How Technology Wires the Learning Brain

Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend 11.5 hours a day using technology — whether that’s computers, television, mobile phones, or video games – and usually more than one at a time. That’s a big chunk of their 15 or 16 waking hours. But does that spell doom for the next generation? “Young people are born into technology, and they’re used to using it 24/7,” Small said. “The technology train has left. The downside of such immersion in technological devices, he said, is that they’re not having conversations, looking people in the eye, or noticing verbal cues. But that’s not the headline here. Video games, for example, aren’t just about repetitive tasks – many of them have built-in social components that allow kids to communicate. “Texting is an expression of what it means to be human,” Small said. That’s why one well-liked teacher Small knows gives her students a five-minute texting break in the middle of class. “We can train empathic behavior,” he said. “The brain is complex,” he said.

Evidence of Learning Online: Assessment Beyond The Paper Assessment | Viewpoint Evidence of Learning Online: Assessment Beyond The Paper Discussions of technology strategy and planning for new media at colleges and universities are informed by many factors of higher education culture and the way its core constituents--faculty and students--work and learn. One rapidly evolving area is online assessment, whether for fully online programs or for blended learning environments. Here, learning designer Judith Boettcher examines online assessment strategies beyond the traditional end-of-term paper. In designing courses for online environments we have been somewhat successful at scuttling closed-book exams for assessing student learning--largely due to the challenges of monitoring exams. Why is the traditional paper so prevalent in assessment, and how can we move beyond it to alternative evidence of student learning? Students often dread writing papers and respond enthusiastically to alternatives that demonstrate what they know and understand.

Collaborize Classroom - Online Education Technology for Teachers and Students 10 Google Products You (Probably) Never Knew Existed I don’t know about you, but it feels like Google launches a new product every time I turn my laptop on. And these new products tend to fit into two distinct categories: Incredibly usefulIncredibly bizarre Fortunately, most of these products are free so we’re really not in a position to complain! After some lengthy research, I was surprised by how many tools Google has either developed or acquired over the years. So much so, that I thought it was a good idea to compile a list of the secrets of the Google product empire. Google Takeout – No, this is not Google’s food delivery service (although that’d be handy), this is a tool which allows you to download an archive of your data from things like your +1′s, Google+ Circles, Contacts and Picasa Web albums.Google Mars – While you’re probably familiar with Google Earth, Google Mars is a little less well known. So, how many of those did you know about? Also read: olly via shutterstock

Student Research: Can Googling Replace $168 Intro to Psych Textbook? Electronic Textbooks | News Student Research: Can Googling Replace $168 Intro to Psych Textbook? By Dian Schaffhauser02/16/11 Students are taking the battle against high-priced textbooks into their own hands. This week, 11 University of Cincinnati seniors in the psychology program presented at an Educause event a comparison of the content of traditional college texts, one of which costs $168, to content they found for free on the Web. The research effort was undertaken as part of the Digital Bookshelf Project, the University System of Ohio's effort to make textbooks more affordable. For the latest research project, which took place in fall 2010, the students compared the value and educational quality of two current textbooks with the draft of a new textbook they found free online, along with what they could find through online search engines. They found that materials from Wikipedia were accurate and thorough, though "perhaps excessively thorough for an introductory course," they reported.

www.dramatica.com/downloads/Dramatica paradigms-0707.pdf 100+ Google Tricks for Teachers It's Google's world, we're just teaching in it. Now, we can use it a little more easily. With classes, homework, and projects–not to mention your social life–time is truly at a premium for all teachers, so why not take advantage of the wide world that Google has to offer? From super-effective search tricks to Google tools specifically for education to tricks and tips for using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, these tricks will surely save you some precious time. Search Tricks These search tricks can save you time when researching online for your next project or just to find out what time it is across the world, so start using these right away. Convert units. Google Specifically for Education From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school. Google Scholar. Google Docs 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Gmail 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. Google Calendar 44.

App Fusion: Learning Face-off with Facebook by Terrence Wing "This is not to say that Facebook is the end-all and that you should abandon your LMS. There are privacy concerns with proprietary information that you need to consider. This learning option should not be considered in every situation. Wikipedia reports that there are over 500 million users now on the social networking giant, Facebook. This appears to be great news for Mark Zuckerberg and his army of investors. It’s all in the context Let’s get some definitions out of the way to establish a consistent context for this thesis. A content management system (CMS) is the collection of procedures used to manage workflow in a collaborative environment. Many social media sites fall into the CMS category. A LMS provides a higher level of administration because it enables you to measure the effects of your learning initiatives. Bending Facebook to your will Facebook’s Developer API is the platform that allows you to create dynamic Facebook content. Does this really work?

Exobrain Looks Like An Awesome Mind Mapping Tool Visualizing the ideas that you have in your brain is a tall order. Many of us creative types tend to carry around pads of paper and gravitate towards white boards to jot down our thoughts and scribbles. A really helpful tool to extract exactly how our ideas might become an actual “thing” is by using mind mapping software, which basically lets you create a cloud of words, ideas and thoughts that can connect to one another. A service that will be entering beta soon called Exobrain could become the killer tool to take the mind mapping concept to the next level. Not much is known about the service, other than it was created by Colin Dunn and Nick Gauthier, and is still in development. There’s a demo that you can play around with though to see if this is something that might float your boat. This video will give you a good idea of what you can do with Exobrain: The service promises to store all of your maps in the cloud, being accessible from anywhere. ➤ Exobrain h/t Kyle Bragger