How Open Badges Could Really Work In Education
http://www.edudemic.com/open-badges-in-education/
Higher education institutions are abuzz with the concept of Open Badges. The concept was presented to SCSU CETL some two years ago, but it remained mute on the SCSU campus. Part of the presentation to the SCSU CETL included the assertion that “Some advocates have suggested that badges representing learning and skills acquired outside the classroom, or even in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), will soon supplant diplomas and course credits.”
“For higher education institutions interested in keeping pace, establishing a digital ecosystem around badges to recognize college learning, skill development and achievement is less a threat and more an opportunity. Used properly, Open Badge systems help motivate, connect, articulate and make transparent the learning that happens inside and outside classrooms during a student’s college years.”
Educational programs that use learning design to attach badges to educational experiences according to defined outcomes can streamline credit recognition.
The badge ecosystem isn’t just a web-enabled transcript, CV, and work portfolio rolled together. It’s also a way to structure the process of education itself. Students will be able to customize learning goals within the larger curricular framework, integrate continuing peer and faculty feedback about their progress toward achieving those goals, and tailor the way badges and the metadata within them are displayed to the outside world.
The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
http://www.edudemic.com/guides/guide-to-twitter/
Create, Don’t Just Consume
Connect and Network
Share Your Resources
Guide To Education-Oriented Twitter Hashtags
http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/education-twitter-hashtags-730×1805.jpg
Getting Connected
With these tips and tools, you’ll be able to get connected with the people that matter most to you on Twitter.
- Follow experts: Get useful information from other experts in your field.
- Twitterholic: With Twitterholic, you’ll be able to find the most popular users on Twitter.
- Make friends with your competition: It may seem counterintuitive, but connecting with your competition can help keep you in the know and well networked.
- Twitter Fan Wiki: Find a directory and more in this wiki.
- Don’t follow too many new people at once: Follow too many people without reciprocation, and you’ll come off as a spammer.
- TwitterPacks: Check out this tool to locate people according to their interest group.
- WeFollow: Find people by industry or hobby using WeFollow.
- Follow back: When you discover new followers, be sure to follow them back if they are interesting or offer value to you.
- Keep your follow ratio balanced: Follow too many people without being followed back, and you will seem spammy, but if you have lots of followers that you don’t follow back, you’ll come off as snobby.
- Localtweeps: You can use this tool to filter tweets by zip code.
- Participate in Twitter events: Be a part of #followfriday, #musicmonday, and similar events to be a part of the community.
- Geofollow: Search for others in your location with this site.
- Twitterel: With Twitterel, you can find users with common interests.
- Twinfluence: Use Twinfluence to discover users with good reach, velocity, and social capital.
- Twellow: Use Twellow to find Twitter users based on category.
- Twitter Snipe: Twitter Snipe will auto follow users based on your niche.
- Talk to people about their interests: Show that you’re human by discussing things that are important to others.
- Follow your followers’ followers: Check out the follow lists of people you find interesting and connect with them.
- Be patient: Amassing Twitter followers doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient, and you’ll build a group of valuable followers.
Search
Put Twitter’s massive amounts of information to work by using these search tips and tools.
- Twitority: This search engine offers results based on Twitter users with authority.
- TwitterLocal: Search for tweets around a specific area with the help of this tool.
- Use keyword tricks: Take advantage of the advanced search option on Twitter.
- Use quotation marks: If you’re looking for a specific term, put it in quotation marks to get better results.
- Twithority: With Twithority, you’ll find Twitter search results with authority.
- Use hashtags: If you come across a useful hashtag, click on it to see what else you’ll find.
- Subscribe: Keep up with useful keywords and hashtags by setting up an RSS subscription for them.
- Pay attention to trends: Stay on top of the latest in your field by seeking out and participating in trending topics. For instance, students enrolled in political science degree programs may want to follow trending topics related to upcoming local and state elections.
- Retweetist: Retweetist shares popular trends, topics, and people using retweets on Twitter.
- Tweet Volume: With this tool, you can find out if your keywords are popular on Twitter or not.
- Tweetmeme: Check out Tweetmeme to learn about retweeting stats for articles on Twitter.
- Twitt(url)y: Find out about hot news with this tool that sorts URLs by how frequently they are mentioned in tweets.
- Twackle: With this aggregator, you’ll be able to find news and more in a single destination.
- Twitter Sniffer for Brands: Twitter Sniffer makes it easy for you to keep track of conversations about you on Twitter.
