Keeping on top of technology trends can be tough between lesson plans, grading, and taking care of your students, family and self. Thanks to Common Craft, educating yourself about topics such as social media, Twitter, blogs, etc. is as easy as watching a 3 minute video clip! As the site’s founders (Sachi and Lee) explain, “Our videos are short, simple and focused on making complex ideas easy to understand.”
So, sit back, relax and enjoy the follow Common Craft Show titled, “Social Media in Plain English” …
Anna
P.S. If you have a bit more time and feel like being inspired to incorporate more technology tools into your classroom lesson and center time, take 20 minutes to watch this video of Sugata Mitra as he explains his research on children and technology.
In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.
In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The “Hole in the Wall” project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who’s now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it “minimally invasive education.”
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