Gen Y, Social Media and Digital Learning Styles

I am pleased to announce that the book chapter that I co-authored with Dr. Mercedes Fisher, "Pedagogical Mashup: Gen Y, Social Media, and Digital Learning Styles," has officially been accepted for publication in the Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges, to be published by IGI Global later this year.

Dr. Fisher and I wish to thank the co-editor of the book, Professor Subramaniam at the National Institute of Education at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, for his hard work and direction during the writing and peer-review process.

In addition, we appreciate all the members of the peer-review committee for their feedback, suggestions and collaboration on this chapter. It's been a wonderful experience to work with members of the international education technology/media community.

We've saved the links for all the resources and references cited in the book chapter over on the social bookmarking tool delicious, which you can find here: http://del.icio.us/mashup.edu

Related Publications by Mercedes Fisher & Derek E. Baird

• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles

Tech Grants for Washington State Teachers

Washington State K-12 educators are invited to apply for a 2009 Qwest Foundation Learning Technologies grant. This grant application is the first step in a competitive process that will award $10,000 grants to individual public school teachers or teacher teams.

These grants reward learning projects that integrate technology into standards-based curricula. The grant is managed by Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Educational Technology unit.

Completed grant applications are due at OSPI no later than 3:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 21, 2009. For more information or to download the application materials, click here.

Thanks to Julia Fallon for the scoop!

Educational Video Games Fun?

We sure have gone far since Reader Rabbit!

Over the years BlendedEdu has written a few persuasive posts about the tremendous pedagogical value of video games in education. My own children wished I had come to this conclusion earlier while they were growing up so they could have tasted the waters -sorry I'm a late bloomer - and other followers have been converted into believers- won’t mention names, but she lives in Rome now in a very prestigious role.

Finally – I can now say 'finally' rather than 'hopefully'- as more educators are coming to this realization on their own through empirical studies we are going to see more of these game ideas developed and developed for specific content specific areas- or do they really need to be developed in specific content areas? -- what do you think about this?

As the students in my own classes tell me- we have to make learning fun - so I think we are on to something fun with the direction educational gaming is heading in.

While you’re thinking about the gaming topic check out the Brainy Gamer - it is worth reading …

Or visit “Video Games and Human Values Initiative” ning group from UConn....and think about the connection between oral storytelling and the video game narrative today... A very interesting connection to make.