Room B - Education in a Digital World 2.0 Series

The idea
that students are digital natives is a myth. Like any other idea up for
adoption, there is a normal distribution of interest in and ability with social
media and other emerging web technologies among K12 students. To be sure, many
are quite comfortable, if not always wise, users of social media such as
Facebook or IM. But none of the potential educational advantages of such tools
or of cloud computing are self-evident; and just as students had to be taught
to see a pencil as a learning tool, they need to be taught to see the web as a
learning tool. Just as we say let’s do some writing, not let’s do some
penciling, we ought to focus on ends, not means, when introducing new technologies
to a whole school or even a single classroom of students.
This session explores our relationship to technology in general and in this
light, how best to frame emerging technologies for so that students--and
teachers--can see how they can use them to boost learning. Over the past year,
we have developed a workflow using blogs to extend classroom discussions and
encourage higher order thinking in students. I will share results of the
work-to-date as well as some tools for measuring the quality of student blog
posts.