World-Shaker

Hallway: Learning Simplified.

Hallway is a social learning network that makes peer-peer collaboration simple, social, and global. On Hallway students can pass notes, ask questions, collaborate on assignments, and stay organized. Hallway makes it easier than ever for students to learn and connect with their friends, classmates, and the world.

(by Sean McElrath)

Who inherits your iTunes library? →

infoneer-pulse:

Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us.

Someone who owned 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would be much more complicated.

And one’s heirs stand to lose huge sums of money. “I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,” says Evan Carroll, co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife.” “Legally dividing one account among several heirs would also be extremely difficult.”

» via MarketWatch

A fascinating question, and a fascinating issue.

Google-Proofing Assignments

holtthink:

In a recent article “Are we Outsourcing our Memories?”  Rabbi Aaron Ross, Ed.D. writing in Free Technology for Teachers began his blog post by quoting from a slide that hangs in his office: ““If your students can Google the answer, then you are asking the wrong question.” At almost exactly the same time, and without knowledge of his quote, I posted this on Tumblr: 

“Teachers often complain that students can simply look up answers to their questions on the Internet. To that I push back: Then why don’t you make questions that require more skill to answer then simply finding the answer on the Internet?”

Both have similar ideas: If the answer is easily findable on Google, then perhaps the question needs to be reworked for more depth and complexity. After I posted my quote on Plurk, some of the responses looked like this: 

So, that got me to thinking about how questions are asked, what makes good questions, the nature of assignments, and a whole lot of other things. I decided to come up with some ways to make your assignments essentially “google proof,” in other words, the answers cannot simply be looked up online and regurgitated back in seconds.  Yes, students can probably find some examples of the following online, but by making the content they create individualized, they would spend more time trying to find something original than actually creating it. 

Here are just a few ways of Google-proofing assignments:

1. Assignments that require students to create original content 1: Comics  For instance, when learning about the periodic table of elements, instead of giving an assignment where students have to merely define an element and tell you all about it, have them design a comic book character that takes on the super powers of the element they have chosen. Then, create a comic using programs like Comic Life:” The Adventures of Hydrogen Man” for example. Why not a graphic novel where each student takes on an element?   Use comics as narrative devices. The information in the comic may be easily found, but  the comic itself cannot. Having students create truly original work is one of the best ways to google proof assignments.  

2. Assignments that require students to create original content 2: Film  A self-produced short film is also a great way of having students show great depth of understanding, while at the same time limiting the ability to copy. Many of the skills needed to produce a short film are exactly the skills we want students to have: collaborative learning, story boarding, writing, editing… 

3. Mindmaps  While mind mapping products like Inspiration have been around for a while, they are not as widely used as you might think. It is difficult to, oh say, find a mind map of specific things online. (And even when you can find them, the image os sometimes fuzzy.) For instance, it is pretty easy to find an outline or a discussion of the causes of the civil war, it is more difficult to find a mindmap of it. Get a bit more in-depth and the chances of finding a mind map that fits the bill become slim. Refining the assignment even further (for instance the role of Virginia in the Civil War) and the chances of finding a corresponding mind map become slim.

4. Three Photo Essays using Original Photos  A lot of us have taught our students how to find creative commons images on the net to use in assignments. Fewer teachers have taught students how to use thier own images to create a narrative. There is a really interesting iPad app called Visual Poet which allows students to create a three panel poem or story. Ideas like this force students to think succinctly, as well as allow them to use their own creativity. 

Here is an example:

               

5. Change your questions from year to year. If you think kids don’t know how to copy and paste your worksheets online for the next generation of students coming up then you are kidding yourself. Change your questions. Don’t get caught in the rut of “WOUF:” Write Once, Use Forever. Dig deeper. Challenge the students. It is easy to find trivia answers on Google like “When was the war of 1812 fought?” It is harder to find answers that dig deeper: “What do you think would have happened if the War of 1812 was never fought?” Then next year, change that question to “You are president James Madison’s speech write and you must write a speech that convinces the citizens we should go to war. What are the major points you are going to write about in your speech?  

6. Getting Granular. The more granular you get on a topic, the less likely the student will be able to find something online. The more personal you get the less likely there is an google answer. For instance, if you ask students to write about Jay Gatsby, the likelihood of them finding information is pretty good. If you ask them to compare Jay Gatsby to say, a living person like Mitt Romney, the less likely you will find information on it.  Compare Jay Gatsby to someone in their community…The more specific you get, the more personal you get,  the less likely there is a “google-able” answer. 

