What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 262

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Facebook, Twitter, Google...today's tech-savvy students are always plugged in. However, all too often their teachers and administrators aren't experienced in the use of these familiar digital tools. If schools are to prepare students for the future, administrators and educators must harness the power of digital technologies and social media. With contributions from authorities on the topic of educational technology, What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media is a compendium of the most useful tools for any education setting. Throughout the book, experts including Will Richardson, Vicki Davis, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Richard Byrne, Joyce Valenza, and many others explain how administrators and teachers can best integrate technology into schools, helping to make sense of the often-confusing world of social media and digital tools. They offer the most current information for the educational use of blogs, wikis and podcasts, online learning, open-source courseware, educational gaming, social networking, online mind mapping, mobile phones, and more, and include examples of these methods currently at work in schools. As the book clearly illustrates, when these tools are combined with thoughtful and deliberate pedagogical practice, it can create a transformative experience for students, educators, and administrators alike. What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media reveals the power of information technology and social networks in the classroom and throughout the education community.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: Blogs

What Are Blogs?

Educational Rationale for Blogging

Blogging Best Practices: The Alice Project

Technical Steps

Framing the Process

Reflecting on Time Spent in Blogging Wonderland

Other Examples of Blogs in Practice

Responsible Blogging

Summary

Chapter 2: Wikis

Editing Wikis

Tips for Working with Wikis

What Wikis Mean for School Organizations

Potential Uses of Wikis

Wikis for Administrators

Wikis for Classroom Projects

Wiki Case Study

Tips for Successful Wiki Implementation by Administrators

Summary

Chapter 3: Podcasts and Webinars

What Are Podcasts and Webinars?

Benefits for Professional Development

Podcast and Webinar Examples

Getting Started with Podcasts

Getting Started with Webinars

Summary

Chapter 4: RSS and RSS Readers

Getting Started

RSS for Personal Learning

RSS for School Leaders

Get Started

Chapter 5: Digital Video

Getting Started

Student Privacy

Copyright

Basic Filmmaking

Curriculum Connections

Posting Videos Online

Summary

Chapter 6: Virtual Schooling

Models of Virtual Schooling

Multiple Roles Within Virtual Schooling

Research on K–12 Virtual Schooling

Suggested Outcomes for School Leaders

Summary

Interlude: Social Media Is Changing the Way We Live and Learn

Chapter 7: One-to-One Computing

Summary

Chapter 8: Free and Open Source Software

What Is Free and Open Source Software?

Free Software: Libre or Gratis?

Things That Are Not Free or Open Source Software

What Are Schools Doing with Free and Open Source Software?

Next Steps

Summary

Chapter 9: Educational Gaming

The Three Rs of Instructional Video Games

Choosing Games for the Classroom

Obtaining Games for the Classroom

Summary

Chapter 10: Social Bookmarking

How Does Social Bookmarking Work?

Examples of Use

Why Does Social Bookmarking Matter?

Which Tool Should I Use?

Summary

Chapter 11: Online Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping as an Instructional Strategy

Limitations of Analog Mind Mapping

Using Mind-Mapping Tools as an Administrator

Summary

Chapter 12: Course Management Systems

After the School Bell Rings

Online Professional Learning Communities

Classroom Communities

Parent Outreach Programs

Moodle Modules That Build Community

Summary

Interlude: See Sally Research: Evolving Notions of Information Literacy

Chapter 13: Online Tool Suites

Why Would Students Use Online Tool Suites?

Why Would Teachers Use Online Tool Suites?

Why Would Administrators Use Online Tool Suites?

Google Apps for Education

Some Google Apps Sites

Summary

Chapter 14: Twitter

The Power of Twitter

Caveats

Looking Beyond the Limitations

Getting Started

Summary

Chapter 15: Online Images and Visual Literacy

A Threefold Challenge

Visual Media and Literacy

Summary

Chapter 16: Mobile Phones and Mobile Learning

What Is Mobile Learning?

