Archive for the ‘Digital literacies’ Category
Digital Habitats – Stewarding Technology for Communities
Technology has changed what it means for communities to “be together.” Digital tools are now part of most communities’ habitats. This book develops a new literacy and language to describe the practice of stewarding technology for communities. Whether you want to ground your technology stewardship in theory and deepen your practice, whether you are a community leader or sponsor who wants to understand how communities and technology intersect, or whether you just want practical advice, this is the book for you. You can read the first 45 pages of Digital Habitats now.
Broadband, Social Networks, and Mobility Have Spawned a New Kind of Learner
Students are different today because of technology. Every educator knows this, of course, but this change is about much more than agile thumbs, shriveling attention spans, and OMG’d vocabularies. According the Pew Research Center, the combination of widespread access to broadband Internet connectivity, the popularity of social networking, and the near ubiquity of mobile computing is producing a fundamentally new kind of learner, one that is self-directed, better equipped to capture information, more reliant on feedback from peers, more inclined to collaborate, and more oriented toward being their own “nodes of production.”
Reading a book versus a screen: Different reading devices, different modes of reading?
A book or a screen – which of these two offers more reading comfort? There are no disadvantages to reading from electronic reading devices compared with reading printed texts. “E-books and e-readers are playing an increasingly important role on the worldwide book market. However, readers in Germany are particularly skeptical when it comes to e-books and electronic reading devices. The objective of the study was to investigate whether there are reasons for this skepticism.“
“This study provides us with a scientific basis for dispelling the widespread misconception that reading from a screen has negative effects.”. “There is no (reading) culture clash – whether it is analog or digital, reading remains the most important cultural technology.” However, the result of the study stands in stark contrast with the participants’ subjective reaction. “Almost all of the participants stated that they liked reading a printed book best. This was the dominant subjective response, but it does not match the data obtained from the study.”
What does it mean to be e-literate?
Teachers need to meet students half way and embrace the changing literacies of a digital age.
To get pupils motivated to learn about ICT and computers – and they should, because we live in a world where almost every type of employment uses IT in some form or other – then we do need to rethink what and how we teach it at school. We need to think about merging what they need to know with what is also fun to know. We need to make sure they are aware of how complicated it can get without making them write reams of code to do so.
Education for a Digital World – Advice, Guidelines, and Effective Practice from Around the Globe
Education for a Digital World contains a comprehensive collection of proven strategies and tools for effective online teaching, based on the principles of learning as a social process. It offers practical, contemporary guidance to support e-learning decision-making, instructional choices, as well as program and course planning, and development.
Practical advice, real-life examples, case studies, and useful resources supply in-depth perspectives about structuring and fostering socially engaging learning in an online environment. A plethora of e-learning topics provide insights, ideas, and usable tools. Tips and evidence-based theory guide administrators, program and course developers, project teams, and teachers through the development of online learning opportunities.
Kids Closer Up: Playing, Learning, and Growing with Digital Media
While large-scale surveys have documented the types of media to which 5–9-year-olds are devoting increasing amounts of time, we know less about how and why they are using these media and what they might be learning as a result. This research provides rich details on the processes, relationships, and contexts that larger-scale studies on children’s media use cannot by examining two 8-year-old girls’ engagement with video games, the Web, mobile devices, and other emerging technologies against the backdrop of family life. What roles are parents and others playing in their digital media experiences? And how is their engagement with digital media related to family values, relationships with peers and siblings, and what they are doing at school? Ethnographic methods and ecological perspectives on learning were used to craft these portraits. The case studies illustrate how young children’s access to and interest in technology are shaped by cultural, institutional, interpersonal, and developmental forces and, in turn, how access and interest shape individual learning. Findings build upon other fine-grained studies of young children’s digital media use and learning, bringing to bear the particularities of the era, locale, and culture of the two individuals I studied to refine our collective and ever-evolving portrait of the 21st-century child.
UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers
The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.
UNESCO’s framework emphasizes that it is not enough for teachers to have ICT competencies to be able to teach them to their students. Teachers need to be able to help students become collaborative, problem solving creative learners through using ICT so they will be effective global citizens. The Framework therefore addresses all aspects of a Teacher’s work.
CyberWise – Helping Parents, Educators, (and Kids!) Understand and Use New Media Tools to Invigorate Education!
New technologies are causing seismic shifts in how we learn, play and share information. While kids seem right at home in this new digital world, many grownups (parents and teachers alike) are struggling to keep up and make sense of it all. CyberWise can help! We provide all the tools you need to embrace new media fearlessly, including:
Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America
The digital revolution has hit education, with more and more classrooms plugged into the whole wired world. But are schools making the most of new technologies? Are they tapping into the learning potential of today’s Firefox/Facebook/cell phone generation? Have schools fallen through the crack of the digital divide? In Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson argue that the knowledge revolution has transformed our jobs, our homes, our lives, and therefore must also transform our schools. Much like after the school-reform movement of the industrial revolution, our society is again poised at the edge of radical change. To keep pace with a globalized technological culture, we must rethink how we educate the next generation or America will be left behind. This groundbreaking book offers a vision for the future of American education that goes well beyond the walls of the classroom to include online social networks, distance learning with anytime, anywhere access, digital home schooling models, video-game learning environments, and more.
