Moodle and Web 2.0

Think nothing good can come from encouraging students to use social media? Consider what these former students from Minarets and Design Science high schools in Central California are doing. I asked these students how they use social media as an academic tool and how that shaped both their high school and post-secondary success. Here's what I learned.

"Teachers don’t have to look far to see how changes in technology and social media are shaping students and influencing classrooms. We watch kids obsess over the latest apps as they chat before class. We marvel at the newest slang edging its way into student essays, and wonder at the ways constant smartphone communication is shaping students’ friendships, bullying, and even study habits.

To understand the internet-savvy students who fill our classrooms and the changing landscape of social media they inhabit, we need more than hot new gadgets or expensive educational software. The book list below is a starting point if you’re looking for insight into how the digital age is shaping students and ideas about how you can respond in the classroom.

Each book was chosen for its combination of research, story, and applicability to the classroom. Grab one or two to help you invent new strategies to reach students or reimagine your application of technology in your classroom."

Shona Whyte:
Leslie M-B is assistant professor of history in Idaho and has this thought-provoking post on using collaborative digital projects to improve the teaching and learning of history:

"To move beyond the era of content standards, we need to acknowledge—and convey to our teacher candidates—that one need not be an expert in a content area in order to teach it.  We already see this attitude in English classes, where the  literary canon has been in flux for some time. As an English teacher, I wouldn’t need to be an acknowledged expert on, or even a specialist in, Huckleberry Finn to teach it to junior high school students. Instead, I’d need to know how a novel works; I’d need to know how plot, characters, conflict, and other literary devices combine.  Knowing the history is necessary, too, but information about what was going on in the U.S. at the time Twain wrote his novel is only an internet search away.  I need not have learned it at some fixed point way back in tenth grade and filed it away until I required it in my own classroom teaching."

Much of this is of course directly applicable to the language classroom.

Download our smart test-taking tips to help students mentally prepare for tests and cut down on stress before it negatively affects their performance.

"There has been a push to replace books in the educational arena for some time now. This push hasn’t been in Washington or school board meeting rooms even though they are happening there as well. The big push is happening in the minds of students who are growing increasingly tablet-savvy and almost “spoiled” to the point that paper-products are old, almost archaic."

There is an infographic with this article that looks at the ongoing debate called 'Can Apple Do It Again? How Apple's iBooks will change the way we iLearn."