Howdy readers! TESOL EVOnline is a cool Yahoo Group site dedicated to ESL/EFL where teachers and enthusiasts can post helpful and interesting things to share! They can also reply to things others have posted. This type of networking site speeds up the process of idea --> sharing. We've come such a long way from communication with tin cans and a string, haven't we?!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Social Networks FTW!
Howdy readers! TESOL EVOnline is a cool Yahoo Group site dedicated to ESL/EFL where teachers and enthusiasts can post helpful and interesting things to share! They can also reply to things others have posted. This type of networking site speeds up the process of idea --> sharing. We've come such a long way from communication with tin cans and a string, haven't we?!
A Learner is Like...
A learner is like a vacuum. Always taking in new information at a blistering pace can make your head spin, but the way we live now has shaped the way we pick up new things. Ample information and knowledge also comes with a sizable amount of garbage. The only problem with all of the knowledge around us is how do we know what's important, and better yet, what is going to be important tomorrow, or the next day? A learner has a filter that may need to be emptied of all of the excess crap once in a while, but in addition to the new version of humans' affinity for everything noteworthy, this filter is capable of weeding out what's important, to themselves at least. With a HEPA-like filter on board, humans are becoming proficient at finding the big news, and remembering it. But where does our brain go, naturally, for all of this knowledge, you ask? George Siemens says in The Impact of Social Software on Learning: "It really boils down to our ability to have a dialogue." This relates to the vacuum model because our social interaction, (the basis of Socio-cultural learning theory), is the shag carpet that our cranial Kirby scours every waking moment.
When social networking first started to get big, people could learn from their friends even when their friends weren't literally teaching. A person could all of a sudden share things with anyone they associate with, all the time! Someone you once knew could now make a comment on line, and very out in the open, which you might read immediately, or even days or weeks later, that could change the way you think, act, or even do your job. Karen Stephenson says in Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens: "Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge." By this she says expertly that everyone we know has now become everything we know.
When social networking first started to get big, people could learn from their friends even when their friends weren't literally teaching. A person could all of a sudden share things with anyone they associate with, all the time! Someone you once knew could now make a comment on line, and very out in the open, which you might read immediately, or even days or weeks later, that could change the way you think, act, or even do your job. Karen Stephenson says in Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens: "Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge." By this she says expertly that everyone we know has now become everything we know.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Great list of tech tools for educators!
One of the blogs I follow on Google Reader has a particularly interesting and, (I believe), helpful list of online tools that can be utilized in such a way as to promote learning in and out of the classroom setting.
One that I found especially interesting is called Scrumblr, and can be found at scrumblr.ca! This tool is so epic that it acts as a virtual dry-erase board which can be accessed remotely as if in a classroom collaborative setting!
So without further ado, here's the list I found on Teaching Generation Now:
50 educational tech tools list
One that I found especially interesting is called Scrumblr, and can be found at scrumblr.ca! This tool is so epic that it acts as a virtual dry-erase board which can be accessed remotely as if in a classroom collaborative setting!
So without further ado, here's the list I found on Teaching Generation Now:
50 educational tech tools list
Monday, February 6, 2012
21st Century Education in New Brunswick
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| New Brunswick, Canada |
This video was very enlightening! I learned a lot of things about how quickly the world is advancing today, and how we must make sure that our children's education is not only keeping up, but putting them ahead of the curve. The most striking fact that the video presented was that the top 10 jobs today didn't exist in 2004. I found this to be astonishing, and rather scary. I hope that by harnessing technology, we can allow kids to be the wave, rather than just hold on for dear life. I also hope to make it so that New Brunswick isn't the only place in the world where kids are provided with this opportunity!
21st Century Education in New Brunswick
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