connected learning – Page 3 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century Learning, connected learning, online learning, online tracking, privacy

Is Privacy Protected When a Student Learns Online?

Posted on May 18, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Image made with Wordfoto with a picture taken at the Library of Congress.

If you think that the digital world may be getting it together on the privacy front, at least when it comes to children, think again.

A disturbing article, Data Mining Your Children, published in Politico, describes how for-profit online learning companies provide digital textbooks, connected learning programs, and record keeping options while collecting an enormous amount of information on individual students. The question is, what will they do with this personal data? Politico is a Washington newspaper that covers national government policy and politics. Continue reading “Is Privacy Protected When a Student Learns Online?” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, connected learning, educating digital natives, teaching digital kids

AIMS 2014 Retreat Report #1: Grant Lichtman Presentation

Posted on May 5, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Lichtman graphic — A photo of Lichtman’s title screen. Click to visit his blog.

The 2014 AIMS Technology Retreat is off to a terrific start with Grant Lichtman’s presentation about the challenges inherent in educational innovation and transformation. I’m attending this retreat with 150 tech leaders, librarians, administrators, and teachers representing more than 60 independent schools in the Washington, DC and Baltimore area.

Many of us think a good deal about how our schools might change and innovate. We consider how best to help our students make good use of their 21st Century access to vast amounts of knowledge. Most of us take seriously a new mission that requires us to enable students as they mold themselves into collaborators, dynamic learners, good problem solvers, and experiential learners. We also know that it’s critical to help them become confident enough to learn in a world that continuously changes (and at great speed).

This conversation is actually about becoming better progressive educators.

Continue reading “AIMS 2014 Retreat Report #1: Grant Lichtman Presentation” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, connected learning, digital kids, digital learning, digital literacy, digital world conversations

Innovative Teaching: How on Earth Do We Get Started?

Posted on March 19, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Years ago as a beginning teacher, I asked one of my University of Chicago professors how it was that my mentoring teacher seemed to do everything at once — teaching one group, keeping an eye on other parts of the classroom, and continuously but quietly communicating with everyone in the room — all at the same time. She even knew when a student some distance behind her was not completing the assigned task.

“She acquired those skills step-by-step,” my professor replied.

Today as we cope with the challenge of transforming our teaching skills to make what goes on in our classrooms applicable to the ever-changing world of digital information (a.k.a. innovation or 21st Century learning), many of us are renewing our commitment to lifelong learning as we explore and acquire a range of new skills and behaviors. We are learning, step-by-step, how to teach differently and stretch ourselves in ways that help students access, process, and use information in innovative but sensible ways. Continue reading “Innovative Teaching: How on Earth Do We Get Started?” →

21st Century parenting, connected learning, digital kids, digital life, family conversations, Internet statistics, parents and technology

Amaze Digital Kids with Internet Statistics!

Posted on February 19, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Do you wish you could amaze the digital kids in your life with trivia or fun facts about the connected world?

For the past couple of years, the Royal Pingdom site has posted a yearly overview of Internet statistics. The post, Internet 2012 in Numbers, shares some interesting figures, and they will indeed help you amaze the digital natives in your life. Moreover, these statistics can serve as excellent conversation starters and provide good context to help connected learners understand more about the size and scope of the digital world that they take for granted.

Here’s a sampling from the 2012 post. By the end of the year the Internet featured:

425 million active Gmail users
635 million web sites
51 new web sites added during the year
246 million domain name registrations
2.4 billion Internet users and 565 million of them are in China
175 million Tweets per day
40.5 years as the average age of a Facebook user
4 billion hours watched on YouTube per month

Check out the many other stats and some nifty graphs. Remember, though, that the statistics are from 2012. Royal Pingdom has also compiled numbers for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, so you can have some fun comparing and contrasting the numbers from year to year (and watching them grow). The site has not posted statistics for 2013 – at least not yet.

21st Century Learning, connected learning, parents and technology, Safer Internet Day

International Safer Internet Day – February 11, 2014

Posted on January 23, 2014March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

Parents and educators may want to encourage 21st Century learners to participate in the International Safer Internet Day celebration on February 11, 2014. This year I am especially looking forward to the event, because it focuses on what is good about the connected world. (Unfortunately, way too often people concentrate on the fear aspects of the connected world.)

One Good Thing — Instructions for Submitting a Video

Over 100 countries observe Safer Internet Day each year on a day in February. As a part of the celebration, United States organizers are asking participants to make short videos that share their thoughts about the good things that can happen on the Internet concentrating especially on how these good things contribute to making the world a better place.

The United States sponsors of the event are journalists Anne Collier and Larry Magid, who jointly run the ConnectSafely.org website. Anne also writes on her blog at NetFamilyNews.org and Larry writes on his at LarrysWorld.com.

Check out the U.S. Safer Internet Day website below. Continue reading “International Safer Internet Day – February 11, 2014” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century teaching, connected learning, digital life, parents and technology

The 2013 Digital World? What CAN I Be Thankful For?

Posted on November 27, 2013March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

martipicTGiving — Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

It’s Thanksgiving 2013, a time when we give thanks for family, friends, and the richness of our lives. It’s also a time to take stock, gain perhaps a bit more insight about the quality of life, and maybe even refrain from always wishing for more.

As a teacher, 21st Century learning advocate, and educational technology enthusiast, I spend much of the year on this blog suggesting ways that families, educators, children, and certainly, my students, can strategize, enrich, and improve their digitally connected lives and, of course, learn enough to avoid potential problems.

But today is different!

We spend so much time grumbling about all the problems that arise in our digital era. So to add some extra fun to our family’s Thanksgiving 2013 celebration, here are a few special experiences and joys that the digital world has brought into my family’s life — for which I am most grateful.

I am thankful that digital life allows me to: Continue reading “The 2013 Digital World? What CAN I Be Thankful For?” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, connected learning, Great TED Talks, parent education, parents and technology, teaching digital kids

Real Answers to Parents’ Digital Questions? You Bet!

Posted on October 22, 2013March 18, 2019 by Marti Weston

My greatest connected learner satisfaction comes when I discover answers to questions that I haven’t yet thought to ask — something that occurs almost every day in my digital world. Online I’ll search on a topic, read, or merely glance over a site, and suddenly I discover a resource and think — I need to know about that!

As I read the blog post, Learning Online: Real Answers to Real Questions, by colleague and master teacher, Susan Lucille Davis, that’s exactly how I felt. Davis shares a range of digital parenting resources that help to answer parents’ 21st Century learning questions, and along the way, she helps us realize just how much more we can learn in our connected world.

Writing for A Platform for Good, Davis offers resource suggestions that parents can use to gain digital skill and knowledge right along with their children, and teachers can share with their students’ parents.

A Few of My Favorite Tips — For links and more information read the entire post.

I had no idea that parents can set up subsidiary e-mail accounts, despite the fact that I am on Google and Gmail countless times each day.
Somehow I’ve missed Joyce Valenza’s TEDTalk about helping kids expand online research skills, but it’s a resource to share widely in an academic community.
Good quality COPPA information sources, that provide basic information to share with parents, are hard to find, but Davis found one and it’s good.

I, too have found that parents need lots of information about digital kids and learning. On my “class-on-a-blog,” initially set up for parents at my school, I write about tools, apps, and sites. On this other site, Discover Your Child’s Digital World, my posts concentrate on digital adventures that kids experience and adults may not know much about.