- Twuoted: Find popular quotes with this site that follows the #quote hashtag.
- Tweet Scan: Follow Twitter conversations by keyword and category using Tweet Scan.
- Monitter: Stay on top of 3 keywords at once with this keyword search tool.
- Pay attention to timing: Monitor the most popular hours for your Twitter followers, then concentrate your most important messages in those hours for more effective tweeting.
Organization
With these tips and tools, you can keep all of your information on Twitter well organized.
- Use a tool to manage Twitter: Don’t let your research get lost-use a tool to organize everything.
- Tweetdeck: Make use of this tool to organize tweets from various groups into easy to manage categories.
- Don’t try to read everything: You will be on Twitter all day and all night if you try to read every single tweet from your followers-just drop in when you can.
- My Tweeple: This tool will help you organize the people you’re following.
- Tweetree: See your Twitter stream in a tree with organized conversations using Tweetree.
- Make good use of alert tools: Make sure you’re not missing good conversations by setting up alerts that will tell you when friends and other Twitter users discuss keywords you’re interested in.
- Tweet Clouds: Analyze your keyword usage with this tool.
- Twitterator: Monitor groups of people while staying organized with the help of this script.
Authority Building
Follow these tips and use these tools in order to establish yourself as an authority in your field.
- Own your brand: Even if you don’t want to use your real name on Twitter, at least claim it so that no one else can use it against you.
- Be retweetable: Share tweets that others will want to retweet.
- Use popular tweets as blog posts: If you share a site or bit of information that turns out to be very popular, use it as a jumping off point for a blog post.
- Use your real name as your Twitter name: Be more personal and authoritative by using your real name.
- Respond: Don’t just sit in your ivory tower-talk back to the people who want to engage with you.
- Share your credentials: Let people know why you’re an expert in your field.
- Shake things up: Offer a good variety in your stream of links, blog posts, retweets, responses, and questions.
- Just don’t spam: Don’t do it-no one likes it, and it won’t be tolerated.
- Share information: Gain a reputation as an expert by sharing helpful links, resources, and more.
- Be sincere: Be honest and considerate in your tweets and replies.
- Find out authoritative keywords: See which keywords the authorities in your niche are using.
- Discuss what’s hot: Share your opinions and resources on what’s currently moving on Twitter.
- Don’t go crazy with links: Avoid using your Twitter account just to post links to your blog.
- Point out interesting information: Don’t just talk about yourself, discuss what’s happening in your field.
- Follow authorative accounts: Populate your Twitter neighborhood with people who have authority.
- Promote your Twitter URL: Share your Twitter name on your email, blog, Facebook, and other locations online so people can find you.
- Slow down: Don’t clog up your followers’ Twitter screens-keep your Tweets relevant and interesting, not inane and constant.
- Don’t always talk about yourself: Talk about more than just your own agenda.
- Be helpful: Spread goodwill by answering questions, introducing others, and offering recommendations.
- Reply to others: Get involved with the people you follow and engage in the Twitter conversation with replies.
- Show your personality: Show off the person behind the brand on Twitter.
- Use keywords: Use keywords that are important to your field to attract followers.
Getting Value
Follow these tips to make sure you’re getting value out of your Twitter experience.
- Networking: Meet offline with others in your field to get great value out of Twitter.
- Be useful: Give advice, resources, and more.
- Fill out your bio: Make sure people know where to go to find more information about you.
- Use Twitter on your blog: Keep your blog updated up to the minute with Twitter.
- Stop abuse in its tracks: Use Twitter to find out who is badmouthing you, and use action to stop it.
- Connect with complementary businesses: Find value in Twitter by getting connected with others that can support your business or niche.
- Enjoy ambient knowledge: With Twitter, you’ll be able to stay on top of news in your field around the clock.
- Listen: Just listen, and you’ll find interesting and useful information.
- Promote events: Use Twitter to promote live and virtual events like seminars, sales, and more.
- Ask for help: Get instant feedback by asking for help on Twitter.
- Meet your customers: Use Twitter as a way to interact with your customers, whether through the service or in real life.
- Listen to your critics: Find out what people are saying about you, then respond to it and act on it.
How To Connect With Students On Twitter
- Don’t require that students follow your account.
- Commit to posting at regular intervals.
- Vary the time of day of the posts.
- Post links to content that is user friendly.
- Know your audience’s interests.
- Don’t just retweet, generate original links.
- Suggest people, organizations or magazines to follow.
- Be personal.
