Linkage: How Boomers Use Tech, Expansion of eLearning & Digital Storytelling

Facebook Doesn't Forget: Editorial piece in last weeks LA Times all about lifecasting and Facebook.

HP Launches Mini Laptop Program: HP announces that they are deploying 7,000 of their HP Mini Note laptops in the Fresno Unified School District.

71% of School Districts to Expand eLearning: The results of a joint survey conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and U.S. Department of Education (DOE) were released earlier this month and provide more insight into the totally wired world of Gen Y students'.

Digital Storytelling Project: Penguin Books UK recently launched, We Tell Stories, an ambitious digital reading project aimed squarely at the reading styles of Gen Y students.

Nintendo DS in Japanese Schools: In a pilot program aimed at increasing English language skills, teachers in Japan are integrating the wildly popular Nintendo DS into the curriculum.

Research from the Digital Futures Project shows that the online behavior of older Americans (50+) is rapidly mirroring, and in some cases exceeding, that of younger Gen Y users.

Netlingo + Plurk

Have you tried Twittering your life's events? Now there's Plurk.

Verb. plurk (plüer-kh) - To chronicle the events of your always on, action-packed, storybook, semi-charmed kinda life.

Whether you Twitter or Plurk the NetLingo Internet Dictionary will help you. With the limited number of characters that Twitter and Plurk allow per post, the NetLingo Online Dictionary will help you say anything in just a few short letters or words to get your point across.

Twittering and Plurking are just 2 new ways to keep connected to your CoP circle and see what your colleagues are thinking and doing.

Free Online Conference on Web 2.0

The Knowledge Bank online conference out of Australia this year is focused on Web 2.0 in education: what it is, how it’s being used today and its potential to radically change education.

Steve Hargadon will be giving the keynote address on why "Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education."

General Conference Information

Topic: Learning in a changing world - Web 2.0 and beyond
When: Six sessions held over July 21 and 23 2008 (depending on time zone!)
Where: Online in Elluminate
Sign Up: The conference is free but you need to Sign Up.

Abstract

Web 2.0 is not new - many of us have used social networking sites like YouTube, TeacherTube and Facebook. We know about Wikipedia, Skype and podcasting. We read, even write, and comment on blogs. But what might happen to education as Web 2.0 becomes mainstream?

* Introducing Web 2.0. Who are you? Where have I met you before?
* How can reading and writing a blog change your way of learning?
* How does a direct connection with an expert shift your relationship to knowledge?
* Who are the content experts?
* What skills should we be teaching to young people, and what can we learn from them?

Who should attend?

Primary and secondary school teachers, education policy officers, researchers, further education professionals and other educators - anybody interested in Web 2.0 and education.

Related Resources

• Social Media, Web 2.0 & Online Course Design
• Mobile Learning: The Next Wave
• MashuEDU: A New Digital Pedagogy

Lessons from NECC 2008 for Media & Marketing Professionals

YPulse is a leading source of daily news, commentary about Gen Y for media and marketing professionals. The site is edited by Anastasia Goodstein, the author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online.

This week I had the pleasure of writing a guest post for YPulse titled "Five Things Marketers Can Learn From NECC 2008." Here's an excerpt:

"One of my former colleagues at Yahoo! used to have a mantra: "We can do good and do well." Gen Y students are totally wired and the "Flat World" isn't an abstract view of the future, it's their reality. Increasingly teachers are looking for ways to interject global, local and other types of social awareness programs and curriculum into their classroom.

Educational programs that provide avenues for teachers and students to connect with other classrooms to "do good" can also provide you with an opportunity to build brand awareness with youth and allow you to "do well" at the same time. Tiger, Oprah, MTV, Target and Microsoft are already doing it, why aren't you?"

You can catch the whole post by clicking here. Thanks to Anastasia and the YPulse team for the opportunity.

Related Resources

• YPulse
  
• YPulse Mashup 2008
  
• Totally Wired Blog
  
• Barking Robot & YPulse

Linkage: NECC, Web Safety & Gen Y Research

Report on Gen Y, Technology & Learning: A new report from Blackboard and Project Tomorrow provides new insight into the sociological impact of online learning on education.

NECC 2008: Social Media & Education: Check out this transcript of a back channel chat from NECC 2008 where teachers talk about the challenges of using social media in the classroom.

Teachers.tv: Check out this video to learn some common sense classroom activities related to student use of social networks, chat and social media.

Call for YPulse Youth Advisory Board

Anastasia Goodstein is an award-winning blogger and expert on how American tweens, teens
and twentysomethings consume technology, new media, social networks and life on the web.

She is also the creative genius behind the Ypulse blog and Ypulse Mashup conferences. She is the author of a book about teens and technology called Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online.

In her book Anastasia explores what Gen Y is doing on the Internet and with social media and mobile technology. She also delves into issues around cyberbullying, MySpace (and other social networks), as well as how all this technology is impacting schools and educators.