Why Embed Mobile Phones into Education?

Preparing to Implement Mobile Technologies

Summary

Chapter 17: Social Networking

The Ubiquity of Social Networks

Educational Uses of Social Networking Tools

Social Networklike Systems Built Around Blogs

Protecting the Image of Your Learning Institution

Try This

Are You Available or Invisible?

Where to Start in Taking Control

Afterword

About the Editors

About the Contributors

Index

Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McLeod, Scott, date.

What school leaders need to know about digital technologies and social media / edited by Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann; foreword by David Warlick.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978–1–118–02224–5 (cloth); ISBN 978–1–118–11670–8 (ebk.); ISBN 978–1–118–11671–5 (ebk.); ISBN 978–1–118–11672–2 (ebk.)

1. Educational technology—Planning. 2. Education—Effect of technological innovations on. 3. Social media. 4. School management and organization. I. Lehmann, Chris, date. II. Title.

LB1028.3.M399 2012

371.33—dc23 2011025366

To Betsy, Isabel, Lucas, and Colin, who put up with my shenanigans and without whom everything would be meaningless.

—Scott

To my parents, my first and best teachers. To my wife and best friend, Kat. And to the students and teachers of the Science Leadership Academy. You all make the journey so much fun.

—Chris

FOREWORD

Before embarking on the adventure to which the following pages will transport you, it is important to examine the story that has brought us to this place. I use the term story because telling stories is an essential ingredient for successful leadership. In a speech to Pennsylvania superintendents in 2000, cultural anthropologist Jennifer James said that the leaders who incite the transformations in today’s teaching and learning will be those who can tell a compelling new story. Dr. James (2000) suggested that this story should have three parts and should do the following:

Resonate with deeply held valuesBe something that we can point toFit the marketplace

The story that brings us here is about a perfect storm, growing from three converging conditions that are forcing us, for the first time in decades, to rethink education and what it means to be educated in a time of rapid change. We are rethinking the classroom and the definition of teacher, making transparent the boundaries that defined traditional education. We are preparing for a new generation of learners within a new information environment for a future that we cannot clearly describe.

A NEW GENERATION OF LEARNERS

Anyone who has been an educator for more than ten years knows that today’s children are different. There is evidence that their brains are physiologically different, elasticity wired in and built from information experiences that are dramatically different from any generation before—experiences that define their culture, which is based on video games, social networking, and a prevailing sense of hyperconnectedness that practically makes the word good-bye obsolete. It is an information experience that carries some unique and compelling qualities:

It is fueled by questions—to overcome built-in barriers.It provokes conversation—because it is team-oriented.It refines identity—both real and assumed or virtual.It is rewarded with currency—gold, coin, attention, powers, and permission.It demands personal investment—because there is value.It is guided by safely made mistakes—which always add to the player’s knowledge.

The foundation of each of these qualities is the responsive nature of children’s information experience. Much of what our children do in their outside-the-classroom information experiences is responded to. These responses are often automatic and immediate. But these automatic and immediate responses are not the only form, and perhaps they are not the most powerful. When students are engaged in social networking, the response to their crafted ideas may not come for days or perhaps even weeks after they have posted their thoughts—but when the response comes, it is based on reading what was written, not merely measuring what was written. The essential qualities of both immediate and delayed responses are relevance and authenticity.

Because such communication is responsive, another defining feature of the experience becomes evident. The players’ decisions are constantly being assessed. The report back does not merely identify whether the decision was right (√) or wrong (x). The return is, “It worked” or “It did not work.” Regardless of the response, the learner walks away with a new piece of knowledge.