- … yet avoid the overly personal comments.
Twitter Rules Every Teacher Should Know
Rule #3
If you’re adding the Twitter logo to some marketing materials, here’s how to properly format it all. Same goes if you’re just adding in the Twitter Bird to other materials. Useful to know.
Rule #4
Always capitalize the T in Twitter and Tweet. Seriously. That’s a little-known rule that basically everyone doesn’t follow but it’s worth trying to remember!
A Useful Twitter Cheat Sheet
Twitter Tips For Students and Teachers
See Also: A Visual Guide To Twitter For Beginners
- Actually complete your bio. You’ll get more mileage out of your Twitter account if you actually create a profile that says something about you, offering potential followers information about your interests, professional or otherwise.
- Learn the basics. Learn the basic terminology for Twitter and the major functions it can perform by doing a little reading on helpful social media blogs beforehand. You’ll thank yourself later.
- Get some style. Before you send out your first tweet, decide what kind of tweeter you want to be. The London School of Economics and Political Science offers up three major styles here so you can learn more about the subject.
- Learn from others. One of the best ways to learn how to use Twitter is to spend some time seeing how others have set up and been using their accounts. Luckily, there are tons of other academics on Twitter to learn from.
- Don’t be mean. The Internet is full of people who are all too happy to say some pretty harsh things, but just because they’re incredibly tactless doesn’t mean you have to be. Never say anything on Twitter you wouldn’t want people to find out about, or wouldn’t say in any other situation. If people are hassling you, ignore them and move on.
- Announce that you’ll be joining a hashtag chat or conference. If you’re going to be tweeting more than usual, let your followers know in advance so they can choose to tune out if they’re not interested in your live tweeting or chatting.
- Actually respond in a reasonable amount of time. If someone asks you a question or directs a tweet your way, respond as soon as you can, just like with email or any other digital communication, especially if you’re using Twitter in your courses.
- Be gracious and say thank you. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way on Twitter. If someone helps you out or shares your research, don’t forget to say thanks.
- Make mistakes. No one is perfect, and if you’re new to Twitter you’re probably going to have a few gaffes along the way as you learn the ropes. That’s OK! Don’t let it slow your enthusiasm for using the social site.
- Start your own hashtag chat. Twitter chats have exploded in popularity in recent months, so get in on the trend while the getting’s good. Start your own chat on an academic topic, or chime in on other bigger existing chats for a chance to network.
- Find and use some hashtags. You’ll make it easier for others to find your tweets if you add a few relevant hashtags here and there.
- Do ‘Follow Friday’. Every Friday, Twitter explodes with suggestions on who to follow. Offer up your own and you may just end up in someone else’s suggestions.
- Share the stuff you’re reading. Reading a story on a site like Edudemic? Found an amazing article in pop-science about your research field? Share it! If it’s interesting, it’ll probably get retweeted and passed around, and you might just interest a student or two to boot.
- Reach out and connect with someone. Not everyone you connect with on Twitter has to be in your field or even in academia. In fact, you might enrich your research and your professional life by reaching out to other fields and professions.
- Do some backchannel talks. Whether you have students post to Twitter during class or ask them to share comments during a presentation, these backchannel talks can help facilitate conversation and provide a record of a shared learning experience.
- Create your own classroom hashtag. One way to keep classroom tweets organized is by having a shared hashtag that all students use. Just make sure no one else is using it!
- Connect Twitter to Moodle or Blackboard. You can help push students to interact using Twitter by adding a Twitter widget to your Blackboard or Moodle site for the class. Follow the instructions here to get started.
- Don’t mandate your students follow you on Twitter. Don’t force students to follow you on Twitter unless it’s part of the course. Let them decide to follow or not.
- Be happy (see #5 above). You don’t have to be super serious on Twitter to earn students’ respect. In fact, loosening up could just help improve your rapport with your students.
- Live-tweet a conference or event (see #6). Share your conference-going experience by tweeting updates about it throughout the day to your followers.
- Share some of your lesson plans. Educators and academics can come together to share and collaborate on lesson plans quite easily using Twitter.
- Collaborate with other teachers / parents / students. If you find you have similar interests with another academic, use Twitter to work together on research ideas, classroom solutions, and other topics.
- Collaborate with other classrooms in your school, district, or another country.Why work alone when you can connect with other college classrooms? That’s just what many college classes are doing these days.
- Host reading discussions. Holding a reading discussion over Twitter gives everyone a chance to chime in, even shy students who might not otherwise speak up.
