Nik Peachey, digital guru and author of our Tech Tools for Teachers series, talks about the highs and lows of his personal experiences of education and explains how a lazy workaholic (his own words) came to get so interested in learning technologies. He also imparts some valuable advice on becoming a materials writer and gives tips on the wonders of self publishing online through blogs and e-books. 
There is nothing more motivating (and exciting) as digital creativity in the classroom. I personally think you would be hard pushed to find a teacher who doesn’t love offering their pupils digital creativity opportunities yet we all face the age old problem of having little TIME to learn new technologies and even less time to freely experiment in class. 
Running a blog with your students is about as far from a traditional teaching method as you can get, and chances are nobody taught you how to do it. That’s why teachers who blog with students are usually those nonconformists types, radicals, free spirits, taking paths less traveled…well, not so much anymore. It’s actually become quite popular, but it certainly hasn’t hit mainstream levels, partly because it’s not as simple as using a chalkboard and textbook. Diigo stands for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.” It is a social bookmarking program that allows you to save your ‘favorites’ online, so that they can be accessible from any computer with an internet connection. However, Diigo does much more than this. 
This looks like a great free tool for creating 3D art work. It seems very straight foward and easy to use. You need to download the free software, but there is a version for both MAC and PC. 
Jean Lave was (and is) a social anthropologist with a strong interest in social theory, based at the University of California, Berkeley. Much of her work has focused on on the 're-conceiving' of learning, learners, and educational institutions in terms of social practice. When looking closely at everyday activity, she has argued, it is clear that 'learning is ubiquitous in ongoing activity, though often unrecognized as such' 
Along with direct experience of the digital divide, my experience showed me that the ubiquity of mobile phones constitutes an enormous but unexploited potential to bring learning to a huge number of people, including marginalized groups such as migrants or refugees. Indeed, some basic content, applications and even simple learning programmes based on text messaging could be developed and reach students through a technology that they already possess. 
In the end, there is a lot to consider when teaching online. In many ways, I find online teaching more challenging than teaching face-to-face. I also find the rewards help compensate: talking to my students on Skype who are all over the world still gives me a thrill. Watching strangers care for one another's learning and success makes me feel like we are doing important work. It's an exciting time to be in education. 
Here are, in my opinion, some of the best YouTube channels where teachers can find good quality, relevant information to engage their students in the classroom.
The ICTeTD Model is grounded in the belief that teaching has its own unique knowledge base, which, in the 21st century, is the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK). While it is not unusual now to find ICT courses in teacher education programs in Africa, ICTeTD is grounded in IICBA’s strong belief that professional teacher development should not only go beyond programs that merely focus on training teachers in the operation of computers and ICT literacy per se, but should plan to work actively towards enabling African teachers to master ICT as an effective tool to improve teaching and learning. 
Fresh out of college, few new teachers experiment with new technologies because they have the potential to be disruptive. It’s experience, and the confidence that comes with it, that is allowing teachers in their 40s and 50s to lead the way, according to the report. 
The Xconomy team posed this question to their network [read: an older audience], reaching out to the people they knew “it would resonate well with.” And while we’ll include some of the answers they received, we decided to reach out to our own network and ask the question ourselves, curious as to whether a younger audience — whether they be fresh out of college, going for their MBA, or newly into their thirties, still trying to figure things out — would have something different to say. 
Flipped Classroom is an inverted method of instruction where teaching and learning take place online outside of the class while homework is done in the classroom. Advocators of this approach believe that this is the ideal method of instruction in our digital age. They basically build their judgement on the following facts |
Despite the growing use of multimedia in classrooms, schools remain primarily text oriented. This is a major problem for significant numbers of learners who struggle with text. No matter how capable they may be in other respects, these students are not “academically” oriented in the ways that tend to matter most in the classroom. 
With all these changes happening so fast, it is hard to say where the internet will take education next. What is likely is that the changes listed above will continue to spread and become more dramatic. One day school education and on the job training may be completely unrecognizable from where they are today. So as the internet continues to make education more available, cheaper, and better, the best we can do is try and keep up and make sure we are taking the best advantage of these advancements as they occur. 
Our obsession with online safety for children is excessive. It is driven by group-think and fear, generated by media and interested parties who often ignore any rigorous evidence-based approach to the issues, or even bother to explore a simple risk analysis. Back in 2007 I wrote a book called Idolising Children, wherein I argued that we have an unhealthy obsession with children and youth culture. An obsession that sees adults trying to preserve an idea of childhood and youth that doesn’t actually exist while simultaneous trying to act out their own youthful fantasies and cling to idealized concepts of youth. 
My sons find it amusing that my iPod Nano has no music but around 500 podcasts, many from In Our Time on Philosophy, History, Religion and Science. Why? Because I travel a lot and like to keep myself stimulated on trains, planes and in other non-places. Like reading, I find the focus on one medium useful, especially for knowledge and reason. So here’s some reflections on my audio experience. 
Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language. Scares accompanied the introduction of the telegraph, telephone, and broadcasting. But has there ever been a linguistic phenomenon that has aroused such curiosity, suspicion, fear, confusion, antagonism, fascination, excitement and enthusiasm all at once as texting? 
Professor Lunsford has collected 16,000 writing samples from 189 Stanford students from 2001 to 2007, and is studying how their writing abilities and passions evolved as blogs and other multimedia tools crept into their lives and classrooms. She’s also solicited student feedback about their experiences. Her conclusion is that students feel much more impassioned by the new literacy. They love writing for an audience, engaging with it. They feel as if they’re actually producing something personally rewarding and valuable, whereas when they write a term paper, they feel as if they do so only to produce a grade. 
Sadly, we still see countless negative examples: Schools that failed to examine the culture before initiating change, schools that changed one dimension of the school without considering the implications on other dimensions, and schools whose leaders went about change alone. 
Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences that address the diverse learning needs of all students and help them develop 21st Century Skills. At it's most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences fueled by Essential Questions offering flexible learning paths, it can be the ticket to success. 
Unlike most distance education books, this guide focuses less on policy and funding, and almost exclusively on building high-quality teaching and learning within a distance-based system. With over 200 web references to existing programs and technology tools; an annotated reference section of distance-based resources; and an extensive glossary of terms and bibliography, this guide is a valuable resource for those interested in not just distance education but technology and professional development. This paper will review the changes taking place in learning and teaching, explore the reluctance to embrace more wholesale change to the curriculum, and discuss the implications for institutions in the face of ongoing change. 
I have the right to use my own technology at school. I should not be forced to leave my new technology at home to use (in most cases) out-of-date school technology. If I can afford it, let me use it -- you don’t need to buy me one. If I cannot afford it, please help me get one -- I don’t mind working for it. 
More than 600 school districts in America have brought iPads into the classroom. Had they waited a bit longer, they could have taken advantage of studies like these to know whether the iPad movement is the wave of the future of education, or a waste of valuable resources. |
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