Social Networking Technologies in Education

Social Networking Technologies in Education
I like ithis article about social networking. Its one of the first ones I've seen to take it seriously. While there is no vision as to its role or application in education (how it fits in), it does discuss objectively from a more abstract almost sociological point of view, extoling the requirement of education to be 'liberator from the shackles of ignorance as well as steward of the common culture' and hence take on technology as it arrives.

Teaching & Practice Experts prompt E-learning Questions

Anatomy of a Lesson - Group Work and Feedback | Teachers TV

Nice video showing claimed teaching and practice experts critiquing a young teachers lesson. They have some interesting comments to make regarding lesson planning, instruction, feedback, knowledge banking. These experts seem to be very clear on what a good lesson entails. I think its a useful question to ask, are the qualities of a good reality classroom lesson applicable to virtual/electronic lessons? Group feedback, criticism and knowledge banking? What roles do these have to play? Real interaction with authoritive/knowledgeable figure, fact-to-face discussion & negotiation. Clearly not all the important skills that are learned in classrooms and schools can be learned by a child interacting with a computer. What skills is there cross-over? For what skills can better learning be facilitated by technology?

Dubious Name

Adaptive Curriculum - Video: Introduction to a Science Lesson

Not sure whats adaptive or curricular about this. The interactive content is at least pretty, has some nice functionality and integrated if not innovative or new. I'd be interested to know how the content they publicise on the website is authored and if they have a tool which partly automates the process of their glossaries, questions, content etc.

Online Highschool

Welcome to The American Academy, an accredited online high school. | The American Academy

Seemingly an accredited online highschool in America. Their site has some impressive publicity references and looks fairly professional. Unfortunately and a deal-breaker in terms of offering positive feedback is that they don't seem to offer any up-front course content previews. Accordingly this post just records their existence as interesting but not much more. Also I didn't see any clear figures as to numbers of registered students.