- Actually use Twitter for writing assignments. Want to teach your students the art of brevity? Assign them poetry or prose to be written on Twitter.
The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter Hashtags
Are you looking to figure out exactly which Twitter hashtag is the right one to follow? There’s no shortage of options and it can feel overwhelming. Sure, there’s the popular #edchat and #edtech hashtags most of us follow. But what about the more focused tags that you’re missing out on?
#elearn |
I’d suggest using this rather than the longer #elearning |
#flipchat |
chat platform for flipped classroom educators. See here. |
#flipclass |
platform for those interested in the flipped classroom. |
#flippedclassroom |
Obsolete. Use the shorter #flipclass. All about the flipped classroom |
#gbl |
game-based learning |
#globalclassroom |
Good for finding global collaboration / connections, sharing #globaled practice. Official chats run monthly over 3 days. Click here for schedule |
#ipadchat |
name speaks for itself. See here. |
The Minecraft Experience Panel Presentation Games for Change NYC April 24th 2014
http://www.minecraftexperience.net/G4C2014+Panel
Extended Description:
Last year at G4C Nick Fortugno threw some controversy into the conversation about Minecraft by suggesting Minecraft was not a game but a toy. The proposed panel extends that conversation by asking what is the Minecraft experience, can it be defined or categorised and what as game designers and exponents can we take from understanding its zeitgeist and the impact it has had on the serious gaming landscape?
In 2012/23 at both GLS and G4C many presenters made jokes about including the obligatory Minecraft slide and for very good reasons. Minecraft is arguably a game of immense impact. It has been embraced as part of learning programs focussing on seemingly disparate areas from digital citizenship, history, coding and the maker movement. It is probably the first game brought into the classroom by teachers to leverage the out of school groundswell of existing player excitement. It’s impact is multi generational and perhaps more global than any game before it. The fan base and user community/ies are strong and well supported and exemplar of the potential Jim Gee describes for Big G game. This panel proposes to leverage that Big G space in the lead up to Games for Change 2014 and to honor the voices of its players.
Minecraft has been variously described as a game, toy sandpit, learning space, creative environment, virtual world, and game-infused service. But what really are the affordances of this blocky 16 bit program and how can we even begin to define its value to learning? Enter the Minecraft Experience, a global crowdsourced program managed by Bron Stuckey of The Massively Minecraft Project. People engaging in Minecraft activities about the globe are being invited to describe Minecraft in all its contexts and adaptations. The categories for these experiences will emerge from the crowd sourced content as members contribute thoughts, media, resources and questions to build the __Minecraft Experience__ evidence base.
This panel of notable speakers has been drawn together to answer provocative questions about Minecraft’s success and define its relationship to and impact on learning. The panelists have been chosen to represent play in many contexts formal education, informal learning, self-organised learning, schools and non-school contexts. They include game designers, educators, researchers, learners and parents who have each had a personal and professional experience of this and many other games.
Panelists take a position on the Minecraft experience and use the resources provided by members of the project to inform, support and evidence their case.
How are players, educators and researchers invited to contribute?
- project wiki to prod, poke, stimulate and support crowd sourced content and dialog
- live youth speakers on the panel
- social media and wiki activity in lead-up using selected #minecraftproject
- video inclusions of educators, parents, kids/youth arguments, evidence and questions
- promotion of youth media pieces from existing YouTube etc to support and stimulate various provocative dialogs
- livestream of the panel to global contributors with live feedback and questions.
Who could benefit from joining this project and attending the G4C 2014 panel session?
- Educators seeking to understand Minecraft’s value to learning
- Programs seeking to adapt Minecraft as part of a program of impact or change.
- Game designers seeking to build in its wake
- Anyone wanting to consider issues of fidelity, adaptation, constructionism, popular culture, and impact in gaming.
http://www.stevehargadon.com/2014/04/learning-revolution-conference-schedule.html
http://www.connectsafely.org/teacher-teaching-minecraft-looks-like/
http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-f=1_10785583&N-fa=3358517&N-p=105030132&N-play=0&N-s=1_10785583&N-u=1_372724
http://gamesandimpact.org/members/bronst/activity/friends/
Mega shifts in social business will significantly affect the way that business will run in the future.
http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/the-six-biggest-trends-in-social-that-will-blow-your-mind/
1. Big Data
How it works: Businesses collect multiple data points, helping to create hyper-specific marketing for users, while making better predictions with more information from a larger data set.