One of my PLN members on Plurk, Laura Sheehy also pointed me towards an old Intel document on questioning skills that fits nicely with this topic. Anyone who has gone through the Intel Teach program knows the idea of the Essential Questions and Curriculum-framing questions.

Some of the questions to ask about your questions could be: 

• Does the question require students to answer how and why? 
• Does the question help to uncover the subject’s controversies? 
• Does the question in some way connect to students’ lives?  
• Does the question require students to dissect their thinking?

Those are great starting points for any question you pose to your students, AND they have the added benefit of delving deeper into the topic. 

What would you do, or what are you doing to make your assignments “Google Proof?”

Let’s make a list below!

I loved this post! And if you aren’t already following holtthink, what are you doing with your life?

The Mindset List: Class of 2016 →

Here are some of my favorites from this year’s Mindset List for this year’s college freshman class:

• Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book.
• They watch television everywhere but on a television.
• A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss.
• They have lived in an era of instant stardom and self-proclaimed celebrities, famous for being famous.

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thelearningbrain:

click the link.

ilovecharts:

The Internet, A Decade Later

via Cameron

I usually don’t do these big infographics, but this is a freaking gif!

Whoa.

"Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity."

—

I could quote from this article all day long.

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success

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What Type of Social Media Personality Are You? [INFOGRAPHIC]

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8bitfuture:

Sensory feedback technology could make a touchscreen feel like anything.

Disney Research (yes that’s a real thing!) have shown off their new technology which can make any surface capable of conducting electricity feel like various other textures. The ‘Revel’ system - or Reverse Electrovibration - sends a weak current through the users skin, creating an “oscillating electrostatic field” around it.

When the electrically-charged user comes into contact with any object connected to the same ground as the Revel signal, the electrical potential difference between the finger and the electrode generates an electrostatic attraction force that creates a sensation of friction between finger and object. By varying the signal properties such as frequency or amplitude, the system can manipulate different tactile experiences.

While the system relies on electrical conductivity to work, almost any other surface could in theory be converted to do so, using a layer of conductive paint with a thin layer of insulating varnish on top.

(Source: dvice.com)

Scientists Invent Particles That Will Let You Live Without Breathing →

This may seem like something out of a science fiction movie: researchers have designed microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate your body, even if you can’t breathe anymore. It’s one of the best medical breakthroughs in recent years, and one that could save millions of lives every year.

The invention, developed by a team at Boston Children’s Hospital, will allow medical teams to keep patients alive and well for 15 to 30 minutes despite major respiratory failure. This is enough time for doctors and emergency personnel to act without risking a heart attack or permanent brain injuries in the patient.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently: Science is AMAZING.

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laughingsquid:

Burner App Creates & Later Burns Disposable Phone Numbers

"It may sound ridiculous to say that Bell and his successors were the fathers of modern commercial architecture—of the skyscraper. But wait a minute. Take the Singer Building, the Flatiron Building, the Broad Exchange, the Trinity, or any of the giant office buildings. How many messages do you suppose go in and out of those buildings every day? Suppose there was no telephone and every message had to be carried by a personal messenger? How much room do you think the necessary elevators would leave for offices? Such structures would be an economic impossibility."

—

WHOA.

Patrick (PatrickHeneghan) > The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (via interestingsnippets)

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ilovecharts:

A map of the 350,000 largest sites on the web

"It turns out your conscious mind — the part you think of as you — is really the smallest part of what’s happening in your brain, and usually the last one in line to find out any information."

— David Eagleman (via kateoplis)

gjmueller:

Born to Be Bright: Is There a Gene for Learning?

Earlier this month, researcher Kevin Beaver of Florida State University reported that he and his co-authors had identified genetic markers associated with academic achievement. In their study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, the scientists found that young people who possessed particular versions of three genes were more likely to finish high school and go on to college than those who carried other forms of the genes. The genes in question — DAT1, DRD2 and DRD4 — are involved in regulating the action of dopamine in the brain, and have been linked in other studies to levels of motivation, attention and intelligence.

photo via flickr:CC | Esthr

"The program, called Viral Peace, seeks to occupy the virtual space that extremists fill, one thread or Twitter exchange at a time. Shahed Amanullah, a senior technology adviser to the State Department and Viral Peace’s creator, tells Danger Room he wants to use “logic, humor, satire, [and] religious arguments, not just to confront [extremists], but to undermine and demoralize them.” Think of it as strategic trolling, in pursuit of geopolitical pwnage…"

— The FJP: Trolling Al Qaeda