NEW INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT

Since the 1990s, with the introduction and proliferation of personal computers and the Internet, our information environment has become increasingly networked (accessing our information quickly and globally), digital (machine readable and workable), and abundant (overwhelming). However, the first decade of the twenty-first century has seen another shift in the nature of our information landscape. It has become increasingly participatory and the boundaries that separate author from reader—and producer from viewer—have become fluid. According to a 2007 Pew study, 64 percent of U.S. teenagers have engaged in some form of content creation, up from 57 percent in 2004 (Lenhart, Madden, Smith, & Macgill, 2007).

This dynamic and increasingly accessible global library affords new and empowering learning experiences for our students and it significantly alters the role of the teacher. It also demands a new look at basic literacy, something larger that expands out from basic reading, writing, and numeracy. Today’s information landscape requires a wide and exciting range of skills involved in exposing the value of the information we encounter, employing the information by working the numbers that define it, expressing ideas compellingly to produce messages that compete for attention, and habitually considering the ethical implications of our use of information.

AN UNPREDICTABLE FUTURE

By the end of 2010, the amount of information added to the digital universe during the previous four years was more than six times what it was in 2006, from 161 billion gigabytes to 988 billion gigabytes (Gantz, 2007). Information and communication technologies have transitioned from wall-mounted telephones, boom boxes, and bulky television sets to something that we slip in and out of our pockets dozens of times each day. Advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and circuit miniaturization promise or threaten to alter our world in ways that even the most knowledgeable among us can barely imagine. We have reached a singularity, of sorts, a place where we educators are challenged to prepare our students for a future that we cannot clearly describe. The education dialogue that we and our communities should be having today is, “What do our children need to be learning today to be ready to succeed, prosper, and seize the opportunities of an unpredictable future—and how do they need to be learning it?”

There is little doubt that at least part of the answer to these questions will be found in the tools and practices that our children have embraced and sometimes have invented for an information landscape that seems set to ignore barriers and empower accomplishment. The following chapters will explore how today’s prevailing information environment is already being harnessed to affect the learning experiences that our children need and deserve.

August 2011

David Warlick

Raleigh, North Carolina

References

Gantz, J. (2007, March). A forecast of worldwide information growth through 2010. Retrieved from http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/expanding-digital-idc-white-paper.pdf

James, J. (2000). Thinking in the future tense: Leadership for a new age. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Smith, A., & Macgill, A. (2007, December 19). Teens and social media. Pew Internet. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Teens-and-Social-Media.aspx

Introduction

Glance at any story about education reform or look over the offerings at most education conferences and you are likely to run across one of the following terms: Web 2.0, twenty-first-century skills, or educational technology. There is near-universal agreement that schools must find ways to transform older teaching practices in order to harness the tools that students have at their disposal today. But for many administrators, trying to figure out the difference among Twitter and Flickr and Moodle and Drupal can leave them wondering where to even begin.

Don’t panic. It is nowhere near as hard as you think.

This book, with chapters written by some of the leading experts in the world on educational technology, is meant to introduce you to many of the most useful tools and concepts for an education setting so that you can decide, along with teachers and students and parents, which ones make the most sense for your school.

The contributors hope that this text helps you figure out the often confusing world of social media tools but, more than that, we hope it also serves as an introduction to a set of tools and ideas that have transformed our collective practice as educators. The tools described within, when combined with thoughtful and deliberate pedagogical practice, can create a transformative experience for students and educators alike, and we can no longer imagine teaching without them.

Whether it is the expansion of social networking technologies, the power of digital media creation tools, or the ability to publish to the world instantly, our students and teachers have access to more information than ever before. We all possess the ability to interact with learning networks much wider than at any other time in history. We all now have the unprecedented ability to create powerful artifacts of learning. It is an exciting time to be a teacher and a learner.

We hope this book helps you to enjoy the journey.

The hashtag for this book is #edtechlead

Visit techtoolsforschools.org for additional resources, interviews with chapter authors, and more!

CHAPTER 1

Blogs

Kristin Hokanson and Christian Long

What if all teachers and students described their classroom experiences like this (Warlick, 2007)?