Examples: You’ve already seen this when Target figured out a teen was pregnant before her dad did. Even though she didn’t buy diapers or formula, her purchasing habits correlated closely with other customers’ who were pregnant, and Target sent her coupons for her upcoming baby.
Factors: Big data is being powered by the reduction in costs of data storage, as well as an explosion in the ability of businesses to capture data points. Never before have retailers been able to capture as much data about purchases, never before has online tracking been so robust, nor have social platforms offered access to so much data about users.
How to Prepare: As a user, you can expect to see much more targeted marketing, and not necessarily what you may expect. By drawing conclusions from large sets of data, companies might be even a little creepy in being able to predict your life – like the Target pregnancy. For marketers, you can expect to find new ways to streamline your sales funnel and get more analytical data about customers through social networks, web analytics groups and at retail.
2. Social Tool Aggregation
How it works: More and more third-party tools are springing up to help marketers and social network users make sense of multiple networks. Furthermore, networks themselves are offering ways of connecting to other apps and networks.
Examples: Tools like IFTTT and Zapier use social network APIs to trigger responses, while others like HootSuite allow users to aggregate multiple network communication into one tool. At the same time, tools like About.me allow a combined view of an individual’s social activity. Furthermore, networks themselves are beginning to integrate. Facebook allows cross posts from Instagram, Foursquare, Yelp and a variety of others.
Factors: It’s already taking too much time for individuals and marketers alike to keep up with just a couple social networks, and both the social networks and third-party tools know this. By consolidating social network interaction into a single place, users may be able to spend less time trying to make sense of the chaos.
How to Prepare: Users and marketers alike should keep an eye out for how this data is being used. What happens if you like Eminem on Facebook, but check into a venue during a Taylor Swift concert on Foursquare? What happens if you listen to the Glee channel on Pandora? What says more about who you really are? Do these networks share that information? Is it part of the authorization you okayed? The future may tell.
3. Social Network Consolidation
How it works: Social networks and tool providers are consolidating to remain competitive, both in creating a better offering for users, as well as buying market share.
Examples: Facebook has had nearly 40 different acquisitions since 2005 including technologies that help import contacts, manage photos, create mobile apps, and more, with their largest acquisition being Instagram for one beelion dollars (Doctor Evil style, of course.) Not to be outdone, LinkedIn has scored about 10 of their own acquisitions including Slideshare. Twitter has acquired tools like TweetDeck, platforms like Posterous and has created Vine, but acquisitions aren’t limited to social networks, they extend into social tools as well. Salesforce just had their largest couple years so far acquiring Radian6, Buddy Media and most recently, their largest, Exact Target. Adobe purchased Omniture, and Google bought YouTube and Wildfire Apps, and Oracle took over Involver social apps. Everyone is finding some value in social.
Factors: Not only is social the big thing, but it’s the logical next step after Social Aggregation. People want to be able to easily publish across social networks and marketers want to have the ability to create one true set of data. Rather than having multiple tools these companies are attempting to offer consolidated suites for data creation, storage and analysis.
How to Prepare: Marketers need to be aware of evolving tools and networks. When Twitter bought TweetDeck, it dropped many of the supported features for Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace and others. Be aware of these types of changes so you can make plans for uninterrupted service.
4. Crowdsourcing
How it works: Companies are offering bigger roles to consumers.
Examples: Small and medium business often resort to sites like DesignCrowd, who offers thousands of designers the opportunity to design a logo, print piece or something else. The customer picks the best designs, offers revisions and the winner gets about $200. Starbucks turned to crowdsourcing for coming up with new product ideas, with over 50,000 ideas coming through My Starbucks Idea. Doritos, Lincoln, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Toyota and others have even crowdsourced Super Bowl ads.
Factors: Customers want to have a stake in companies. As more businesses go to greater and greater lengths to spotlight influential users or creative user-generated work, consumers are expecting to interact more and more with companies in these ways. Furthermore, consumers are expecting more unique messaging rather than traditional corporate marketing speak.
How to Prepare: Find new ways that you can incorporate customer feedback and ideas into marketing campaigns, product updates or other areas of the business.
5. Sharing Economy
How it works: Online networks, “peer-to-peer marketplaces” are set up to pay to use people’s spare assets – rent a bedroom, or car from, or even eat a meal with complete strangers.
