Visual*~*Revolution

There is a growing dependence on the use of digital media from our students and kids. Sometimes it is just unbelievable especially when we, the digital immigrants, compare our childhood and teenagehood to our students, the digital natives. Back then, socializing with neighbouring kids was the major pass time for us but today's kids they socialize more with digital gadgets and spend less time not only with their buddies but even with their own families. 

With educational technology, social networking and agile apps are all the rage. Whether it’s a group of students collaborating on a project or a research team seeking out resources around the globe, today’s EdTech essentials are all about keeping in touch. The emerging products, companies and high-tech tools on our list are all designed to make life easier for online teachers, students and researchers. Take a look.

Some argue that blogging is passé, but nothing could be further from the truth. Available tools enable all of us to express ourselves, share our views and especially knowledge and experience with a much wider audience than ever before. I really believe that everyone should and can blog. Indeed, it’s not surprising to anyone who knows me that that is a reason why Zemanta is part of my life: to make blogging easier for everyone.

Critical thinking as described in the video below refers to a diverse range of intelectual skills and activities concerned with evaluating information as well as evaluating our thought in a disciplined way.

Before the advent of Twitter, most educators I know had limited opportunities to collaborate with colleagues outside their building. Some subscribed to listservs or participated in online forums, but these outlets lacked critical mass; teachers also networked at in-person conferences and training sessions, but these isolated events didn't provide ongoing support.

Enter Twitter...

Andrea Hernandez, known as edtechworkshop in the blogger- and Twittersphere has written a thought provoking blogpost about Where’s The Authentic Audience? She takes a closer look at the buzz word circulating among blogging educators and classrooms and asks tough questions. What happens when there is no audience coming to your or your students’ blogs?

The Internet has delivered an explosion of learning opportunities for today’s students, creating an abundance of information, knowledge, and teachers as well as a starkly different landscape from the one in which our ideas about school were born. Traditional educators, classrooms, and brick-and-mortar schools are no longer necessary to access information. Instead, things like blogs and wikis, as well as remote collaborations and an emphasis on critical thinking skills are the coins of the realm in this new kingdom. Yet the national dialogue on education reform focuses on using technology to update the traditional education model, failing to reassess the fundamental model on which it is built.