Using Social Media and Web 2.0 to Differentiate Instruction
By: Mary Marotta Instructional Technology, Professional Development Consultant and Adjunct Professor
Digital Nation | A PBS Frontline Program About Life on the Virtual Frontier, will air on PBS, on February 2nd and explore life on the virtual frontier. Distracted by Everything Twitter #PBS #FRONTLINE #DIGITALNATION
Watching this video after watching the prior one about the NYC school and integrating and accepting technology in the classroom was interesting. The prior one seemed to celebrate the multitasking distractions of tech and accept that as an inevitable outcome, not necessaily evil (i.e. these kids are multitaskers; why no let them do it in the classroom) Many educators on Digital Nation seemed to bemoan those that think multitaskers can do it all and would have argued against those accepting it into the inner city school. I fall in line with the bemoaners-- I firmly believe that I as well as my students are not as thoughtful and engaged when multitasking and we are naive to believe so. The whole thing (computers/texting/twitter/fb/myspace etc etc) feels almost like an addiction. So, how to solve the tech dilemna? I think there is room in a classroom for technology that may increase this multitasking (kids on myspace, tweetin and google doc-ing at the same time) but there also better be times when single minded concentration is all that is going on. (I didn't watch the whole video-- my laptop could not keep up with the streaming and my cat was distracting me!!)
This video was terrific! I enjoyed listening to the pros and cons of technology and I feel that it is all about "moderation". Too much of anything is not good for you. Technology is great for exposing us to educational things we may not have had access to, but the game playing can draw kids in and consume them. Very interesting! Try to put time aside to watch this.
3 comments:
This is a long video but worth watching if you have the time.
Watching this video after watching the prior one about the NYC school and integrating and accepting technology in the classroom was interesting. The prior one seemed to celebrate the multitasking distractions of tech and accept that as an inevitable outcome, not necessaily evil (i.e. these kids are multitaskers; why no let them do it in the classroom) Many educators on Digital Nation seemed to bemoan those that think multitaskers can do it all and would have argued against those accepting it into the inner city school. I fall in line with the bemoaners-- I firmly believe that I as well as my students are not as thoughtful and engaged when multitasking and we are naive to believe so. The whole thing (computers/texting/twitter/fb/myspace etc etc) feels almost like an addiction. So, how to solve the tech dilemna? I think there is room in a classroom for technology that may increase this multitasking (kids on myspace, tweetin and google doc-ing at the same time) but there also better be times when single minded concentration is all that is going on. (I didn't watch the whole video-- my laptop could not keep up with the streaming and my cat was distracting me!!)
This video was terrific! I enjoyed listening to the pros and cons of technology and I feel that it is all about "moderation". Too much of anything is not good for you. Technology is great for exposing us to educational things we may not have had access to, but the game playing can draw kids in and consume them. Very interesting! Try to put time aside to watch this.
Rhonda Connery
Post a Comment