Examples: Perhaps some of the first companies in this space followed the crowdfunding model – with Kickstarter and Indiegogo being the top two. Airbnb offers to rent out unoccupied living space from a bedroom to an entire island including 250,000 listings in 192 countries. Taskrabbit allows users to outsource small jobs such as picking up dog food and dropping it off at your door. RelayRides even offers unused personal vehicles to rent.
Factors: It could be the downturn in the economy making some folks want to rent out their cars and rooms for extra cash, or causing others to avoid committing to a car payment. Furthermore, people are increasingly aware of the toll on natural resources in manufacturing and the high costs of parking in major urban areas. Sharing based businesses help to alleviate these problems and make use of otherwise idle resources.
How to Prepare: See if there may be a natural fit in working with one of these sharing services or offering your services through one. Jeremiah Owyang offers an example where Marriott could work with a shared lodging hosts to offer a “stamp of approval” of sorts, where hosts could agree to abide by certain standards or receive certain training to become certified. Marriott could even offer bedding, linens or other materials that could both help guests feel more confident in their accommodations while helping guests distinguish themselves from competitors.
6. Quantified Self
How it works: Individuals using devices or social networks to track information about themselves. This data can be cross referenced to identify some interesting trends about yourself.
Examples: FitBit tracks your physical activity, while foursquare tracks the types of businesses where you check in. It’s not too difficult to find out that when you go to movie theaters, you tend to eat poorly, and when you go to museums, you add an extra thousand steps to your routine. Apply that across other areas of life, music, work, love and you can some very interesting trends can turn out.
Factors: People are increasingly using technology to extrapolate information to work more efficiently. Furthermore, an increase in the scrutiny of the NSA and increased awareness of privacy have perhaps made people more interested in creating and storing their own information.
How to Prepare: Companies need to offer APIs and other ways for users to control and access their own information where possible. Connect to services like IFTTT and Zapier so users can import data and manipulate it, and make accommodations for people using personal technology like FitBits, Nike Fuelband, Jawbone Up, and others.
Overall, these mega shifts in social networking and social business can significantly affect the way that business will run in the future. Are you prepared? Have you seen these shifts or experienced them? Look for our future posts on the Micro-Trends within each of these larger trends and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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CES 2014: Four mega-trends for the professionals
Summary: Trends matter at CES. While there may not be major product announcements, trends will emerge to shape 2014. Here’s what to watch in business tech.
http://www.zdnet.com/ces-2014-four-mega-trends-for-the-professionals-7000024727/
1. Wearables
2. The Internet of Things
3. Contextual computing
4. Consumerization of business tech
blog under the articles holds good information
How BYOD Programs Can Fuel Inquiry Learning. Backchanneling.
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/how-byod-programs-can-fuel-inquiry-learning/
creating a learner profile, a set of criteria the school district wanted students to learn while in school. That profile includes: seek knowledge and understanding; think critically and solve problems; listen, communicate, and interact effectively; exhibit strong personal qualities; and engage and compete in a global environment. The profile helps guide all approaches to learning in the district.
Kids already know how to use their devices, but they don’t know how to learn with their devices,” Clark said in an edWeb webinar. It’s the teacher’s role to help them discover how to connect to content, one another and learning with a device that they may have only used for texting and Facebook previously. “It’s about the kids being empowered in the classroom to make decisions about the ways that they are learning,”
Four Smart Ways to Use Cell Phones in Class
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/four-smart-ways-to-use-cell-phones-in-class/
IN-CLASS POLLING/QUIZZING.
IN-CLASS BACK-CHANNELING: Backchanneling refers to the use of networks & social media to maintain an online, real-time conversation alongside spoken remarks.
IN-CLASS READINGS AND HANDOUTS. Smartphones can also be used productively in the classroom as eReaders for books and handouts. You can place all student handouts into DropBox folders (see “Dropbox A Multi-Tool for Educators”).
ORGANIZING RESEARCH.
Using Google Docs for backchanneling with students:
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/04/this-is-how-to-use-google-docs-to.html
10 ways to employ backchanneling in classroom instruction.
- Poll students on a particular classroom event or on a decision regarding their learning
- Crowdsource feedback on learning activities and use this input to inform your future instructional strategies.
- Backchanneling empowers students voice and make them feel they are real participants in the knowledge building taking place in the class.
- Conduct informat assessments .
- Assess students prior knowledge about a given topic.
- Brainstorm ideas for a writing project.
- Encourage students to ask questions about anything they did not understand.
- Hold synchronous discussions of video content shared in class
- Organize real time discussions in class.
- Backchanneling is a good way to engage introverts and shy students in classroom conversations.