Today Anastasia announced that YPulse is forming "a Ypulse Youth Advisory Board made up of 10 young people between the ages of 13 and 24 from diverse backgrounds and geographic locations."

This is an excellent opportunity for teens to share their ideas, insight and feedback on what it means to be a teen in the 21st Century. It's also a big opportunity for college-bound teens to list one of the leading youth media organizations on that college admissions form!

So if you are a teen, or know a teen who's interested in joining the YPluse Youth Advisory Board, send them here for all the details.

Related Resources

• YPulse
  
• Totally Wired
  
• Video > Anastasia Goodstein

Linkage: Social Media, EdTech4Obama & Mobile Web

Social Media Hits Critical Mass: "Although age is the driving force behind usage patterns of these technologies, it is clear that a fundamental shift has taken place in all of our lives about what it means to communicate in the 21st Century." -Media in Mind (MiM)

Meet Mr. Basler: Check out my interview with an award winning teacher and expert at integrating social media into the science classroom.

EdTech4Obama: If you're going to NECC, come join us!

Call for Papers: This year’s conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities."

Gen Y & Mobile Internet: ""The children of the mobile internet generation are getting used to being connected – to their music, their videos, their social networking sites – wherever they go. And that means we are all going to have to think hard about how we rewrite the rules."

WebSlides + Diigo

Here's a good idea for a 'lesson' to work on this summer while you have some free time.

Go to Webslides

Open an account and start saving a few Web2.0 sites on Diigo that you want your students to use for a project. Maybe there are sites you want your students to use for a video project or maybe they are news sites with articles that you want students to read for a 'current events' class to write an essay. Bookmark any sites of a particular interest for an assignment or project.

When you have saved the bookmarks you want for the 'lesson' begin narrating each site in Webslides. Virtually take your students on a web tour of web 2.0 tools, tell them what you want them to know about each tool for the project they will be working on. If it's news articles you saved record a brief synapses of each article.

Keep bookmarking and narrating the sites until you feel you have provided enough background or technical information for your students to begin the assignment.

By the end of your Webslides presentation your students should have gained the knowledge-base needed to begin the project or write the essay without you even being there. That's called constructivist learning.

This might be a good 'lesson' to save for a day when you need a substitute teacher, your students might not even miss you....Go get started now.

Wikimania 2008

Do you want to learn how to work with the collaborative tool "WIKI" and meet Wikimedians throughout the world? Then plan on attending Wikimania 2008, the annual conference for Wikimedians.

July 17-18 at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt.

AACE - ED MEDIA 2008

If you're not attending NECC in San Antonio, Texas then plan on attending AACE - ED-MEDIA 2008 World Conference on Educational Mutimedia, Hypermedia, & Telecommunications in Vienna, Austria June 30- July 5th. ED MEDIA 2008 will be hosted by the Vienna University of Technology.

This annual conference gathering is the perfect conduit for the exchange of informational research on the latest topics in new media, telecommunications and distance education.

Attendees can choose from a large selection of workshops, panels, round-table discussions, corporate showcases and demos. Be sure to attend the poster demonstrations where a very large number of presenters will be presenting their latest research and projects.

Keynote speakers include:

• Alan Amory, University of Johannesburg- "Playing Games: Hegemony as Enemy"
• Geetha Narayanan, Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology, India "Moving beyond the Plentitude: An Indian Fable"
• Peter J. Scott, Open University, UK "Where is the Mentor?" New Ways of Supporting Learning"
  
• Patricia Manson, European Commission, Luxembourg- "Technology Enhanced Learning in the 21st Century- The Role of European Research"

Invited Speakers include:

• Peter Purgathofer- Vienna University of Technology, Austria
• James Dalziel- Macquarie University, Australia
  
• Rob Koper- Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands
  
• Rob Phillips- Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia
• Lizbeth Goodman- University of East London, UK

Follow the Ed-Media Blog to keep up-to-date on conference events.

ED MEDIA is truly a gathering of great minds in the world-wide Educational Technology Community. Learning is social; you will learn from the company you keep at ED MEDIA 2008.

NECC 08 Workshop

If you plan to attend NECC 2008 (National Educational Computing Conference, June 29-July 2 in San Antonio, or if you are working with any teachers who plan to attend, the following may be of interest to you or to them.

WIPTE (Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education) is sponsoring a series of mock classes that will be taught in Tablet PC classrooms at NECC on June 30.

The goal is to show, in a hands-on-manner, how Tablet PCs and supporting software can provide an engaging classroom experience while also sharing information about the annual WIPTE conference. There will be ten classes in total. The content will range from computer science to foreign language.

If you or anyone you know would like to learn more, you can see the sessions times posted on the WIPTE web site.

Related Resources

• NECC 2008
• Flickr NECC 08
• NECC on Ning