a framework to categorize the worry bits.  In the absence of a framework, safety covers too broad and diverse a set of topics.  There are some worry-bits that are worth worrying about, and some that can be addressed with information [...]

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Thanks to all who responded to my last post.  I’d like to try to summarize the responses, which wove threads into the same fabric:  we are being over-protective:
1.  There is a difference between safety and literacy.  Children must learn to survive in this new culture they themselves are creating.  Ignorant children cannot grow up to [...]

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Do we worry too much about our kids in online spaces?
I work in a large school district where we invest a lot of energy in securing our technology environment.  We use strong passwords to protect data. Technical security protects the environment from multiple threats – the size of our network makes it a target.  The [...]

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Can you believe the technologies available to support and enable learning today? I’m starting this blog, rather fittingly on the first day of a new year, to chronicle my journey through my M.Ed. degree in Educational Communications and Technology. I have been working in technology for 30 years, but only the last nine in K-12 [...]

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